WINTER SPORTS
As soon as the ground is covered with snow, and the snow gets hard
enough, every boy and girl in Canada fetches out his or her flexible
flyer, bob-sleigh, or other form of child's sleigh, and dragging it to
the top of an incline, sets it off gliding to the bottom.
The flexible flyer is a small sleigh that will not carry more than one
big child or two very small ones. The rider lies stretched out on the
sleigh, flat on his stomach, with his legs sticking out behind. A
bob-sleigh is larger--often made, in fact, by fastening a piece of
board across two sleighs running one behind the other. The riders on
this go down in a sitting attitude, with their legs sticking out on
each side of them, while one of them steers with his feet. And jolly
fun it is to see them flying down like an express train, laughing and
shouting, with red, rosy cheeks and bright, sparkling eyes. What
matters an occasional spill in the snow? That only adds to the fun,
and makes the game all the merrier.
While the children enjoy this "coasting," as they call it, the young
men strap on their snowshoes and race across fields and fences, leaping
or rolling over the latter, until they arrive at some appointed inn,
where they partake of a good meal, with plenty of singing of rousing,
lusty choruses and other kinds of jollification. Then on they strap
their snowshoes again, and, with many a whoop and shout, stretch out in
Indian file on their homeward journey. If there is no moon they carry
torches, and the ruddy, flickering light adds picturesqueness to the
long belted blankets or tunics and tasselled tuques of the snowshoe
runners.
[Illustration: TOBOGGANING AT ROSEDALE, TORONTO.]
"A pretty picture it is as the snowshoers turn down into a gully, some
slipping, some recovering from a threatened upset by a feat of
balancing, and then, still in Indian file, getting over the fence,
every man in his own peculiar way. Some take it at a leap, others
climb it cautiously; some roll over sideways in a lump, pitching feet
and snowshoes before them. Some are too slowly careful, and, catching
a shoe on the top rail, measure their full length in the snow. There
is no stopping here, for we are far from road and railroad, out in the
open country, with several miles of field before us, and twenty fences
in the way. Most of the farmers, with fellow-feeling, have left a few
rails down, so that there is no obstruction. But a tramp is as tame
without a tumble as without a fence, so here goes for your five feet
ten! Never was there charger could take a high fence like a snowshoer!
As an old song of the Montreal Snowshoers' Club runs:
"Men may talk of steam and railroads,
But too well our comrades know
We can beat the fastest engines
In a night tramp on the snow.
They may puff, sir, they may blow, sir,
They may whistle, they may scream--
Gently dipping, lightly tipping,
Snowshoes leave behind the steam!"
It is the dry snow, the bracing air, and the clear skies of the
Canadian winter season that, combined with the exercise, produce this
great exhilaration of spirits, and set up an equally great--appetite.
Ladies take part in this sport as well as men. Indeed, they also share
in the tobogganing and the ice-hockey; in the former along with their
brothers and friends, and in the latter in separate clubs.
But the favourite winter sport is ice-hockey. The game is carried on
under cover in large halls, the floor of which can be artificially
flooded and frozen. In this way a smooth, level expanse of ice is
secured, a thing that can be seldom got out of doors owing to the great
quantity of snow that lies on the ground. The game is played pretty
much as hockey is on grass; the ball or disc the players chase is
called a "puck," and they make it skim along the ice with hockey-sticks
of the usual shape.
The hockey matches between rival cities are affairs of the greatest
interest to the inhabitants. A large number of deeply interested
sympathizers always accompany the team that goes to play away from
home--in fact, the enthusiasm and excitement reach quite as high a
pitch as they do in England over a successful team of local football
players. The great trophy of Canadian ice-hockey is the Stanley Cup,
which was first competed for in 1893, and has been competed for every
year since, except in 1898. The winning teams have generally been
furnished by Montreal or Winnipeg, though sometimes the winners have
come from Toronto, Ottawa, and other cities. Two games are played, and
all the goals obtained by the one club are added together and put
against the total number of goals gained by the other club. The
holders of the cup keep it until they are defeated, and they have to
play whenever challenged. Since 1906 the cup has been held by the
Montreal Wanderers.
