Americans in the Jay Treaty (1795), Shania became legally registered as having 50 per cent Native American blood. Twain has said that as a child she was told by her mother that her biological father was part Cree, a claim his family denies. Her confirmed ancestry includes English, French, and Irish. Through a maternal great-grandmother, she is a descendant of French carpenter Zacharie Cloutier. Her Irish maternal grandmother, Eileen Pearce, emigrated from Newbridge, County Kildare. Twain has said she had a difficult childhood. Her parents earned little money, and food was often scarce in their household. Twain did not confide her situation to school authorities, fearing they might break up the family. Her mother and stepfather's marriage was stormy at times, and from a young age she witnessed violence between them. Her mother also struggled with bouts of depression. Twain eventually convinced her mother to take her and the children and run away to a homeless shelter in Toronto, however Sharon returned to Jerry with the children in 1981. In Timmins, Twain started singing at bars at the age of eight to try to help pay her family's bills; she often earned $20 between midnight and 1 a.m. performing for remaining customers after the bar had finished serving alcohol. Although she expressed a dislike for singing in those bars, Twain believes that this was her own kind of performing-arts school on the road. She has said of the ordeal, "My deepest passion was music and it helped. There were moments when I thought, 'I hate this.' I hated going into bars and being with drunks. But I loved the music and so I survived." She states that the art of creating, of actually writing songs, "was very different from performing them and became progressively important". At age 13, Twain was invited to perform on the CBC's Tommy Hunter Show. While attending Timmins High and Vocational School, she was also the singer for a local band called Longshot, which covered Top 40 music. In the early 1980s, Twain spent some time working with her father's reforestation business in northern Ontario, which employed some 75 Ojibwe and Cree workers. Although the work was demanding and the pay low, Twain said, "I loved the feeling of being stranded. I'm not afraid of being in my own environment, being physical, working hard. I was very strong, I walked miles and miles every day and