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The Backwoods of Canada written by Catharine Parr Traill

C >> Catharine Parr Traill >> The Backwoods of Canada




The fire-flies must not be forgotten, for of all others they are the
most remarkable; their appearance generally precedes rain; they are
often seen after dark, on mild damp evenings, sporting among the cedars
at the edge of the wood, and especially near swamps, when the air is
illuminated with their brilliant dancing light. Sometimes they may be
seen in groups, glancing like falling stars in mid-air, or descending so
low as to enter your dwelling and flit about among the draperies of your
bed or window curtains; the light they emit is more brilliant than that
of the glowworm; but it is produced in the same manner from the under
part of the body. The glowworm is also frequently seen, even as late as
September, on mild, warm, dewy nights.

We have abundance of large and small beetles, some most splendid: green
and gold, rose-colour, red and black, yellow and black; some quite
black, formidably large, with wide branching horns. Wasps are not so
troublesome as in England, but I suppose it is because we cannot offer
such temptations as our home gardens hold out to these ravenous insects.

One of our choppers brought me the other day what he called a hornet's
nest; it was certainly too small and delicate a piece of workmanship for
so large an insect; and I rather conjecture that it belonged to the
beautiful black and gold insect called the wasp-fly, but of this I am
not certain. The nest was about the size and shape of a turkey's egg,
and was composed of six paper cups inserted one within the other, each
lessening till the innermost of all appeared not larger than a pigeon's
egg. On looking carefully within the orifice of the last cup, a small
comb, containing twelve cells, of the most exquisite neatness, might be
perceived, if anything, superior in regularity to the cells in the comb
of the domestic bee, one of which was at least equal to three of these.
The substance that composed the cups was of a fine silver grey silken
texture, as fine as the finest India silk paper, and extremely brittle;
when slightly wetted it became glutinous, and adhered a little to the
finger; the whole was carefully fixed to a stick: I have seen one since
fastened to a rough rail. I could not but admire the instinctive care
displayed in the formation of this exquisite piece of insect
architecture to guard the embryo animal from injury, either from the
voracity of birds or the effect of rain, which could scarcely find
entrance in the interior.

I had carefully, as I thought, preserved my treasure, by putting it in
one of my drawers, but a wicked little thief of a mouse found it out and
tore it to pieces for the sake of the drops of honey contained in one or
two of the cells. I was much vexed, as I purposed sending it by some
favourable opportunity to a dear friend living in Gloucester Place, who
took great delight in natural curiosities, and once showed me a nest of
similar form to this, that had been found in a bee-hive; the material
was much coarser, and, if I remember right, had but two cases instead of
six.

I have always felt a great desire to see the nest of a humming-bird, but
hitherto have been disappointed. This summer I had some beds of
mignionette and other flowers, with some most splendid major
convolvuluses or "morning gloves," as the Americans call them; these
lovely flowers tempted the hummingbirds to visit my garden, and I had
the pleasure of seeing a pair of those beautiful creatures, but their
flight is so peculiar that it hardly gives you a perfect sight of their
colours; their motion when on the wing resembles the whirl of a
spinning-wheel, and the sound they make is like the hum of a wheel at
work; I shall plant flowers to entice them to build near us.

I sometimes fear you will grow weary of my long dull letters; my only
resources are domestic details and the natural history of the country,
which I give whenever I think the subject has novelty to recommend it to
your attention. Possibly I may sometimes disappoint you by details that
appear to place the state of the emigrant in an unfavourable light; I
merely give facts as I have seen, or heard them stated. I could give you
many flourishing accounts of settlers in this country; I could also
reverse the picture, and you would come to the conclusion that there are
many arguments to be used both for and against emigration. Now, the
greatest argument, and that which has the most weight, is NECESSITY, and
this will always turn the scale in the favour of emigration; and that
same imperative dame Necessity tells me it is _necessary_ for me to draw
my letter to a conclusion.

Farewell, ever faithfully and affectionately, your attached sister.




LETTER XVII.

Ague.--Illness of the Family.--Probable Cause.--Root-house.--Setting in
of Winter.--Insect termed a "Sawyer."--Temporary Church.

November the 28th, 1834.

