the unsettled townships, are dispirited by the unpromising appearance of
things about them. They find none of the advantages and comforts of
which they had heard and read, and they are unprepared for the present
difficulties; some give way to despondency, and others quit the place in
disgust.
A little reflection would have shown them that every rood of land must
be cleared of the thick forest of timber that encumbers it before an ear
of wheat can be grown; that, after the trees have been chopped, cut into
lengths, drawn together, or _logged_, as we call it, and burned, the
field must be fenced, the sped sown, harvested, and thrashed, before any
returns con be obtained; that this requires time and much labour, and,
if hired labour, considerable outlay of ready money; and, in the mean
time, a family must eat. If at a distance from a store, every article
must be brought through bad roads, either by hand or with a team, the
hire of which is generally costly in proportion to the distance and
difficulty to be encountered in the conveyance. Now these things are
better known beforehand, and then people are aware what they have to
encounter.
Even a labouring man, though he have land of his own, is often, I may
say generally, obliged to _hire out_ to work for the first year or two,
to earn sufficient for the maintenance of his family; and ever so many
of them suffer much privation before they reap the benefit of their
independence. Were it not for the hope and certain prospect of bettering
their condition ultimately, they would sink under what they have to
endure; but this thought buoys them up. They do not fear an old age of
want and pauperism; the present evils must yield to industry and
perseverance; they think also for their children; and the trials of the
present time are lost in pleasing anticipations for the future.
“Surely,” said I, “cows, and pigs, and poultry might be kept; and you
know where there is plenty of milk, butter, cheese, and eggs, with pork
and fowls, persons cannot be very badly off for food.”
“Very true,” replied my friend; “but I must tell you it is easier to
talk of these things at first than to keep them, unless on cleared or
partially cleared farms; but we are speaking of a _first_ settlement in
the backwoods. Cows, pigs, and fowls must eat; and if you have nothing
to give them unless you purchase it, and perhaps have to bring it from
some distance, you had better not be troubled with them, as the trouble
is certain, and the profit doubtful. A cow, it is true, will get her
living during the open months of the year in the bush, but sometimes she
will ramble away for days together, and then you lose the use of her,
and possibly much time in seeking her; then, in the winter, she requires
some additional food to the _browse_ that she gets during the chopping
season, or ten to one but she dies before spring; and as cows generally
lose their milk during the cold weather if not very well kept, it is
best to part with them in the fall, and buy again in the spring, unless
you have plenty of food for them, which is not often the case the first
winter. As to pigs, they are great plagues on a newly-cleared farm if
you cannot fat them off hand; and that you cannot do without you buy
food for them, which does not answer to do at first. If they run loose,
they are a terrible annoyance both to your own crops and your
neighbour’s, if you happen to be within half a mile of one, for though
you may fence out cattle you cannot pigs: even poultry require something
more than they pick up about the dwelling to be of any service to you,
and are often taken off by hawks, eagles, foxes, and pole-cats, till you
have proper securities for them.”
“Then how are we to spin our own wool, and make our own soap and
candles?” said I. “When you are able to kill your own sheep, and hogs,
and oxen, unless you buy wool and tallow.” Then, seeing me begin to look
somewhat disappointed, he said, “Be not cast down, you will have all
these things in time, and more than these, never fear, if you have
patience, and use the means of obtaining them. In the meanwhile prepare
your mind for many privations to which at present you are a stranger;
and if you would desire to see your husband happy and prosperous, be
content to use economy, and, above all, be cheerful. In a few years the
farm will supply you with all the necessaries of life, and by and by you
may even enjoy many of the luxuries. Then it is that a settler begins to
taste the real and solid advantages of his emigration; then he feels the
blessings of a country where there are no taxes, tithes, nor poor-rates;
then he truly feels the benefit of independence. It is looking forward
to this happy fulfilment of his desires that makes the rough paths
smooth, and lightens the burden of present ills. He looks round upon a
numerous family, without those anxious fears that beset a father in
moderate circumstances at home; for he knows he does not leave them
destitute of an honest means of support.”
