Canadian life and scenery : with hints to intending immigrants and settlers

Front matter

from

the estate of

J. Stuart Fleming

Chapter I, The Climate Of Canada

CANADIAN LIFE AND SCENERY.

the Eastern Provinces were mingled others who hailed from England, Ireland, and Scotland. I had received satisfactory accounts of the year’s excellent crops from all, and then put questions to them as to the advantage or disadvantage of the climate as compared with that of other places. Several had borne evidence of the healthfulness and purity of the air, and to their preference to it as compared to that of any region they had known, when up pushed a sturdy Irishman, who said, “I want you to tell this to my people at home. I come from the County Armagh, and I was thatching my house last year in the cold weather, and I felt it far less than I did the last time I thatched my house in Armagh.”

When agents of railway companies, and men interested in the South, try to persuade settlers to go down to the South, and settle in some parts which are notorious for their cyclones, snakes, and centipedes, or for ague and fever, it is well to remember how healthy the conditions of life in the North are, and to what a great age men usually live.

Where, as in the case of some English and many of the French, a number of generations have lived on Canadian soil, we see the race more vigorous, if possible, than in the days of the first settlers. Cold the weather certainly is during five or six months of the year ; but the cold, except upon the sea-coasts, is dry. The saying of the old Scotchwoman is literally true. She wrote home to her people to say, “ It was fine to see the bairns play in the snow without getting their feet wet.” It is only near the sea that the bairns can make snowballs, until the spring thaws come to

TEE CLIMATE OF CANADA.

help them. Throughout the winter the snow is dry and powdery. The Canadian seasons are very certain. It is sure to he steadily cold in winter and steadily warm in summer, and throughout the twelve months a bright sun gives cheerfulness to the scene.

There is a severe, but extremely healthy winter of less than six months, and a summer with sunshine so ardent and so certain, that almost any fruit and crops are raised. Where Voltaire said there was nothing but a few acres of snow, you may see each summer along the verdant and populous shores of the St. Lawrence in the little gardens of the yeomen proprietors fine plants of the broad-leaved tobacco, and the Indian corn raising its yellow crown above its sword-shaped leaves, while the sweet water-melon is abundant, and grapes will ripen in the open air. In Ontario, near Niagara, peach orchards cover the country, and wine is made from the vineyards. Strawberries, raspberries, currants, and many small berries are native to the land. Some of these grow on bushes. There is one in the west called the u high bush cranberry,” whose red clusters of fruit cling near the stalks of the shrub, which has pretty silver-tinted green leaves. An excellent jelly is made from the fruit, and we found the ladies of the garrison of an American fort in Montana great proficients in making preserves from it. The size of the wild black-currant is extraordinary. In the Qu’Appelle valley I have seen them as fine as in any English kitchen-garden. At the school established for the half-blood French-Canadians at that place, the fathers had planted a few months before our arrival some of these plants taken from the woods, and it

CANADIAN LIFE AND SCENERY.

would have been difficult to believe, had one not seen the wild currant, that these were not from European stock. Hops thrive everywhere. Hoots of all kinds grow to monstrous weight on the prairies. If the power of a country can be measured by its food-producing capacity, it is difficult to limit the imagination in estimating the number of souls Canada’s vast areas may support. To an Englishman, the want of some of the familiar growths of his own land seems strange. For instance, that it should be so rare to see ivy able to survive the winter ; to see no wallflowers, or daffodils, or rhododendrons, or azaleas, seems at first almost a hardship. The English hawthorn will thrive, as will ivy, in parts of Ontario. But although the foxglove is missing, there is the beautiful “golden rod,” and throughout the woods there are masses of calmia and other flowers, the lictrim especially making gay many a vista of the woodland.

The season being severe for a portion of the year, the question of fuel is an all-important one. Well, let us see if this is met by the conditions of the country. It is most fully met. What is known as Old Canada — namely, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward’s Island, Ontario, and Quebec — is a vast region of woodland now largely cleared of forest, but having an abundant supply of wood for fuel within the reach of every place where man has settled or may settle. Enormous stores of coal are being actively worked in Nova Scotia, the output of whose mines is daily and hourly increasing, and is at present immense. You may see in the mines near Pictou galleries twenty feet in height, hundreds of feet below the ground, worked in the solid coal. There-

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fore, as far as Old Canada is concerned, there never was any lack of fuel. At first, when the new territories received their earliest emigrants, the question of the supply of fuel was thought to be more serious in those regions, for the timber line of firs and pines is crossed near Winnipeg ; and although there is a vast semicircle of such heavy woods to the north, the farther end of the arc coming down south again near the Rocky Mountains, there is little but poplar in the space through which the new railways had begun their progress.

