The Backwoods of Canada written by Catharine Parr Traill

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The scattered boughs of the pines darkened the air as they whirled above
me; then came the blinding snow-storm: but I could behold the progress
of the tempest in safety, having gained the threshold of our house. The
driver of the oxen had thrown himself on the ground, while the poor
beasts held down their meek heads, patiently abiding "the pelting of the
pitiless storm." S------, my husband, and the rest of the household,
collected in a group, watched with anxiety the wild havoc of the warring
elements. Not a leaf remained on the trees when the hurricane was over;
they were bare and desolate. Thus ended the short reign of the Indian
summer.

[Illustration: Newley cleared Land]

I think the notion entertained by some travellers, that the Indian
summer is caused by the annual conflagration of forests by those Indians
inhabiting the unexplored regions beyond the larger lakes is absurd.
Imagine for an instant what immense tracts of woods must be yearly
consumed to affect nearly the whole of the continent of North America:
besides, it takes place at that season of the year when the fire is
least likely to run freely, owing to the humidity of the ground from the
autumnal rains. I should rather attribute the peculiar warmth and hazy
appearance of the air that marks this season, to the fermentation going
on of so great a mass of vegetable matter that is undergoing a state of
decomposition during the latter part of October and beginning of
November. It has been supposed by some persons that a great alteration
will be effected in this season, as the process of clearing the land
continues to decrease the quantity of decaying vegetation. Nay, I have
heard the difference is already observable by those long acquainted with
the American continent.

Hitherto my experience of the climate is favourable. The autumn has been
very fine, though the frosts are felt early in the month of September;
at first slightly, of a morning, but towards October more severely.
Still, though the first part of the day is cold, the middle of it is
warm and cheerful.

We already see the stern advances of winter. It commenced very decidedly
from the breaking up of the Indian summer. November is not at all like
the same month at home. The early part was soft and warm, the latter
cold, with keen frosts and occasional falls of snow; but it does not
seem to possess the dark, gloomy, damp character of our British
Novembers. However, it is not one season's acquaintance with the climate
that enables a person to form any correct judgment of its general
character, but a close observance of its peculiarities and vicissitudes
during many years' residence in the country.

I must now tell you what my husband is doing on our land. He has let out
ten acres to some Irish choppers who have established themselves in the
shanty for the winter. They are to receive fourteen dollars per acre for
chopping, burning, and fencing in that quantity. The ground is to be
perfectly cleared of every thing but the stumps: these will take from
seven to nine or ten years to decay; the pine, hemlock, and fir remain
much longer. The process of clearing away the stumps is too expensive
for new beginners to venture upon, labour being so high that it cannot
be appropriated to any but indispensable work. The working season is
very short on account of the length of time the frost remains on the
ground. With the exception of chopping trees, very little can be done.
Those that understand the proper management of uncleared land, usually
underbrush (that is, cut down all the small timbers and brushwood),
while the leaf is yet on them; this is piled in heaps, and the
windfallen trees are chopped through in lengths, to be logged up in the
spring with the winter's chopping. The latter end of the summer and the
autumn are the best seasons for this work. The leaves then become quite
dry and sear, and greatly assist in the important business of burning
off the heavy timbers. Another reason is, that when the snow has fallen
to some depth, the light timbers cannot be cut close to the ground, or
the dead branches and other incumbrances collected and thrown in heaps.

We shall have about three acres ready for spring-crops, provided we get
a good burning of that which is already chopped near the site of the
house,--this will be sown with oats, pumpkins, Indian corn, and
potatoes: the other ten acres will be ready for putting in a crop of
wheat. So you see it will be a long time before we reap a harvest. We
could not even get in spring-wheat early enough to come to perfection
this year.

We shall try to get two cows in the spring, as they are little expense
during the spring, summer, and autumn; and by the winter we shall have
pumpkins and oat-straw for them.

LETTER IX.

Loss of a yoke of Oxen.--Construction of a Log-house.--Glaziers' and
Carpenters' work.--Description of new Log-house.--Wild Fruits of the
Country.--Walks on the Ice.--Situation of the House.--Lake, and
surrounding Scenery.

Lake House
April 18, 1833

BUT it is time that I should give you some account of our log-house,
into which we moved a few days before Christmas. Many unlooked-for
delays having hindered its completion before that time, I began to think
it would never be habitable.