In spite of all the trials he had encountered, I found this gentleman
was so much attached to a settler’s life, that he declared he would not
go back to his own country to reside for a permanence on any account;
nor is he the only one that I have heard express the same opinion; and
it likewise seems a universal one among the lower class of emigrants.
They are encouraged by the example of others, whom they see enjoying
comforts that they could never have obtained had they laboured ever so
hard at home; and they wisely reflect they must have had hardships to
endure had they remained in their native land, (many indeed had been
driven out by want,) without the most remote chance of bettering
themselves, or becoming the possessors of land free of all restrictions.
“What to us are the sufferings of one, two, three, or even four years,
compared with a whole life of labour and poverty?” was the remark of a
poor labourer, who was recounting to us the other day some of the
hardships he had met with in this country. He said, he “knew they were
only for a short time, and that by industry he should soon get over
them.”
I have already seen two of our poor neighbours that left the parish a
twelve-month ago; they are settled in Canada Company lots, and are
getting on well. They have some few acres cleared and cropped, but are
obliged to “_hire out_,” to enable their families to live, working on
their own land when they can. The men are in good spirits; and say,
“they shall in a few years have many comforts about them that they never
could have got at home, had they worked late and early; but they
complain that their wives are always pining for home, and lamenting that
ever they crossed the seas.” This seems to be the general complaint with
all classes; the women are discontented and unhappy. Few enter with
their whole heart into a settler’s life. They miss the little domestic
comforts they had been used to enjoy; they regret the friends and
relations they left in the old country; and they cannot endure the
loneliness of the backwoods.
This prospect does not discourage me; I know I shall find plenty of
occupation within doors, and I have sources of enjoyment when I walk
abroad that will keep me from being dull. Besides, have I not a right to
be cheerful and contented for the sake of my beloved partner? The change
is not greater for me than him; and if, for his sake, I have voluntarily
left home, and friends, and country, shall I therefore sadden him by
useless regrets? I am always inclined to subscribe to that sentiment of
my favourite poet, Goldsmith,—
“Still to ourselves in every place consign’d,
Our own felicity we make or find.”
But I shall very soon be put to the test, as we leave this town
to-morrow by ten o’clock. The purchase of the Lake lot is concluded.
There are three acres chopped, and a shanty up; but the shanty is not a
habitable dwelling, being merely an open shed that was put up by the
choppers as a temporary shelter; so we shall have to build a house. Late
enough we are; too late to get in a full crop, as the land is merely
chopped, not cleared; and it is too late now to log and burn the fallow,
and get the seed-wheat in; but it will be ready for spring crops. We
paid five dollars and a half per acre for the lot; this was rather high
for wild land, so far from a town, and in a scantily-settled part of the
township; but the situation is good, and has a water-frontage, for which
my husband was willing to pay something more than if the lot had been
further inland. * * * *
I shall begin my letter with a description of our journey through the
bush, and so go on, giving an account of our proceedings, both within
doors and without. I know my little domestic details will not prove
wholly uninteresting to you; for well I am assured that a mother’s eye
is never weary with reading lines traced by the hand of an absent and
beloved child.
After some difficulty, we succeeded in hiring a waggon and span (_i. e._
pair a-breast) of stout horses, to convey us and our luggage through the
woods to the banks of one of the lakes, where——had appointed to ferry
us across. There was no palpable road, only a blaze on the other side,
encumbered by fallen trees, and interrupted by a great cedar swamp, into
which one might sink up to one’s knees, unless we took the precaution to
step along the trunks of the mossy, decaying timbers, or make our
footing sure on some friendly block of granite or limestone. What is
termed in bush language a _blaze_, is nothing more than notches or
slices cut off the back of the trees, to mark out the line of road. The
boundaries of the different lots are often marked by a blazed tree, also
the concession-lines.[1] These blazes are of as much use as finger-posts
of a dark night.
The road we were compelled to take lay over the Peterborough plains, in
the direction of the river; the scenery of which pleased me much, though
it presented little appearance of fertility, with the exception of two
or three extensive clearings.
