Canada and the Canadians

S >> Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle >> Canada and the Canadians

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Gin-sling, cock-tail, mint-julep, are about as vulgar as blue ruin and
old tom at home; but sherry cobbler is an affair of consideration--only
never pound your ice, always rasp it.

It is a custom on board the Canadian steamers for gentlemen to call for
a pint of wine at dinner, or for a bottle, according to the strength of
the party; but it is a custom more honoured in the breach than the
observance; for sherry and port are the usual stock, both fiery as
brandy, and costing the moderate price of seven shillings and sixpence a
bottle, the steward having laid the same in at about one shilling and
eight pence, or at most two shillings. Why this imposition, the only one
you meet with in travelling in Canada at hotels or steamboats, is
perpetrated and perpetuated, I could never learn.

Many American gentlemen, however, encourage it, and have told me that
they do so because they get no good port in the States. Ale and porter
are charged two shillings and sixpence a bottle, which is double their
worth. Be careful also not to drink freely of the iced water, which is
always supplied _ad libitum_. Few Europeans escape the effects of
water-drinking when they land at Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, Toronto,
&c. There is something peculiar, which has never yet been satisfactorily
explained by medical men, in the sudden attack upon the system produced
by the waters of Canada: this is sometimes slight, but more often lasts
several days, and reduces the strength a good deal. Iced water is worse,
and produces country cholera. The Americans use ice profusely, and drink
such draughts of iced water, that I have been astonished at the impunity
with which they did so.

Perhaps the change from a moist sea atmosphere to the dry and
desiccating air of Canada, where iron does not rust, may be one cause of
the malady alluded to, and another, in addition to the water, the
difference of cookery; for here, at public tables and on board the boats
generally, where black cooks prevail, all is butter and grease.

But the change of climate is undoubtedly great. I had been long an
inhabitant of Upper Canada, and fancied myself seasoned; but, having
returned to England, and spending afterwards two or three years in the
excessively humid air of the sea-coast of Newfoundland at St. Johns,
where I became somewhat stout, on my return to Upper Canada, for want of
a little preparatory caution in medicine, although naturally of a spare
habit, I was seized with a violent bleeding at the nose, which baffled
all remedies for several months, until artificial mineral water and a
copious use of solutions of iron stopped it. No doubt this prevented the
fever of the lakes, and was owing to the dryness of the air. I mention
this to caution all new-comers, young and old, to take timely advice and
medicine.

There is another complaint in Upper Canada, which attacks the settler
very soon after his arrival, especially if young, and that is worms; a
disorder very prevalent at all times in Canada, particularly among the
poorer classes, and probably owing to food.

These, with ague and colic, or country cholera, are the chief evils of
the clime; few are, however, fatal, excepting the lake fever, and that
principally among children.

The sportsman should recollect, in so marshy and woody a country,
subject as it is to the most surprising alternations of temperature,
that instead of minding that celebrated rule, "Keep your powder dry," he
should read, "Keep your feet dry." Dry feet and the avoidance of sitting
in wet or damp clothes, or drinking iced water when hot, or of cooling
yourself in a delicious draught of air when in a perspiration, are the
best precautions against ague, fever, colic, or cholera--in a country
where the thermometer reaches 90 deg. in the shade, and sometimes 110 deg., as
it did last summer, and 27 deg. below zero in the winter, with rapid
alternations embracing such a range of the scale as is unknown
elsewhere.

In the country places, in travelling, you will invariably find that
windows are very little attended to, and that the head of your bed, or
the side of it, is placed against a loosely-fitting broken sash. The
night-fogs and damps are highly dangerous to new-comers; so act
accordingly.

Fleas and bugs, and "such small deer," you must expect in every inn you
stop at, even in the cities; for it appears--and indeed I did not know
the fact until this year--that bugs are indigenous, _native to the
soil_, and breed in the bark of old trees; so that if you build a new
house, you bring the enemy into your camp. Nothing but cleanliness and
frequent whitewash, colouring, paint, and soft soap, will get rid of
them. If it were not for the strong smell of red cedar and its extreme
brittleness, I would have my bedstead of that material; for even the
iron bedsteads, in the soldiers' barracks, become infested with them if
not painted often. Red cedar they happily eschew.