The first misfortune that happened was the loss of a fine yoke of oxen
that were purchased to draw in the house-logs, that is, the logs for
raising the walls of the house. Not regarding the bush as pleasant as
their former master's cleared pastures, or perhaps foreseeing some hard
work to come, early one morning they took into their heads to ford the
lake at the head of the rapids, and march off, leaving no trace of their
route excepting their footing at the water's edge. After many days spent
in vain search for them, the work was at a stand, and for one month they
were gone, and we began to give up all expectation of hearing any news
of them. At last we learned they were some twenty miles off, in a
distant township, having made their way through bush and swamp, creek
and lake, back to their former owner, with an instinct that supplied to
them the want of roads and compass.

Oxen have been known to traverse a tract of wild country to a distance
of thirty or forty miles going in a direct line for their former haunts
by unknown paths, where memory could not avail them. In the dog we
consider it is scent as well as memory that guides him to his far-off
home;--but how is this conduct of the oxen to be accounted for? They
returned home through the mazes of interminable forests, where man, with
all his reason and knowledge, would have been bewildered and lost.

It was the latter end of October before even the walls of our house were
up. To effect this we called "a bee." Sixteen of our neighbours
cheerfully obeyed our summons; and though the day was far from
favourable, so faithfully did our hive perform their tasks, that by
night the outer walls were raised.

The work went merrily on with the help of plenty of Canadian nectar
(whiskey), the honey that our _bees_ are solaced with. Some huge joints
of salt pork, a peck of potatoes, with a rice-pudding, and a loaf as big
as an enormous Cheshire cheese, formed the feast that was to regale them
during the raising. This was spread out in the shanty, in a _very rural
style_. In short, we laughed, and called it a _pic-nic in the
backwoods_; and rude as was the fare, I can assure you, great was the
satisfaction expressed by all the guests of every degree, our "_bee_"
being considered as very well conducted. In spite of the difference of
rank among those that assisted at the bee, the greatest possible harmony
prevailed, and the party separated well pleased with the day's work and
entertainment.

The following day I went to survey the newly-raised edifice, but was
sorely puzzled, as it presented very little appearance of a house. It
was merely an oblong square of logs raised one above the other, with
open spaces between every row of logs. The spaces for the doors and
windows were not then chopped out, and the rafters were not up. In
short, it looked a very queer sort of a place, and I returned home a
little disappointed, and wondering that my husband should be so well
pleased with the progress that had been made. A day or two after this I
again visited it. The _sleepers_ were laid to support the floors, and
the places for the doors and windows cut out of the solid timbers, so
that it had not quite so much the look of a bird-cage as before.

After the roof was shingled, we were again at a stand, as no boards
could be procured nearer than Peterborough, a long day's journey through
horrible roads. At that time no saw-mill was in progress; now there is a
fine one building within a little distance of us. Our flooring-boards
were all to be sawn by hand, and it was some time before any one could
be found to perform this necessary work, and that at high wages--six-
and-sixpence per day. Well, the boards were at length down, but of
course of unseasoned timber: this was unavoidable; so as they could not
be planed we were obliged to put up with their rough unsightly
appearance, for no better were to be had. I began to recall to mind the
observation of the old gentleman with whom we travelled from Cobourg to
Rice Lake. We console ourselves with the prospect that by next summer
the boards will all be seasoned, and then the house is to be turned
topsy-turvy, by having the floors all relaid, jointed, and smoothed.

The next misfortune that happened, was, that the mixture of clay and
lime that was to plaster the inside and outside of the house between the
chinks of the logs was one night frozen to stone. Just as the work was
about half completed, the frost suddenly setting in, put a stop to our
proceeding for some time, as the frozen plaster yielded neither to fire
nor to hot water, the latter freezing before it had any effect on the
mass, and rather making bad worse. Then the workman that was hewing the
inside walls to make them smooth, wounded himself with the broad axe,
and was unable to resume his work for some time.