About three miles above Peterborough the road winds along the brow of a
steep ridge, the bottom of which has every appearance of having been
formerly the bed of a lateral branch of the present river, or perhaps
some small lake, which has been diverted from its channel, and merged
into the Otanabee.
On either side of this ridge there is a steep descent; on the right, the
Otanabee breaks upon you, rushing with great velocity over its rocky
bed, forming rapids in miniature, resembling those of the St. Lawrence;
its dark frowning woods of sombre pine give a grandeur to the scene
which is very impressive. On the left lies below you a sweet secluded
dell of evergreens, cedar, hemlock, and pine, enlivened by a few
deciduous trees. Through this dell there is a road-track, leading to a
fine cleared farm, the green pastures of which were rendered more
pleasing by the absence of the odious stumps that disfigure the
clearings in this part of the country. A pretty bright stream flows
through the low meadow that lies at the foot of the hill, which you
descend suddenly close by a small grist-mill that is worked by the
waters, just where they meet the rapids of the river.
I called this place “Glen Morrison,” partly from the remembrance of the
lovely Glen Morrison of the Highlands, and partly because it was the
name of the settler that owned the spot.
Our progress was but slow, on account of the roughness of the road,
which is beset with innumerable obstacles, in the shape of loose blocks
of granite and limestone, with which the lands on the banks of the river
and lakes abound; to say nothing of fallen trees, big roots, mud-holes,
and corduroy bridges, over which you go jolt, jolt, jolt, till every
bone in your body feels as if it were going to be dislocated. An
experienced bush-traveller avoids many hard thumps by rising up or
clinging to the sides of his rough vehicle.
As the day was particularly fine I often quitted the waggon, and walked
on with my husband for a mile or two.
We soon lost sight entirely of the river, and struck into the deep
solitude of the forest, where not a sound disturbed the almost awful
stillness that reigned around us. Scarcely a leaf or bough was in
motion, excepting at intervals we caught the sound of the breeze
stirring the lofty heads of the pine-trees, and wakening a hoarse and
mournful cadence. This, with the tapping of the red-headed and grey
woodpeckers on the trunks of the decaying trees, or the shrill whistling
cry of the little striped squirrel, called by the natives ‘chitmunk,’
was every sound that broke the stillness of the wild. Nor was I less
surprised at the absence of animal life. With the exception of the
aforesaid chitmunk, no living thing crossed our path during our long
day’s journey in the woods.
In these vast solitudes one would naturally be led to imagine that the
absence of man would have allowed nature’s wild denizens to have
abounded free and unmolested; but the contrary seems to be the case.
Almost all wild animals are more abundant in the cleared districts than
in the bush. Man’s industry supplies their wants at an easier rate than
seeking a scanty subsistence in the forest.
You hear continually of depredations committed by wolves, bears,
racoons, lynxes, and foxes, in the long-settled parts of the province.
In the backwoods the appearance of wild beasts is a matter of much rarer
occurrence.
I was disappointed in the forest trees, having pictured to myself hoary
giants, almost primeval with the country itself, as greatly exceeding in
majesty of form the trees of my native isles, as the vast lakes and
mighty rivers of Canada exceed the locks and streams of Britain.
There is a want of picturesque beauty in the woods. The young growth of
timber alone has any pretension to elegance of form, unless I except the
hemlocks, which are extremely light and graceful, and of a lovely
refreshing tint of green. Even when winter has stripped the forest, it
is still beautiful and verdant. The young beeches, too, are pretty
enough, but you miss that fantastic bowery shade that is so delightful
in our parks and woodlands at home.
There is no appearance of venerable antiquity in the Canadian woods.
There are no ancient spreading oaks, that might be called the patriarchs
of the forest. A premature decay seems to be their doom. They are
uprooted by the storm, and sink in their first maturity, to give place
to a new generation that is ready to fill their places.
The pines are certainly the finest trees. In point of size there are
none to surpass them. They tower above all the others, forming a dark
line that may be distinguished for many miles. The pines being so much
loftier than the other trees, are sooner uprooted, as they receive the
full and unbroken force of the wind in their tops; thus it is that the
ground is continually strewn with the decaying trunks of huge pines.