Travellers may talk as they please of mosquitoes being the scourge of
new countries; the bugs in Canada are worse, and the black fly and
sand-fly superlatively superior in annoyance. The black fly exists in
the neighbourhood of rivers or swamps, and attacks you behind the ear,
drawing a pretty copious supply of blood at each bite. The sand-fly, as
its name imports, exists in sandy soil, and is so small that it cannot
be seen without close inspection; its bite is sharp and fiery.

Then the farmer has the wheat-fly and the turnip-fly to contend against;
the former has actually devoured Lower Canada, and the latter has
obliged me in a garden to sow several successive crops. The melon-bug is
another nuisance; it is a small winged animal, of a bright yellow
colour, striped with black bars, and takes up its abode in the flower of
the melon and pumpkin, breeding fast, and destroying wherever it
settles, for young plants are literally eaten up by it.

The grub, living under ground in the daytime, and sallying forth at
night, is a ferocious enemy to cabbage-plants, lettuce, and most of the
young, tender vegetables; but, by taking a lantern and a pan after dark,
the gentlemen can be collected whilst on their tour, and poultry are
very fond of them. Last year, the potato crop failed throughout Canada.
What a singular dispensation!--for it alike suffered in Europe, and no
doubt the malady was atmospheric. The hay crop, too, suffered severely;
but still, by a merciful Providence, the wheat and corn harvest was
ample, and gathered in a month before the customary time.

By the word corn I mean oats, rye, and barley; but in the Canadas and in
the United States that word means maize or Indian-corn only, which in
Canada, last summer, was not, I should think, even an average crop. It
is extensively used here for food, as well as buckwheat, and for feeding
poultry.

But to our journey westward. I arrived at Toronto on the 27th of June,
and found the weather had changed to variable and fine.

On steaming up the harbour, I was greatly surprised and very much
pleased to see such an alteration as Toronto has undergone for the
better since 1837. Then, although a flourishing village, be-citied, to
be sure, it was not one third of its present size. Now it is a city in
earnest, with upwards of twenty thousand inhabitants--gas-lit, with good
plank side-walks and macadamized streets, and with vast sewers, and fine
houses, of brick or stone. The main street, King Street, is two miles
and more in length, and would not do shame to any town, and has a much
more English look than most Canadian places have.

Toronto is still the seat of the Courts of Law for Western Canada, of
the University of King's College, of the Bishopric of Toronto, and of
the Indian Office. Kingston has retained the militia head-quarter
office, and the Principal Emigrant Agency, with the Naval and Military
grand depots; so that the removal of the seat of Government to Montreal
has done no injury to Toronto, and will do very little to Kingston: in
fact, I believe firmly that, instead of being injurious, it will be very
beneficial. The presence of Government at Kingston gave an unnatural
stimulus to speculation among a population very far from wealthy; and
buildings of the most frail construction were run up in hundreds, for
the sake of the rent which they yielded temporarily.

The plan upon which these houses were erected was that of mortgage; thus
almost all are now in possession of one person who became suddenly
possessed of the requisite means by the sale of a large tract required
for military purposes. But this species of property seldom does the
owner good in his lifetime; and, if he does reclaim it, there is no
tenant to be had now; so that the building decays, and in a very short
time becomes an incumbrance. Mortgages only thrive where the demand is
superior and certain to the investment; and then, if all goes smoothly,
mortgager and mortgagee may benefit; but where a mechanic or a
storekeeper, with little or no capital, undertakes to run up an
extensive range of houses to meet an equivocal demand, the result is
obvious. If the houses he builds are of stone or brick, and well
finished, the man who loans the money is the gainer; if they are of
wood, indifferently constructed and of green materials, both must
suffer. So it is a speculation, and, like all speculations, a good deal
of repudiation mixes up with it.

There are two good houses of entertainment for the gentleman traveller
in Toronto; the Club House in Chewett's Buildings and Macdonald's Hotel.
In the former, a bachelor will find himself quite at home; in the
latter, a family man will have no reason to regret his stay.

But servants at Toronto--by which I mean _attendants_--are about on a
par with the same race all over Canada. The coloured people are the
best, but never make yourself dependent on either; for, if you are to
start by the stage or the steamer, depend on your watch, instead of upon
your boots being cleaned or your shaving-water being ready. In the
latter case, shave with cold water by the light of your candle, lit by
your own lucifer match. They are civil, however, and attentive, as far
as the very free and easy style of their acquirements will permit them;
for a cook will leave at a moment's notice, if she can better herself;
and any trivial occurrence will call off the waiter and the boots. The
only punctual people are the porters; and, as they wear glazed hats,
with the name of the hotel emblazoned thereon, frigate-fashion, you can
always find them.