I state these things merely to show the difficulties that attend us in
the fulfilment of our plans, and this accounts in a great measure for
the humble dwellings that settlers of the most respectable description
are obliged to content themselves with at first coming to this country,
--not, you may be assured, from inclination, but necessity: I could give
you such narratives of this kind as would astonish you. After all, it
serves to make us more satisfied than we should be on casting our eyes
around to see few better off than we are, and many not half so
comfortable, yet of equal, and, in some instances, superior pretensions
as to station and fortune.

Every man in this country is his own glazier; this you will laugh at:
but if he does not wish to see and feel the discomfort of broken panes,
he must learn to put them in his windows with his own hands. Workmen are
not easily to be had in the backwoods when you want them, and it would
be preposterous to hire a man at high wages to make two days' journey to
and from the nearest town to mend your windows. Boxes of glass of
several different sizes are to be bought at a very cheap rate in the
stores. My husband amused himself by glazing the windows of the house
preparatory to their being fixed in.

To understand the use of carpenter's tools, I assure you, is no
despicable or useless kind of knowledge here. I would strongly recommend
all young men coming to Canada to acquire a little acquaintance with
this valuable art, as they will often be put to great inconvenience for
the want of it.

I was once much amused with hearing the remarks made by a very fine
lady, the reluctant sharer of her husband's emigration, on seeing the
son of a naval officer of some rank in the service busily employed in
making an axe-handle out of a piece of rock-elm.

"I wonder that you allow George to degrade himself so," she said,
addressing his father.

The captain looked up with surprise. "Degrade himself! In what manner,
madam? My boy neither swears, drinks whiskey, steals, nor tells lies."

"But you allow him to perform tasks of the most menial kind. What is he
now better than a hedge carpenter; and I suppose you allow him to chop,
too?"

"Most assuredly I do. That pile of logs in the cart there was all cut by
him after he had left study yesterday," was the reply,

"I would see my boys dead before they should use an axe like common
labourers."

"Idleness is the root of all evil," said the captain. "How much worse
might my son be employed if he were running wild about streets with bad
companions."

"You will allow this is not a country for gentlemen or ladies to live
in," said the lady.

"It is the country for gentlemen that will not work and cannot live
without, to starve in," replied the captain bluntly; "and for that
reason I make my boys early accustom themselves to be usefully and
actively employed."

"My boys shall never work like common mechanics," said the lady,
indignantly.

"Then, madam, they will be good for nothing as settlers; and it is a
pity you dragged them across the Atlantic."

"We were forced to come. We could not live as we had been used to do at
home, or I never would have come to this horrid country."

"Having come hither you would be wise to conform to circumstances.
Canada is not the place for idle folks to retrench a lost fortune in. In
some parts of the country you will find most articles of provision as
dear as in London, clothing much dearer, and not so good, and a bad
market to choose in."

"I should like to know, then, who Canada is good for?" said she,
angrily.

"It is a good country for the honest, industrious artisan. It is a fine
country for the poor labourer, who, after a few years of hard toil, can
sit down in his own log-house, and look abroad on his own land, and see
his children well settled in life as independent freeholders. It is a
grand country for the rich speculator, who can afford to lay out a large
sum in purchasing land in eligible situations; for if he have any
judgment, he will make a hundred per cent as interest for his money
after waiting a few years. But it is a hard country for the poor
gentleman, whose habits have rendered him unfit for manual labour. He
brings with him a mind unfitted to his situation; and even if necessity
compels him to exertion, his labour is of little value. He has a hard
struggle to live. The certain expenses of wages and living are great,
and he is obliged to endure many privations if he would keep within
compass, and be free of debt. If he have a large family, and brings them
up wisely, so as to adapt themselves early to a settler's life, why he
does well for them, and soon feels the benefit on his own land; but if
he is idle himself, his wife extravagant and discontented, and the
children taught to despise labour, why, madam, they will soon be brought
down to ruin. In short, the country is a good country for those to whom
it is adapted; but if people will not conform to the doctrine of
necessity and expediency, they have no business in it. It is plain
Canada is not adapted to every class of people."

"It was never adapted for me or my family," said the lady, disdainfully.

"Very true," was the laconic reply; and so ended the dialogue.