The lands are of what geologists call the tertiary formation — that is, of a late age — and no very good coal could be expected. There were beds of lignite found, and these have been discovered in greater quantity of late ; but the lignite, although very useful for household purposes, and giving fair heat when it is of good quality, cannot be compared with the true coals on account of the quantity of water it contains. It was a matter of anxiety, therefore, to find better fuel. Farther westward it was known that the tertiary, or recent geological formation, gave place to beds of an older character, and that the more ancient cretaceous measures appeared. In crossing the rivers which flow down from the mountains and cut their way through higher lands, rounded boulders of coal have been observed, and in some places the high bluffs were seen to be streaked with dark bands of colour. And now it is proved that throughout a great area there are abundant indications of the presence of coal ; and, still better, the coal which has been seen cropping out in various localities has been tried and found to be excellent for all purposes.

The new province, recently christened Alberta, will be the “ black country ” of the central continent. Anthracite exists in thick seams. The railway engines already use nothing but the coal of the district. From north to south for a distance of four hundred miles, and along a tract at least two hundred miles in width, experts believe that coal in any quantity exists beneath the long undulating swell of the prairie. Even if we had not found this exhaustless supply, the settler in the north-west would not have had long to wait, for the railway would have brought him the coal of British Columbia.

Away beyond the mountains and the Pacific Coast we come upon a country whose climatic conditions are totally different, namely, a land called British Columbia — an immense land of mountain, forest, and flood, the Alpine ranges soaring in some of their peaks to the height of Mont Blanc — a land in the main so deeply and wonderfully forested that you may, on its sea coast, cut timber thirty and forty inches square of a uniform size for one hundred feet — a country where the rivers rush impetuously through tremendous gorges to run in shorter navigable reaches into harbours which are defended by a gigantic natural breakwater by the long rocky island of Vancouver. Here, on this island, we have a climate like that of the South of England. The shrubs which are familiar to all in the gardens about London, and many more which would be too delicate to grow there, thrive in this favoured island. A great deal of it is mountainous and practically unknown. To the north of it lie other great groups of islands and more mountainous coast, and the climate is again mild, but the rainfall is heavy. In the mainland interior of this Canadian Switzerland you have strange variations

THE CLIMATE OF CANADA.

of climatic condition within narrow areas ; you may have a farm in a beautiful rich valley, surrounded by magnificent woods, and five miles off you may go and pay a visit to your friend who has another farm, and find that his place has such dryness that not only will it not support the heavy timber growth with which you are familiar on your own homestead, but your friend has even to bring waters to irrigate his garden, which, with this provision, will produce even more richly than your own.

A word before passing to the general features of the country as to emigration. Excellent steamers ply between Liverpool and Halifax in winter, and between Liverpool and Quebec and Montreal in summer. The winter passage takes from eight to ten days — the summer passage is usually performed from land to land in six days. No one doubts that very many in our large towns can benefit themselves by moving. Very many in the country can do so also, although for my part, and speaking more in the interests of England than of Canada, I would rather see departures from the towns than from the country, for there are but few country districts whose population is too dense. In any case, what we desire is that the advantages of Canada should be known, so as to induce men to weigh them as compared with the United States. I, from personal knowledge, believe that Canada can more than hold her own in the comparison. In climate she has in her various provinces vast areas as agreeable to men of our northern races as any the United States can offer. Her soils are as rich, her government is more free, and the opportunities presented, not only

CANADIAN LIFE AND SCENERY.

for making a comfortable living, but for the attainment of comparative wealth, are as good. Sudden fortunes are, it is true, not so often made ; but, on the other hand, there is far less poverty. There is an equality of fortune, taking the people as a whole, which can hardly be matched elsewhere. Opportunities for the killing of game are usually better than in the United States.

All emigrants should go out in the spring. Flow, taking first the inducements offered to emigrants who desire to procure manual labour. The cost of a passage is only £3, and it costs £3 more to reach Winnipeg. Any one knowing the trade of a blacksmith, a mason, a bricklayer, or willing to work as a hired man on a farm, has the best chance of employment. Young men who wish to lead a town life had best stay at home. The town life as compared with country life gives fewer opportunities, for the cities are, relatively to the population, small. The rural population is about 4,500,000 against about 500,000 represented by the towns. I would, therefore, on all accounts, advise young men to look to country life. If they go and have no experience of agriculture they should hire themselves out for a year. The position of such a man is by no means unpleasant. He shares the life of the farmer, and is treated as one of the family. For farmers there is the powerful attraction of homesteads of all sizes. I have known very many men who have succeeded well, and who have begun with nothing, or next to nothing. But I should counsel all who contemplate emigration, and the taking up of farm life, to have, if single men, from £50 to £100, exclusive of the