You will have been surprised, and possibly distressed, by my long
silence of several months, but when I tell you it has been occasioned by
sickness, you will cease to wonder that I did not write.

My dear husband, my servant, the poor babe, and myself, were all at one
time confined to our beds with ague. You know how severe my sufferings
always were at home with intermittents, and need not marvel if they were
no less great in a country where lake-fevers and all kinds of
intermittent fevers abound.

Few persons escape the second year without being afflicted with this
weakening complaint; the mode of treatment is repeated doses of calomel,
with castor-oil or salts, and is followed up by quinine. Those persons
who do not choose to employ medical advice on the subject, dose
themselves with ginger-tea, strong infusion of hyson, or any other
powerful green tea, pepper, and whiskey, with many other remedies that
have the sanction of custom or quackery.

I will not dwell on this uncomfortable period, further than to tell you
that we considered the complaint to have had its origin in a malaria,
arising from a cellar below the kitchen. When the snow melted, this
cellar became half full of water, either from the moisture draining
through the spongy earth, or from the rising of a spring beneath the
house; be it as it may, the heat of the cooking and Franklin stoves in
the kitchen and parlour, caused a fermentation to take place in the
stagnant fluid before it could be emptied; the effluvia arising from
this mass of putrifying water affected us all. The female servant, who
was the most exposed to its baneful influence, was the first of our
household that fell sick, after which, we each in turn became unable to
assist each other. I think I suffer an additional portion of the malady
from seeing the sufferings of my dear husband and my beloved child.

I lost the ague in a fortnight's time,--thanks to calomel and quinine;
so did my babe and his nurse: it has, however, hung on my husband during
the whole of the summer, and thrown a damp upon his exertions and gloom
upon his spirits. This is the certain effect of ague, it causes the same
sort of depression on the spirits as a nervous fever. My dear child has
not been well ever since he had the ague, and looks very pale and
spiritless.

We should have been in a most miserable condition, being unable to
procure a female servant, a nurse, or any one to attend upon us, and
totally unable to help ourselves; but for the prompt assistance of Mary
on one side, and Susannah on the other, I know not what would have
become of us in our sore trouble.

This summer has been excessively hot and dry; the waters in the lakes
and rivers being lower than they had been known for many years; scarcely
a drop of rain fell for several weeks. This extreme drought rendered the
potatoe-crop a decided failure. Our Indian-corn was very fine; so were
the pumpkins. We had some fine vegetables in the garden, especially the
peas and melons; the latter were very large and fine. The cultivation of
the melon is very simple: you first draw the surrounding earth together
with a broad hoe into a heap; the middle of this heap is then slightly
hollowed out, so as to form a basin, the mould being raised round the
edges; into this hollow you insert several melon-seeds, and leave the
rest to the summer heat; if you water the plants from time to time, it
is well for them; the soil should be fine black mould; and if your hills
are inclining to a hollow part of your ground, so as to retain the
moisture, so much the finer will be your fruit. It is the opinion of
practical persons who have bought wisdom by some years' experience of
the country, that in laying out and planting a garden, the beds should
not be raised, as is the usual custom; and give us a reason, that the
sun having such great power draws the moisture more readily from the
earth where the beds are elevated above the level, and, in consequence
of the dryness of the ground, the plants wither away.

As there appears some truth in the remark, I am inclined to adopt the
plan.

Vegetables are in general fine, and come quickly to maturity,
considering the lateness of the season in which they are usually put
into the ground. Peas are always fine, especially the marrowfats, which
are sometimes grown in the fields, on cleared lands that are under the
plough. We have a great variety of beans, all of the French or kidney
kind; there is a very prolific white runner, of which I send you some of
the seed: the method of planting them is to raise a small hillock of
mould by drawing the earth up with the hoe; flatten this, or rather
hollow it a little in the middle, and drop in four or five seeds round
the edges; as soon as the bean puts forth its runners insert a pole of
five or six feet in the centre of the hill; the plants will all meet and
twine up it, bearing a profusion of pods, which are cut and foiled as
the scarlet-runners, or else, in their dry or ripe state, stewed and
eaten with salt meat; this, I believe, is the more usual way of cooking
them. The early bush-bean is a dwarf, with bright yellow seed.