But while I have been recounting these remarks, I have wandered far from
my original subject, and left my poor log-house quite in an unfinished
state. At last I was told it was in a habitable condition, and I was
soon engaged in all the bustle and fatigue attendant on removing our
household goods. We received all the assistance we required from ------,
who is ever ready and willing to help us. He laughed, and called it a
"_moving_ bee;" I said it was a "fixing bee;" and my husband said it was
a "settling bee;" I know we were unsettled enough till it was over. What
a din of desolation is a small house, or any house under such
circumstances. The idea of chaos must have been taken from a removal or
a setting to rights, for I suppose the ancients had their _flitting_, as
the Scotch call it, as well as the moderns.

Various were the valuable articles of crockery-ware that perished in
their short but rough journey through the woods. Peace to their manes. I
had a good helper in my Irish maid, who soon roused up famous fires, and
set the house in order.

We have now got quite comfortably settled, and I shall give you a
description of our little dwelling. What is finished is only a part of
the original plan; the rest must be added next spring, or fall, as
circumstances may suit.

A nice small sitting-room with a store closet, a kitchen, pantry, and
bed-chamber form the ground floor; there is a good upper floor that will
make three sleeping rooms.

"What a nut-shell!" I think I hear you exclaim. So it is at present; but
we purpose adding a handsome frame front as soon as we can get boards
from the mill, which will give us another parlour, long hall, and good
spare bed-room. The windows and glass door of our present sitting-room
command pleasant lake-views to the west and south. When the house is
completed, we shall have a verandah in front; and at the south side,
which forms an agreeable addition in the summer, being used as a sort of
outer room, in which we can dine, and have the advantage of cool air,
protected from the glare of the sunbeams. The Canadians call these
verandahs "stoups." Few houses, either log or frame, are without them.
The pillars look extremely pretty, wreathed with the luxuriant hop-vine,
mixed with the scarlet creeper and "morning glory," the American name
for the most splendid of major convolvuluses. These stoups are really a
considerable ornament, as they conceal in a great measure the rough
logs, and break the barn-like form of the building.

Our parlour is warmed by a handsome Franklin stove with brass gallery,
and fender. Our furniture consists of a brass-railed sofa, which serves
upon occasion for a bed, Canadian painted chairs, a stained pine table,
green and white curtains, and a handsome Indian mat that covers the
floor. One side of the room is filled up with our books. Some large maps
and a few good prints nearly conceal the rough walls, and form the
decoration of our little dwelling. Our bed-chamber is furnished with
equal simplicity. We do not, however, lack comfort in our humble home;
and though it is not exactly such as we could wish, it is as good as,
under existing circumstances, we could have.

I am anxiously looking forward to the spring, that I may get a garden
laid out in front of the house; as I mean to cultivate some of the
native fruits and flowers, which, I am sure, will improve greatly by
culture. The strawberries that grow wild in our pastures, woods, and
clearings, are several varieties, and bear abundantly. They make
excellent preserves, and I mean to introduce beds of them into my
garden. There is a pretty little wooded islet on our lake, that is
called Strawberry island, another Raspberry island; they abound in a
variety of fruits--wild grapes, raspberries, strawberries, black and red
currants, a wild gooseberry, and a beautiful little trailing plant that
bears white flowers like the raspberry, and a darkish purple fruit
consisting of a few grains of a pleasant brisk acid, somewhat like in
flavour to our dewberry, only not quite so sweet. The leaves of this
plant are of a bright light green, in shape like the raspberry, to which
it bears in some respects so great a resemblance (though it is not
shrubby or thorny) that I have called it the "trailing raspberry."

I suppose our scientific botanists in Britain would consider me very
impertinent in bestowing names on the flowers and plants I meet with in
these wild woods: I can only say, I am glad to discover the Canadian or
even the Indian names if I can, and where they fail I consider myself
free to become their floral godmother, and give them names of my own
choosing.

Among our wild fruits we have plums, which, in some townships, are very
fine and abundant; these make admirable preserves, especially when
boiled in maple molasses, as is done by the American housewives. Wild
cherries, also a sort called choke cherries, from their peculiar
astringent qualities, high and low-bush cranberries, blackberries, which
are brought by the Squaws in birch baskets,--all these are found on the
plains and beaver meadows. The low-bush cranberries are brought in great
quantities by the Indians to the towns and villages. They form a
standing preserve on the tea-tables in most of the settlers' houses; but
for richness of flavour, and for beauty of appearance, I admire the
high-bush cranberries; these are little sought after, on account of the
large flat seeds, which prevent them from being used as a jam: the
jelly, however, is delightful, both in colour and flavour.