THE CLIMATE OF CANADA.

cost of the journey, and if married from £150 or £250 to £500. There are good vacant places to be had almost anywhere. In the north-west you can get 160 acres of excellent land for £2. The land regulations under which these grants are made are to the full as favourable as those of the United States, and in some respects are to be preferred. For the north-west people of good physical ability only should be sent. If a couple go, man and wife should both be able to work and have £60 to £75, exclusive of cost of journey, at the least, if they have no knowledge of farming. If they have children, they should be provided with £12 more per head. If the children are able to work, £6 extra per head might suffice.

Fine ladies and fine gentlemen will find themselves altogether out of the race. At the same time, there is abundant scope for gentlemen’s sons having modest fortunes, say from £200 to £500 a year, for these men will have opportunities of making their living and of procuring sport which they cannot realize at home. It is most remarkable that of such men and of such women as those I have mentioned, one almost always hears that they have liked their new life. For one letter containing the complaints of a grumbler I have seen six dozen speaking of the fullest contentment; indeed, so curiously rare has any complaint been that I have taken some pains to investigate a fewr cases of alleged failure ; and I am sorry to say that in the case of several of these I have come upon indubitable evidence to show that they were trumped up by interested parties, and were not 'bona fide at all. But let this be clearly understood — that what Canada offers is not an El Dorado, such as that which inspired the dreams of the Spanish followers of Cortez and Pizarro, who went to the South American shores expecting tribes of docile Indians to meet them bringing heaps of gold and silver utensils and curious works of art, and whose dreams were in many cases wonderfully near the truth. It is not such an El Dorado that Canada offers. Her offer is this : a comfortable home on his own soil to any man who has a good pair of hands and a decent knowledge how to use them ; if he have something of his own to start with, so much the better will it be for him.

For women there is plenty of space and places ; but women who will succeed must be women who will wx>rk. They who wish to go out as teachers, governesses, etc., had best stay at home. The Ladies’ Committee of the Women’s Emigration Society of Montreal told me lately that they could at once place 1000 girls of good character, if sent out to them, and that the demand for them was so great that they would be sorry to see them go past Montreal on to Ontario. But the ladies at Toronto are equally solicitous to procure good servant girls, who are excellently well treated in Canadian families. Even this excellent treatment is not sufficient to prevent them from marrying, strange to say, and the demand for wives fully keeps pace with the demand of housewives for servants. Indeed, the number of girls who keep to the first resolution they may have formed to get as far as Winnipeg is small indeed, for if they loiter by the way they take up situations in the cities along the road to the west. I have often tried to keep

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a household together when obliged to take them on distant journeys ; but it is surprising to see how the female members of it are now scattered in happy homesteads stretching between New York and Victoria, British Columbia, a distance of 4000 miles. In short, this imported European article is so popular that no government has dared to fix any tariff rate upon it, but the local authorities have been obliged to help in getting it by giving “ assisted passages ” to women as well as men.

If girls are sent, they should always be under some person’s guidance, or have some lady to whom they may apply. Societies and clergymen can easily correspond with Women’s Emigration Societies at Montreal and elsewhere, and only send the number required. The clergy may be relied on to report wisely and kindly as to the chances for working women, and the Canadian report can be acted on by the clergy at home, who can raise funds to help deserving women. The cost of reaching settlements wThere there are no railways is unfortunately great, but if £8 can be given to take women on from Winnipeg to places like Prince Albert they are certain to be welcome there.

Chapter II

The Bay of Fundy — Annapolis — Louisburg — Shipbuilding in Nova Scotia — New Brunswick — The Cascapedia — Prince Edward’s Island — The Fisheries — Newfoundland.

WELL-KNOWN book, entitled “ Sam Slick,11 tells the story of a shrewd and enterprising elockmaker who goes about Nova Scotia selling his wares and turning a penny to his own advantage, but not always to that of his customers in the old province by the sea. In comparison with the push and goaheadism of New England, he finds the provincial people but slow-coaches, and declares they are always talking of doing a thing, and never doing it. Since his day the character of the country and of the country people has considerably altered, and the railway locomotive may be seen ringing its bell and steaming through woodland villages and over fertile meadows and past rough forests, where even Sam Slick himself would not have thought it would be worth while to push a track.