Lettuces are very fine, and may be cultivated easily, and very early, by
transplanting the seedlings that appear as soon as the ground is free
from snow. Cabbages and savoys, and all sorts of roots, keep during the
winter in the cellars or root-houses; but to the vile custom of keeping
green vegetables in the shallow, moist cellars below the kitchens, much
of the sickness that attacks settlers under the various forms of agues,
intermittent, remittent, and lake-fevers, may be traced.

Many, of the lower class especially, are not sufficiently careful in
clearing these cellars from the decaying portions of vegetable matter,
which are often suffered to accumulate from year to year to infect the
air of the dwelling. Where the house is small, and the family numerous,
and consequently exposed to its influence by night, the baneful
consequences may be readily imagined. "Do not tell me of lakes and
swamps as the cause of fevers and agues; look to your cellars," was the
observation of a blunt but experienced Yankee doctor. I verily believe
it was the cellar that was the cause of sickness in our house all the
spring and summer.

A root-house is indispensably necessary for the comfort of a settler's
family; if well constructed, with double log-walls, and the roof secured
from the soaking in of the rain or melting snows, it preserves
vegetables, meat, and milk excellently. You will ask if the use be so
great, and the comfort so essential, why does not every settler build
one?

Now, dear mamma, this is exactly what every new comer says; but he has
to learn the difficulty there is at first of getting these matters
accomplished, unless, indeed, he have (which is not often the case) the
command of plenty of ready money, and can afford to employ extra
workmen. Labour is so expensive, and the working seasons so short, that
many useful and convenient buildings are left to a future time; and a
cellar, which one man can excavate in two days, if he work well, is made
to answer the purpose, till the season of leisure arrives, or necessity
obliges the root-house to be made. We are ourselves proof of this very
sort of unwilling procrastination; but the logs are now cut for the
root-house, and we shall have one early in the spring. I would, however,
recommend any one that could possibly do so at first, to build a root-
house without delay, and also to have a well dug; the springs lying very
few feet below the surface renders this neither laborious or very
expensive. The creeks will often fail in very dry weather, and the lake
and river-waters grow warm and distasteful during the spring and summer.
The spring-waters are generally cold and pure, even in the hottest
weather, and delightfully refreshing.

Our winter seems now fairly setting in: the snow has twice fallen, and
as often disappeared, since the middle of October; but now the ground is
again hardening into stone; the keen north-west wind is abroad; and
every outward object looks cold and wintry. The dark line of pines that
bound the opposite side of the lake is already hoary and heavy with
snow, while the half-frozen lake has a deep leaden tint, which is only
varied in shade by the masses of ice which shoot out in long points,
forming mimic bays and peninsulas. The middle of the stream, where the
current is strongest, is not yet frozen over, but runs darkly along like
a river between its frozen banks. In some parts where the banks are
steep and overhung with roots and shrubs, the fallen snow and water take
the most fantastic forms.

I have stood of a bright winter day looking with infinite delight on the
beautiful mimic waterfalls congealed into solid ice along the bank of
the river; and by the mill-dam, from contemplating these petty frolics
of Father Frost, I have been led to picture to myself the sublime
scenery of the arctic regions.

In spite of its length and extreme severity, I do like the Canadian
winter: it is decidedly the healthiest season of the year; and it is no
small enjoyment to be exempted from the torments of the insect tribes,
that are certainly great drawbacks to your comfort in the warmer months.

We have just received your last packet;--a thousand thanks for the
contents. We are all delighted with your useful presents, especially the
warm shawls and merinos. My little James looks extremely well in his new
frock and cloak; they will keep him very warm this cold weather: he
kissed the pretty fur-lined slippers you sent me, and said, "Pussy,
pussy." By the way, we have a fine cat called Nora Crena, the parting
gift of our friend ------, who left her as a keepsake for my boy. Jamie
dotes upon her; and I do assure you I regard her almost as a second
Whittington's cat: neither mouse nor chitmunk has dared intrude within
our log-walls since she made her appearance; the very crickets, that
used to distract us with their chirping from morning till night, have
forsaken their old haunts. Besides the crickets, which often swarm so as
to become intolerable nuisances, destroying your clothes and woollens,
we are pestered by large black ants, that gallop about, eating up sugar
preserves, cakes, anything nice they can gain access to; these insects
are three times the size of the black ants of Britain, and have a most
voracious appetite: when they find no better prey they kill each other,
and that with the fierceness and subtilty of the spider. They appear
less sociable in their habits than other ants; though, from the numbers
that invade your dwellings, I should think they formed a community like
the rest of their species.