The bush on which this cranberry grows resembles the guelder rose. The
blossoms are pure white, and grow in loose umbels; they are very
ornamental, when in bloom, to the woods and swamps, skirting the lakes.
The berries are rather of a long oval, and of a brilliant scarlet, and
when just touched by the frosts are semi-transparent, and look like
pendent bunches of scarlet grapes.

I was tempted one fine frosty afternoon to take a walk with my husband
on the ice, which I was assured was perfectly safe. I must confess for
the first half-mile I felt very timid, especially when the ice is so
transparent that you may see every little pebble or weed at the bottom
of the water. Sometimes the ice was thick and white, and quite opaque.
As we kept within a little distance of the shore, I was struck by the
appearance of some splendid red berries on the leafless bushes that hung
over the margin of the lake, and soon recognized them to be the
aforesaid high-bush cranberries. My husband soon stripped the boughs of
their tempting treasure, and I, delighted with my prize, hastened home,
and boiled the fruit with some sugar, to eat at tea with our cakes. I
never ate any thing more delicious than they proved; the more so perhaps
from having been so long without tasting fruit of any kind, with the
exception of preserves, during our journey, and at Peterborough.

Soon after this I made another excursion on the ice, but it was not in
quite so sound a state. We nevertheless walked on for about three-
quarters of a mile. We were overtaken on our return by S------ with a
handsleigh, which is a sort of wheelbarrow, such as porters use, without
sides, and instead of a wheel, is fixed on wooden runners, which you can
drag over the snow and ice with the greatest ease, if ever so heavily
laden. S------ insisted that he would draw me home over the ice like a
Lapland lady on a sledge. I was soon seated in state, and in another
minute felt myself impelled forward with a velocity that nearly took
away my breath. By the time we reached the shore I was in a glow from
head to foot.

You would be pleased with the situation of our house. The spot chosen is
the summit of a fine sloping bank above the lake, distant from the
water's edge some hundred or two yards: the lake is not quite a mile
from shore to shore. To the south again we command a different view,
which will be extremely pretty when fully opened--a fine smooth basin of
water, diversified with beautiful islands, that rise like verdant groves
from its bosom. Below these there is a fall of some feet, where the
waters of the lakes, confined within a narrow channel between beds of
limestone, rush along with great impetuosity, foaming and dashing up the
spray in mimic clouds.

During the summer the waters are much lower, and we can walk for some
way along the flat shores, which are composed of different strata of
limestone, full of fossil remains, evidently of very recent formation.
Those shells and river-insects that are scattered loose over the surface
of the limestone, left by the recession of the waters, are similar to
the shells and insects incrusted in the body of the limestone. I am told
that the bed of one of the lakes above us (I forget which) is of
limestone; that it abounds in a variety of beautiful river-shells, which
are deposited in vast quantities in the different strata, and also in
the blocks of limestone scattered along the shores. These shells are
also found in great profusion in the soil of the Beaver meadows.
When I see these things, and hear of them, I regret I know nothing of
geology or conchology; as I might then be able to account for many
circumstances that at present only excite my curiosity.

[Maps: Charts shewing the Interior Navigation of the District of
Newcastle and Upper Canada.]

Just below the waterfall I was mentioning there is a curious natural
arch in the limestone rock, which at this place rises to a height of ten
or fifteen feet like a wall; it is composed of large plates of grey
limestone, lying one upon the other; the arch seems like a rent in the
wall, but worn away, and hollowed, possibly, by the action of water
rushing through it at some high flood. Trees grow on the top of this
rock. Hemlock firs and cedars are waving on this elevated spot, above
the turbulent waters, and clothing the stone barrier with a sad but
never-fading verdure. Here, too, the wild vine, red creeper, and poison-
elder, luxuriate, and wreathe fantastic bowers above the moss-covered
masses of the stone. A sudden turn in this bank brought us to a broad,
perfectly flat and smooth bed of the same stone, occupying a space of
full fifty feet along the shore. Between the fissures of this bed I
found some rosebushes, and a variety of flowers that had sprung up
during the spring and summer, when it was left dry, and free from the
action of the water.

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