Before touching upon the newer regions of Canada, it is needful to refer to the country first seen after making a voyage to Canada ; and to show how, without going far from England, and while keeping within the reach of the daily post, of the telegraph line, and

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of the bi-weekly or tri-weekly communication with England, and at a distance of only ten days’ journey from London, fair lands with fair opportunities for settlement can be found. Let us, then, take one or two scenes in each of the old provinces which are so easily reached. As John Bull, when he becomes a tourist, is always fond of getting up to the top of a hill to look around him, let me take you to the top of a steep isolated cliff at the end of a long ridge of volcanic rock which is covered with pine woods, and which overlooks a gulf of the sea on one side, and a fair, wide, and green valley, twenty miles in width upon the other. If you wait until the tide ebbs, you will see that it leaves a vast stretch of red sand, for the tide goes back very far. It will come back again over those sands with a rush which sends the water up as fast as a horse can gallop, until it surges against a long line of earth entrenchments like the Dutch dykes, which prevents its further advance.

If you look carefully upon the country mapped out beneath your feet, you may see certain other ridges which look like old earth walls. They are some distance inland now, and but just visible amongst villages, orchards, and country studded with white comfortablelooking wooden farmhouses having verandahs and gardens around, and you would be right in supposing that these old walls are ancient dykes. Formerly the mighty tide of the Bay of Fundy, now restrained by the outer walls, swept up to them. The inland dykes were made in old days — days which have been rendered familiar to many by the genius of Longfellow, who wrote the story of a time when the happiness of

20 CANADIAN LIFE AND SCENERTt.

the old French Acadian dwellers in this valley had come to an end, and the Avar which had raged between England and France had touched them too, and had compelled them to leave to others the well-loved Grand Pre, or Great Meadow, which they had tilled in security for some generations.

In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,

Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand Pre

Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,

Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.

Dykes that the hands of the farmers had raised with labour incessant,

Shut out the turbulent tides ; hut at stated seasons the flood-gates

Opened, and welcomed the sea to Avander at will o’er the meadows.

West and south were fields of flax, and orchards and cornfields

Spreading afar and unfenced o’er the plain ; and away to the northward

Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft in the mountains

Sea fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic

Looked on the happy valley, but ne’er from their station descended.

Longfellow’s Evangeline.

This valley is only two or three hours distant by rail from Halifax, one of the winter ports of the Dominion of Canada, a port to Avhich steam vessels from the Mersey sail every week. Its white farmhouses and its orchards are types of many others to be found in various portions of the province of Nova

HALIFAX.

Scotia, which is a province singularly rich in varied geological formations, and having, with a little gold, what is far more valuable than any gold-field, great fields of coal. If wages were only as low in Nova Scotia as they are in England and Scotland, one of her ports — the port of Pictou — would soon rival Glasgow or Belfast or London as a great iron shipbuilding port. Near it are mines almost as vast as those of Lanarkshire. Close to the water are these great veins of coal of twenty or thirty feet in thickness, and the galleries of the mine are so spacious that fullgrown horses are used, while the miner swings his pick, not crouched or cramped in a bending attitude, but standing at his full height. Close to the sea also, and close to the coal-mines, are hills full of excellent iron ore. Around almost every town in Nova Scotia farms may be had where the head of the family may be sure to have excellent schooling for his children, a church service exactly like his own at home to attend, and a ready market for any produce he may raise.

The rich red soil is as deep and good at the head of the Bay of Fundy, where a comparatively narrow strip of land separates its waters from those of Northumberland Straits, as the Sound is called which separates the mainland and Prince Edward’s Island. Very many of the apples which come to the English market, and are sold as American apples, come from Canada. How delicious is this fruit, in the hot autumn days, and the appearance of the great orchards, when spring spreads a cloud of blossom over the luxuriant grass chequered with pleasant shade ! The inland countries are rich in apple crops also, but there is no

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better tract than the Vale of Annapolis, stretching from Windsor south-eastward behind the sheltering hills which hide it from the northern winds.

The little town called after Queen Anne, which gives its name to the valley, and is situated at its end at the head of a beautiful land-locked bay, has interesting associations with the past. It at one time had the dignity of being the capital town of Nova Scotia, and our governors used to reside there, troops occupied a carefully built fort, now in ruin, and the British squadrons rode on the bay. It is now shorn of its glory. It seemed to me to possess some wonderfully well-preserved old ladies, as well as many pretty young ones. Among the things told me by one of the former, were recollections of the days when she used to dance with the Duke of Kent, and when she remembered seeing a negro slave-woman bound to one of the trees near the court-house to receive a whipping! The school where a promising lad used to receive his lessons and an occasional birching was pointed out, for the boy became Sir Fenwick Williams, the brave defender of Kars in Asia Minor against the forces of the Russian General MouraviefF, in the war of 1854. But Annapolis can tell, although not through the mouth of her living citizens, of other warriors.