An excellent arrangement is the omnibus attached to the hotels in Canada
West, which conveys you cost-free to and from the steamboat, and a very
comfortable wooden convenience it is, resembling very much the vans
which, in days of yore, plied near London.

My first start from Toronto was to Ultima Thule, Penetanguishene, a
locality scarcely to be found in the maps, and yet one of much
importance, situate and being north-north-west of the city some hundred
and eight miles, on Lake Huron.

The route is per coach to St. Alban's, thirty and three miles, along
Yonge Street, of which about one-third is macadamized from granite
boulders; the rest mud and etceteras, too numerous to mention. Yonge
Street is a continuous settlement, with an occasional sprinkling of the
original forest. The land on each side is fertile, and supplies Toronto
market.

It rises gradually by those singular steps, or ridges, formerly banks or
shores oL antediluvian oceans, till it reaches the vicinity of the
Holland river, a tortuous, sluggish, marshy, natural canal, flowing or
lazily creeping into Lake Simcoe, at an elevation of upwards of
seven-hundred and fifty feet above Lake Ontario, and emptying itself
into Lake Huron by a series of rapids, called the Matchedash or Severn
River.

The first quarter of the route to St. Alban's is a series of
country-houses, gentlemen's seats, half-pay officers' farms, prettily
fenced, and pleasant to the sight: the next third embraces Thornhill, a
nice village in a hollow; Richmond Hill, with a beautiful prospect and
detached settlements: the ultimate third is a rich, undulating country,
inhabited by well-to-do Quakers, with Newmarket on their right, and
looking for all the world very like "dear home," with orchards, and as
rich corn-fields and pastures as may be seen any where, backed,
however, by the eternal forest. It is peculiarly and particularly
beautiful.

A short distance before reaching St. Alban's, which is quite a new
village, the road descends rapidly, and the ground is broken into
hummocks.

But I must not forget Bond's Lake, a most singular feature of this part
of the road, which, perhaps, I shall treat of in returning from
Penetanguishene, as I am now in a hurry to get to St. Alban's.

Here, where all was scrub forest in 1837, are a little street, a house
of some pretension occupied by Mr. Laughton, the enterprising owner of
the Beaver steamboat, plying on Lake Simcoe, and two inns.

I stopped for the night, for Yonge Street is still a tiresome journey,
although only a stage of thirty three miles, at Winch's Tavern. This is
a very good road-side house, and the landlord and landlady are civil and
attentive. Before you go to roost, for stopping by the way-side is
pretty much like roosting, as you must be up with Chanticleer, you can
just look over Mr. Laughton's paling, and you will see as pretty a
florist's display as may be imagined. The owner is fond of flowers, and
he has lots of them, and, when you make his acquaintance afterwards in
the Beaver, you will find that he has lots of information also. But I
did not go in the Beaver, which ship "wharfs" some two or three miles
further ahead, at Holland River Landing, commonly called "the Landing,"
par excellence. Here flies, mosquitoes, ague, and other plagues, are so
rife, that all attempts at settlement are vanity and vexation of spirit.

So, being willing to see what had happened in Gwillimbury since 1837, I
took a waggon and the land road, and went off as day broke, or rather
before it broke, about four a.m., in a deep gray mist. The waggon should
be described, as it is the best _voiture_ in Western Canada.

Four wheels, of a narrow tire, are attached without any springs to a
long body, formed of straight boards, like a piano-case, only more
clumsy; in which, resting on inside rims or battens, are two seats, with
or without backs, generally without, on which, perhaps, a hay-cushion,
or a buffalo-skin, or both, are placed. Two horses, good, bad, or
indifferent, as the case may be, the positive and comparative degrees
being the commonest, drag you along with a clever driver, who can turn
his hand to chopping, carpentering, wheelwright's work, playing the
fiddle, drinking, or any other sort of thing, and is usually an Irishman
or an Irishman's son. For two dollars and a half a day he will drive you
to Melville Island, or Parry's Sound, if you will only stick by him; and
he jogs along, smoking his _dudeen_, over corduroy roads, through mud
holes that would astonish a cockney, and over sand and swamp, rocks and
rough places enough to dislocate every joint in your body, all his own
being anchylosed or used to it, which is the same thing, in the
dictionary.