A Canadian, Mr. W. George Beers, in describing Canada as a winter
resort, thus writes: "The Province of Quebec must bear the palm of
transforming winter into a national season of healthy enjoyment, and
Montreal is the metropolis of the Snow King. You can have delightful
days and weeks in Toronto, where ice-boating is brought to perfection,
and the splendid bay is alive with the skaters and the winter sailors;
or in curling or skating rink, or with a snowshoe club when they meet
in Queen's Park for a tramp to Carleton, you may get a good company,
and, at any rate, thorough pleasure. Kingston has its grand bay, its
glorious toboggan slides on Fort Henry, its magnificent scope for sham
fights on the ice, its skating, curling, snowshoeing, and its splendid
roads. Halifax has its pleasant society, its lively winter brimful of
everything the season in Canada is famed for. Quebec, ever glorious,
kissing the skies up at its old citadel, is just the same rare old
city, with its delightful mixture of ancient and modern, French and
English; its vivacious ponies and its happy-go-lucky cariole drivers;
its rinks and its rollicking; its songs and its superstitions; its
toboggan hill at Montmorenci, which Nature has erected every year since
the Falls first rolled over the cliffs; its hills and hollows and its
historic surroundings; its agreeable French-English society, the most
charming brotherhood that ever shook hands over the past.
"The first snowfall in Canada is an intoxicant. Boys go snow mad.
Montreal has a temporary insanity. The houses are prepared for the
visit of King North Wind, and the Canadians are the only people in the
world who know how to keep warm outdoors as well as indoors. The
streets are gay with life and laughter, and everybody seems determined
to make the most of the great carnival. Business goes to the dogs.
There is a mighty march of tourists and townspeople crunching over the
crisp snow, and a constant jingle of sleigh-bells. If you go to any of
the toboggan slides you will witness a sight that thrills the onlooker
as well as the tobogganist. The natural hills were formerly the only
resort, but someone introduced the Russian idea of erecting a high
wooden structure, up one side of which you drag your toboggan, and down
the other side of which you fly like a rocket. These artificial slides
are the more popular, as they are easier of ascent, and can be made so
as to avoid _cahots_, or bumps. The hills are lit by torches stuck in
the snow on each side of the track, and huge bonfires are kept burning,
around which gather picturesque groups. Perhaps of all sports of the
carnival this is the most generally enjoyed by visitors. Some of the
slides are very steep, and look dangerous, and the sensation of rushing
down the hill on the thin strip of basswood is one never to be
forgotten."
"How did you like it?" asked a Canadian girl of an American visitor,
whom she had steered down the steepest slide.
"Oh, I wouldn't have missed it for a hundred dollars!"
"You'll try it again, won't you?"
"Not for a thousand dollars."
Perhaps to some whose breath seems to be whisked from their bodies this
is the first reflection, but the fondness grows by practice.
Another famous winter sport is the national Scottish pastime of
curling, and even when transplanted to the colder climate of Canada,
the power which this sport possesses of firing sedate temperaments, and
heating them to the ebullition-point of enthusiasm, suffers not one
whit of diminution. Your Canadian devotee of the "roaring game" of
"stane" and "tee" waxes every bit as excited over it as his Scottish
associate.
A French habitant having witnessed a game at Quebec for the first time
in his life, thus described it: "I saw to-day a gang of Scotchmen
throwing on the ice large iron balls shaped like bombshells, after
which they yelled, 'Soop! soop!' laughing like fools; and I really
think they were fools."
Nor is the summer without its delight. All who can, make the Red
Indian their model, and turn back to the aboriginal life. Summer homes
or camps in the forest are built on the islands which dot the many
inland lakes, and the long days are spent in canoeing, sailing,
bathing, and fishing, while at night bonfires are built on the shores,
all gather round, and to the twang of the banjo or guitar old college
choruses are sung or stories are told. Moonlight in Muskoka is a
fairyland memory to those who have known it, and to these lakes alone
resort 20,000 summer visitors from Canada or their neighbours from the
South.
Others choose canoeing trips, after the manner of the old "Coureurs de
bois." With Indian guides, weeks are spent in following the chains of
rivers and lakes, linked by portages (carrying-spaces), where all turn
to and "tote" canoe and stores across. At night, after a supper of
fish just pulled out of the lake and cooked on the camp-fire, the sleep
in a tent on a bed of spruce boughs is a glorious treat to the city man
or maid.
In the cities games of all sorts are played. Everywhere baseball, the
national game of the United States, is to be seen, and lacrosse, the
national game of Canada, adopted from the Indians, is a great
favourite; cricket, tennis, polo, golf, and bowls, all known games, are
played with the greatest fervour. In track athletics and in aquatic
sports, Canadians have been seen to good advantage in many English
contests.