Above the present town, on the slope of the hills to the south, are the remains of an old earthwork. It is all that remains of a French fort, and from the grasscovered rampart was dug not long ago one of the most beautifully shaped and wrought arrow-heads ever carved by man. It was cut from a perfectly pure piece of transparent quartz, and was finished like a

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gem. Point and sharp barbs and short shaft were all as perfect as on the day when it left the old Indian artist’s hand, and was fixed to the feathered wood to be shot from a how against the earliest white settlers. It must have missed the armour of the soldier against whom it was aimed, and have pierced only the turf, and there remained hidden until brought to light by the English farmer. Against whom was it thrown? Probably against the palisades and ramparts erected by De Poitrincourt, Seigneur under the lilies of France of the Valley of Port Royal about the year 1610.

Delighted with the fair harbour and pleasant neighbourhood, a military colony was here established ; but the natives for several years were unable to brook the presence of strangers, and skirmishes were frequent. As with the Spaniards in the south, the first care of the Catholic adventurers was to beat the Indians, and then to persuade them to adopt the true faith. To the ceremony of the surrender of the Indians succeeded the ceremony of their admission within the pale of the Church. The savages remained on the side of the French in the wars afterwards fought with the British, who in the time of Queen Anne conquered Port Royal and changed its name in honour of their Queen. This is the story which is repeated with varying incidents through all the long-drawn coasts of old Acadia. We see first the forest village of the Red Indians, with its stockades and patches of maize around it; then the landing from the ships under the white flag sown with golden lilies, of armoured arquebussiers and spearmen ; the skirmishing, and the successful French settlement, to be followed by the coming of other ships, with the

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red cross floating over the high-built sterns, and then the final conflict, and the victory of the British arms.

Leaving the richer parts of Nova Scotia’s territory, let us look at a spot on the eastern shore of its great island, Cape Breton. This is Louisburg, of old a fortress called after the French king, and defended by some of the best regiments of France. The shores are low and rocky, and the growth of wood in the neighbourhood does not show much fertility of soil. A few fishermen’s houses at the head of a semicircular bay, guarded by low ridges of rock which just peep above the sea, alone show that men now care to live there. But there is a regularly shaped embankment at one place to the left as our vessel casts anchor, and on landing we find ourselves in the centre of a space yet hemmed in by the remains of a great rampart and ditch. Ruins of strong casemates, shattered vaulted buildings, and the traces of the foundations of many structures are before us. These are all that remain of the key of New France.

Some of our party went by rail to examine the fine coal-mines near Sydney, some miles away, and others took to digging for relics of old fights. A plentiful harvest of these was soon secured, and a curious collection it was. There was a copper coin of Louis XIII. and soldiers’ buttons and buckles. There was a portion of an exploded hand-grenade, the remnant of an old sword, the brass-work of which around the hilt was unimpaired, although green with age ; there was even the breech piece of a small cannon, and the barrel of a musket. Had these lain buried ever since the day that saw the arrival of General Wolfe and the fleet bringing him to conquer in the enterprise which assured to him the command in the weightier operations undertaken subsequently against Quebec ?

We tried to realize amid the present loneliness and peaceful desolation the animated scene of the attack. We fancied the ramparts around us again square and trim with their masonry and earthworks. We watched the cannoneers and infantry massed in rear of the fortifications and alert behind the parapets and traverses. Again the British fleet, with high sterns and crowded sail, and accompanied by an armada of small craft, came gallantly into the bay. Then from the cloud ot smoke vomited from the French lines and the towering sides of the ships flew the hail of rushing round-shot. But the water between the shore and the fleet is now alive with boats, and the patter of musketry is succeeded by a roar and rattle of guns which drown all other sounds. No one can hear his comrade’s voice. The rain of fire has sunk several boats, and the surf on the beach will surely prevent a landing. But no ! a slight figure stands up in the leading barge and waves his cocked hat. His companions in crowds leap into the white foam and, landing, form under the little cover afforded by the first ridge of soil above the sands. More and more succeed in effecting a lodgment. The French have lost their opportunity, and on the bloodstained beach the English are firmly established. The fall of the town is only a question of days; and the surrender of Louisburg gives over all but the St. Lawrence to the Anglo-Saxon rule. It was not long before the place was found inferior to Halifax, where a harbour which is never closed by ice has since become a flourishing town.