He will keep you _au courant_, at the same time, tell the name of every
settler and settlement, and some good stories to boot. He is a capital
fellow, is "Paddy the driver," generally a small farmer, and always has
a contract with the commissariat.

The first place of any note we came to, as day broke out of the blue fog
which rose from the swampy forest, was Holland River Bridge, an
extraordinary structure, half bridge, half road, over a swamp created by
that river in times long gone by; a level tract of marsh and wild rice
as far as the eye can reach, full of ducks and deer, with the Holland
River in the midst, winding about like a serpentine canal, and looking
as if it had been fast asleep since its last shake of the ague.

Crossing this bridge-road, now in good order, but in 1837 requiring
great dexterity and agility to pass, you come to a slight elevation of
the land, and a little village in West Gwillimbury, which, I should
think, is a capital place to catch lake-fever in.

The road to it is good, but, after passing it and turning northwards,
is but little improved, being very primitive through the township of
Innisfil. However, we jogged along in mist and rain, on the 29th of
June, and saw the smoke, ay, and smelt it too, of numerous clearings or
forest burnings, indicating settlement, till we reached Wilson's Tavern,
where, every body having the ague, it was somewhat difficult to get
breakfast. This is thirteen miles from St. Alban's.

Having refreshed, however, with such as it was, we visited Mr. Wilson's
stable, and saw a splendid stud horse which he was rearing, and as
handsome a thorough-bred black as you could wish to see in the
backwoods.

Proceeding in rain, we drove, by what in England would be called an
execrable road, through the townships of Innisfil and Vespra to Barrie,
the capital hamlet of the district of Simcoe.

On emerging from the woods three or four miles from Barrie, Kempenfeldt
Bay suddenly appears before you, and if the road was better, a more
beautiful ride there is not in all broad Canada. Fancy, however, that,
without any Hibernicism, the best road is in the water of the lake. This
is owing to the swampy nature of the land, and to the circumstance that
a belt of hard sand lines the edge of the bay; so Paddy drove smack into
the water of Kempenfeldt, and, as he said, sure we were travelling by
water every way, for we had a deluge of rain above, and Lake Simcoe
under us.

But natheless we arrived at Barrie by mid-day, a very fair journey of
twenty-eight miles in eight hours, over roads, as the French say,
_inconcevable_; and alighted like river gods at the Queen's Arms, J.
Bingham, Barrie.

Barrie, named after the late commodore, Sir Robert Barrie, is no common
village, nor is the Queen's Arms a common hostel. It is a good,
substantial, stone edifice, fitted up and kept in a style which neither
Toronto nor Kingston, nay, nor Montreal can rival, as far as its extent
goes. I do assure you, it is a perfect paradise after the road from St.
Alban's; and, as the culinary department is unexceptionable, and the
beds free from bugs, and all neatness and no noise, I will award Mrs.
Bingham a place in these pages, which must of course immortalize her.
They are English people; and, when I last visited their house, in 1837,
had only a log-hut: now they are well to do, and have built themselves a
neat country-house.

When I first saw Barrie, or rather before Barrie was, as I passed over
its present site, in 1831, there was but one building and a little
clearance. In 1846, it is fast approaching to be a town, and will be a
city, as it is admirably placed at the bottom of an immense inlet of
Lake Simcoe, with every capability of opening a communication with the
new settlements of Owen Sound and St. Vincent, and the south shore of
Lake Huron.

It has been objected, to this opinion respecting Barrie, that the
Narrows of Lake Simcoe is the proper site for "The City of the North,"
as the communication by land, instead of being thirty-six miles to
Penetanguishene, the best harbour on Lake Huron, is only fourteen, or
at most nineteen miles, the former taking to Cold Water Creek, and the
latter to Sturgeon Bay; but then there is a long and somewhat dangerous
transit in the shallowest part of the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron to
Penetanguishene.

If a railroad was established between Barrie and the naval station, this
would be not only the shortest but the safest route to Lake Huron; for,
if Sturgeon Bay is chosen, in war-time the transit trade and the
despatch of stores for the government would be subjected to continual
hindrance and depredation from the multitude of islands and
hiding-places between Sturgeon Bay and Penetanguishene; whilst, on the
other hand, no sagacious enemy would penetrate the country from Sturgeon
Bay and leave such a stronghold as Penetanguishene in his rear, whereby
all his vessels and supplies might be suddenly cut off, and his return
rendered impracticable.