They also seem more liable to inward decay, and blasting from lightning,
and fire. Dead pines are more frequently met with than any other tree.
Much as I had seen and heard of the badness of the roads in Canada, I
was not prepared for such a one as we travelled along this day; indeed,
it hardly deserved the name of a road, being little more than an opening
hewed out through the woods, the trees being felled and drawn aside, so
as to admit a wheeled carriage passing along. The swamps and little
forest streams, that occasionally gush across the path, are rendered
passable by logs placed side by side. From the ridgy and striped
appearance of these bridges, they are aptly enough termed corduroy.
Over these abominable corduroys the vehicle jolts, jumping from log to
log, with a shock that must be endured with as good a grace as possible.
If you could bear these knocks, and pitiless thumpings and bumpings,
without wry faces, your patience and philosophy would far exceed
mine;—sometimes I laughed because I would not cry.
Imagine you see me perched upon a seat composed of carpet-bags, trunks,
and sundry packages, in a vehicle little better than a great rough deal
box set on wheels, the sides being merely pegged in, so that more than
once I found myself in rather an awkward predicament, owing to the said
sides jumping out. In the very midst of a deep mud-hole out went the
front board, and with the shock went the teamster (driver), who looked
rather confounded at finding himself lodged in a slough as bad as the
“Slough of Despond.” For my part, as I could do no good, I kept my seat,
and patiently awaited the restoration to order. This was soon effected,
and all went on well again, till a jolt against a huge pine-tree gave
such a jar to the ill-set vehicle, that one of the boards danced out
that composed the bottom, and a sack of flour, and a bag of salted pork,
which was on its way to a settler’s whose clearing we had to pass in the
way, were ejected. A good teamster is seldom taken aback by such trifles
as these.
He is, or should be, provided with an axe. No waggon, team, or any other
travelling equipage, should be unprovided with an instrument of this
kind, as no one can answer for the obstacles that may impede his
progress in the bush. The disasters we met fortunately required but
little skill in remedying. The sides need only a stout peg, and the
loosened planks that form the bottom being quickly replaced, away you go
again over root, stump, and stone, mud-hole, and corduroy; now against
the trunk of some standing tree, now mounting over some fallen one, with
an impulse that would annihilate any lighter equipage than a Canadian
waggon, which is admirably fitted by its very roughness for such roads
as we have in the bush.
The sagacity of the horses in this country is truly admirable. Their
patience in surmounting the difficulties they have to encounter, their
skill in avoiding the holes and stones, and in making their footing sure
over the round and slippery timbers of the log bridges, renders them
very valuable. If they want the spirit and fleetness of some of our
high-bred blood horses, they make up in gentleness, strength, and
patience. This renders them most truly valuable, as they will travel in
such places that no British horse would, with equal safety to their
drivers. Nor are the Canadian horses, when well fed and groomed, at all
deficient in beauty of colour, size, or form. They are not very often
used in logging; the ox is preferred in all rough and heavy labour of
this kind.
Just as the increasing gloom of the forest began to warn us of the
approach of evening, and I was getting weary and hungry, our driver, in
some confusion, avowed his belief that, somehow or other, he had missed
the track, though how he could not tell, seeing there was but one road.
We were nearly two miles from the last settlement, and he said we ought
to be within sight of the lake if we were on the right road. The only
plan, we agreed, was for him to go forward and leave the team, and
endeavour to ascertain if he were near the water; and, if otherwise, to
return to the house we had passed, and inquire the way.
After running full half a mile a-head, he returned with a dejected
countenance, saying we must be wrong, for he saw no appearance of water;
and the road we were on appeared to end in a cedar swamp, as the further
he went the thicker the hemlocks and cedars became; so, as we had no
desire to commence our settlement by a night’s lodging in a
swamp,—where, to use the expression of our driver, the cedars grew as
thick as hairs on a cat’s back, we agreed to retrace our steps.