The first year's residence in a new log-house you are disturbed by a
continual creaking sound which grates upon the ears exceedingly, till
you become accustomed to it: this is produced by an insect commonly
called a "sawyer." This is the larvae of some fly that deposits its eggs
in the bark of the pine-trees. The animal in its immature state is of a
whitish colour, the body composed of eleven rings; the head armed with a
pair of short, hard pincers: the skin of this creature is so rough that
on passing your finger over it, it reminds you of a rasp, yet to the eye
it is perfectly smooth. You would be surprised at the heap of fine saw-
dust that is to be seen below the hole they have been working in all
night. These sawyers form a fine feast for the woodpeckers, and jointly
they assist in promoting the rapid decomposition of the gigantic forest-
trees, that would otherwise encumber the earth from age to age. How
infinite is that Wisdom that rules the natural world! How often do we
see great events brought about by seemingly insignificant agents! Yet
are they all servants of the Most High, working his will, and fulfilling
his behests. One great want which has been sensibly felt in this distant
settlement, I mean the want of public worship on the Sabbath-day,
promises to be speedily remedied. A subscription is about to be opened
among the settlers of this and part of the adjacent township for the
erection of a small building, which may answer the purpose of church and
school-house; also for the means of paying a minister for stated seasons
of attendance.

------ has allowed his parlour to be used as a temporary church, and
service has been several times performed by a highly respectable young
Scotch clergyman; and I can assure you we have a considerable
congregation, considering how scattered the inhabitants are, and that
the emigrants consist of catholics and dissenters, as well as
episcopalians.

These distinctions, however, are not carried to such lengths in this
country as at home; especially where the want of religious observances
has been sensibly felt. The word of God appears to be listened to with
gladness. May a blessing attend those that in spirit and in truth would
restore again to us the public duties of the Sabbath, which, left to our
own guidance, we are but too much inclined to neglect.

Farewell.




LETTER XVIII.

Busy Spring.--Increase of Society and Comfort.--Recollections of Home.--
Aurora Borealis

THIS has been a busy spring with us. First, sugar-making on a larger
scale than our first attempt was, and since that we had workmen making
considerable addition to our house; we have built a large and convenient
kitchen, taking the former one for a bedroom; the root-house and dairy
are nearly completed. We have a well of excellent water close beside the
door, and a fine frame-barn was finished this week, which includes a
good granary and stable, with a place for my poultry, in which I take
great delight.

Besides a fine brood of fowls, the produce of two hens and a cock, or
_rooster_, as the Yankees term that bird, I have some ducks, and am to
have turkeys and geese this summer. I lost several of my best fowls, not
by the hawk but a horrid beast of the same nature as our polecat, called
here a scunck; it is far more destructive in its nature than either fox
or the hawk, for he comes like a thief in the night and invades the
perch, leaving headless mementos of his barbarity and blood-thirsty
propensities.

We are having the garden, which hitherto has been nothing but a square
enclosure for vegetables, laid out in a prettier form; two half circular
wings sweep off from the entrance to each side of the house; the fence
is a sort of rude basket or hurdle-work, such as you see at home, called
by the country folk wattled fence: this forms a much more picturesque
fence than those usually put up of split timber.

Along this little enclosure I have begun planting a sort of flowery
hedge with some of the native shrubs that abound in our woods and lake-
shores.

Among those already introduced are two species of shrubby honeysuckle,
white and rose-blossomed: these are called by the American botanists
_quilostium_.

Then I have the white _Spiroeafrutex_, which grows profusely on the
lake-shore; the Canadian wild rose; the red flowering raspberry (_rubus
spectabilis_), leather-wood (_dircas_), called American mezereon, or
moose-wood; this is a very pretty, and at the same time useful shrub,
the bark being used by farmers as a substitute for cord in tying sacks,
&c.; the Indians sew their birch-bark baskets with it occasionally.