Barrie is, therefore, well chosen, both as a transit town and as the
site of naval operations on Lake Simcoe, whenever they may be
necessary.

For this reason, government commenced the military road between Barrie
and Penetanguishene, and settled it with pensioned soldiers, and also
settled naval and military retired or half-pay officers all round Lake
Simcoe. But, as we shall have to talk a good deal about this part of the
country, and I must return by the road, let us hasten on to our night's
lodging at the Ordnance Arms, kept by the ancient widow of J. Bruce, an
old artilleryman.

Since 1837, the road, then impassable for anything but horses or very
small light waggons, has been much improved, and Paddy drove us on,
after dinner at Bingham's, through the heavy rain _a merveille_!

When I passed this road before, what a road it was! or, in the words of
the eulogist of the great Highland road-maker, General Wade,

"Had you seen this road, before it was made,
You would have lift up your eyes and blessed"
General somebody.

It was necessary, as late as 1837, to take a horse; and, placing your
valise on another, mount the second with a guide. My guide was always a
French Canadian named Francois; and many an adventure in the
interminable forest have we experienced together; for if Francois had
lost his way, we should have perhaps reached the Copper-mine River, or
the Northern Frozen Ocean, and have solved the question of the passage
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or else we should have had a certain
convocation of politic wolves or bears, busy in rendering us and our
horses invisible; for, after all, they have the true receipt of fern
seed, and you can walk about, after having suffered transmigration into
their substance, without its ever being suspected that you were either
an officer of engineers or a Franco-Canadian guide.

An old and respected officer, once travelling this bridle road with
Francois and myself, and mounted on a better horse than either of ours,
which was lent to him by the Assistant Commissary-General stationed at
Penetanguishene, got ahead of us considerably, and, by some accident,
wandered into the gloomy pine forest. Missing him for a quarter of an
hour, I rode as fast as my horse, which was not encumbered with baggage,
would go ahead, and, observing fresh tracks of a horse's shoes in the
mud, followed them until I heard in the depths of the endless and solemn
woods faint shouts, which, as I came nearer to them, resolved themselves
into the syllables of my name. I found my chief, and begged him never
again, as he had never been there before, to think of leaving us. Had he
gone out of sound, his fate would have been sealed, unless the horse,
used as it was to the path, had wandered into it again; but horses and
cattle are frequently lost in these solitudes, and, perhaps being
frightened by the smell of the wild beasts, or, as man always does when
lost, they wander in a circle, and thus frequently come near the place
from which they started, but not sufficiently so to hit the almost
invisible path.

But although the road, excepting in the middle of summer, is still
indifferent, it is perfectly safe, and a lady may now go to
Penetanguishene comparatively comfortably.

Bruce's tavern is a respectable log-house, twelve miles from Barrie; and
here you can get the usual fare of ham, eggs, and chickens, with
occasionally fresh meat from Barrie, and perhaps as good a bed as can be
had in Canada. We started from Barrie at half-past two, and arrived at
half-past five.

Whiskey, be it known, with very atrocious brandy, is the only beverage,
excepting water, along the country roads of Canada.

From Bruce's we drove to Dawson's, also kept by the widow of an old
soldier, where every thing is equally clean, respectable, and
comfortable. It is seven miles distant.

Beyond this is Nicoll's, near a corduroy swamp road; and three miles
further (which place eschew), seven years ago, I heard the landlady's
voice chiding a little girl, who had been sent a quarter of a mile for a
jug of water. I heard the same voice again in action, and for the same
cause, and a very dirty urchin again brought some very dirty water. In
fact, whiskey was too plentiful and water too scarce.

From Nicoll's to Jeff's Corner is ten long and weary miles, five or six
of which are through the forest. Jeff's is not a tavern, so that you
must go to bait the horses to Des Hommes, about two miles further, where
there is no inducement to stay, it being kept by an old French Canadian,
who has a large family of half-breeds. Therefore, on to the village of
Penetanguishene, which is twenty miles from Bruce's, or some say
twenty-four. We started from Bruce's at half-past three in the morning,
and reached "The Village," as it is always called, at half-past twelve,
on the 30th of June, and the rain still continuing ever since we left
Toronto. Thus, with great expedition, it took the best portion of three
days for a transit of only 108 miles. This has been done in twenty-four
hours by another route, as I shall explain on my return.

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