After some difficulty the lumbering machine was turned, and slowly we
began our backward march. We had not gone more than a mile, when a boy
came along, who told us we might just go back again, as there was no
other road to the lake; and added, with a knowing nod of his head,
“Master, I guess if you had known the bush as well as I, you would never
have been _fule_ enough to turn when you were going just right. Why, any
body knows that _them_ cedars and hemlocks grow thickest near the water;
so you may just go back for your pains.”
It was dark, save that the stars came forth with more than usual
brilliancy, when we suddenly emerged from the gloomy forest to the
shores of a beautiful little lake, that gleamed the more brightly from
the contrast of the dark masses of foliage that hung over it, and the
towering pine-woods that girt its banks.
Here, seated on a huge block of limestone, which was covered with a soft
cushion of moss, beneath the shade of the cedars that skirt the lake,
surrounded with trunks, boxes, and packages of various descriptions,
which the driver had hastily thrown from the waggon, sat your child, in
anxious expectation of some answering voice to my husband’s long and
repeated holloa.
But when the echo of his voice had died away, we heard only the gurgling
of the waters at the head of the rapids, and the distant and hoarse
murmur of a waterfall some half mile below them.
We could see no sign of any habitation, no gleam of light from the shore
to cheer us. In vain we strained our ears for the plash of the oar, or
welcome sound of the human voice, or bark of some household dog, that
might assure us we were not doomed to pass the night in the lone wood.
We began now to apprehend we had really lost the way. To attempt
returning through the deepening darkness of the forest in search of any
one to guide us was quite out of the question, the road being so ill
defined that we should soon have been lost in the mazes of the woods.
The last sound of the waggon wheels had died away in the distance, and
to have overtaken it would have been impossible. Bidding me remain
quietly where I was, my husband forced his way through the tangled
underwood along the bank, in hope of discovering some sign of the house
we sought, which we had every reason to suppose must be near, though
probably hidden by the dense mass of trees from our sight.
As I sat in the wood, in silence and in darkness, my thoughts gradually
wandered back across the Atlantic to my dear mother, and to my old home;
and I thought, what would have been your feelings, could you at that
moment have beheld me as I sat on the cold mossy stone, in the profound
stillness of that vast leafy wilderness, thousands of miles from all
those holy ties of kindred and early associations that make home in all
countries a hallowed spot. It was a moment to press upon my mind the
importance of the step I had taken, in voluntarily sharing the lot of
the emigrant,—in leaving the land of my birth, to which, in all
probability, I might never again return. Great as was the
sacrifice,—even at that moment, strange as was my situation,—I felt no
painful regret or fearful misgiving depress my mind. A holy and tranquil
peace came down upon me, soothing and softening my spirits into a
calmness that seemed as unruffled as was the bosom of the water that lay
stretched before my feet.
My reverie was broken by the light plash of a paddle, and a bright line
of light showed a canoe dancing over the lake; in a few minutes a
well-known and friendly voice greeted me as the little bark was moored
among the cedars at my feet. My husband having gained a projecting angle
of the shore, had discovered the welcome blaze of the wood fire in the
log-house; and, after some difficulty, had succeeded in rousing the
attention of its inhabitants. Our coming that day had long been given
up, and our first call had been mistaken for the sound of the ox-bells
in the wood; this had caused the delay that had so embarrassed us.
We soon forgot our weary wanderings beside the bright fire that blazed
on the hearth of the log-house, in which we found S—— comfortably
domiciled with his wife. To the lady I was duly introduced; and in spite
of all remonstrances from the affectionate and careful mother, three
fair sleeping children were successively handed out of their cribs to be
shown me by the proud and delighted father.
Our welcome was given with that unaffected cordiality that is so
grateful to the heart; it was as sincere as it was kind. All means were
adopted to soften the roughness of our accommodations; which, if they
lacked that elegance and convenience to which we had been accustomed in
England, were not devoid of rustic comfort; at all events, they were
such as many settlers of the first respectability have been glad to
content themselves with, and many have not been half so well lodged as
we are now.