Wild gooseberry, red and black currants, apple-trees, with here and
there a standard hawthorn, the native tree bearing nice red fruit I
named before, are all I have as yet been able to introduce.

The stoup is up, and I have just planted hops at the base of the
pillars. I have got two bearing shoots of a purple wild grape from the
island near us, which I long to see in fruit.

My husband is in good spirits; our darling boy is well, and runs about
everywhere. We enjoy a pleasant and friendly society, which has
increased so much within the last two years that we can hardly regret
our absence from the more populous town.

My dear sister and her husband are comfortably settled in their new
abode, and have a fine spot cleared and cropped. We often see them, and
enjoy a chat of home--sweet, never-to-be-forgotten home; and cheat
ourselves into the fond belief that, at no very distant time we may
again retrace its fertile fields and flowery dales.

With what delight we should introduce our young Canadians to their
grandmother and aunts; my little bushman shall early be taught to lisp
the names of those unknown but dear friends, and to love the lands that
gave birth to his parents, the bonny hills of the north and my own
beloved England.

Not to regret my absence from my native land, and one so fair and lovely
withal, would argue a heart of insensibility; yet I must say, for all
its roughness, I love Canada, and am as happy in my humble log-house as
if it were courtly hall or bower; habit reconciles us to many things
that at first were distasteful. It has ever been my way to extract the
sweet rather than the bitter in the cup of life, and surely it is best
and wisest so to do. In a country where constant exertion is called for
from all ages and degrees of settlers, it would be foolish to a degree
to damp our energies by complaints, and cast a gloom over our homes by
sitting dejectedly down to lament for all that was so dear to us in the
old country. Since we are here, let us make the best of it, and bear
with cheerfulness the lot we have chosen. I believe that one of the
chief ingredients in human happiness is a capacity for enjoying the
blessings we possess.

Though at our first outset we experienced many disappointments, many
unlooked-for expenses, and many annoying delays, with some wants that to
us seemed great privations, on the whole we have been fortunate,
especially in the situation of our land, which has increased in value
very considerably; our chief difficulties are now over, at least we hope
so, and we trust soon to enjoy the comforts of a cleared farm.

My husband is becoming more reconciled to the country, and I daily feel
my attachment to it strengthening. The very stumps that appeared so
odious, through long custom, seem to lose some of their hideousness; the
eye becomes familiarized even with objects the most displeasing till
they cease to be observed. Some century hence how different will this
spot appear! I can picture it to my imagination with fertile fields and
groves of trees planted by the hand of taste;--all will be different;
our present rude dwellings will have given place to others of a more
elegant style of architecture, and comfort and grace will rule the scene
which is now a forest wild.

You ask me if I like the climate of Upper Canada; to be candid I do not
think it deserves all that travellers have said of it. The summer heat
of last year was very oppressive; the drought was extreme, and in some
respects proved rather injurious, especially to the potatoe crop. The
frosts set in early, and so did the snows; as to the far-fa_med Indian
summer it seems to have taken its farewell of the land, for little of it
have we seen during three years' residence. Last year there was not a
semblance of it, and this year one horrible dark gloomy day, that
reminded me most forcibly of a London fog, and which was to the full as
dismal and depressing, was declared by the old inhabitants to be the
commencement of the Indian summer; the sun looked dim and red, and a
yellow lurid mist darkened the atmosphere, so that it became almost
necessary to light candles at noonday. If this be Indian summer, then
might a succession of London fogs be termed the "London summer," thought
I, as I groped about in a sort of bewildering dusky light all that day;
and glad was I when, after a day or two's heavy rain, the frost and snow
set in.

Very variable, as far as our experience goes, this climate has been; no
two seasons have been at all alike, and it is supposed it will be still
more variable as the work of clearing the forest goes on from year to
year. Near the rivers and great lakes the climate is much milder and
more equable; more inland, the snow seldom falls so as to allow of
sleighing for weeks after it has become general; this, considering the
state of our bush-roads, is rather a point in our favour, as travelling
becomes less laborious, though still somewhat rough.