The Backwoods of Canada / Being Letters from the Wife of an Emigrant Officer, Illustrative of the Domestic Economy of British America

by Catharine Parr Strickland Traill

Our society is mostly military or naval; so that we meet on equal grounds, and are, of course, well acquainted with the rules of good breeding and polite life; too much so to allow any deviation from those laws that good taste, good sense, and good feeling have established among persons of our class.

Yet here it is considered by no means derogatory to the wife of an officer or gentleman to assist in the work of the house, or to perform its entire duties if occasion requires it; to understand the mystery of soap, candle, and sugar-making; to make bread, butter, and cheese, or even to milk her own cows; to knit and spin, and prepare the wool for the loom. In these matters we bush-ladies have a wholesome disregard of what Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so thinks or says. We pride ourselves on conforming to circumstances; and as a British officer must needs be a gentleman and his wife a lady, perhaps we repose quietly on that incontestable proof of our gentility, and can afford to be useful without injuring it.

Our husbands adopt a similar line of conduct: the officer turns his sword into a ploughshare, and his lance into a sickle; and if he be seen ploughing among the stumps in his own field, or chopping trees on his own land, no one thinks less of his dignity, or considers him less of a gentleman, than when he appeared upon parade in all the pride of military etiquette, with sash, sword and epaulette. Surely this is as it should be in a country where independence is inseparable from industry; and for this I prize it.

Among many advantages we in this township possess, it is certainly no inconsiderable one that the lower or working class of settlers are well disposed, and quite free from the annoying Yankee manners that distinguish many of the earlier-settled townships. Our servants are as respectful, or nearly so, as those at home; nor are they admitted to our tables, or placed on an equality with us, excepting at "bees," and such kinds of public meetings; when they usually conduct themselves with a propriety that would afford an example to some that call themselves gentlemen, viz., young men who voluntarily throw aside those restraints that society expects from persons filling a respectable situation.

Intemperance is too prevailing a vice among all ranks of people in this country; but I blush to say it belongs most decidedly to those that consider themselves among the better class of emigrants. Let none such complain of the airs of equality displayed towards them by the labouring class, seeing that they degrade themselves below the honest, sober settler, however poor. If the sons of gentlemen lower themselves, no wonder if the sons of poor men endeavour to exalt themselves about him in a country where they all meet on equal ground; and good conduct is the distinguishing mark between the classes.

Some months ago, when visiting a friend in a distant part of the country, I accompanied her to stay a few days in the house of a resident clergyman, curate of a flourishing village in the township of ———. I was struck by the primitive simplicity of the mansion and its inhabitants. We were introduced into the little family sitting-room, the floor of which was painted after the Yankee fashion; instead of being carpeted, the walls were of unornamented deal, and the furniture of the room of corresponding plainness. A large spinning-wheel, as big as a cart-wheel, nearly occupied the centre of the room, at which a neatly- dressed matron, of mild and lady-like appearance, was engaged spinning yarn; her little daughters were knitting beside the fire, while their father was engaged in the instruction of two of his sons; a third was seated affectionately in a little straw chair between his feet, while a fourth was plying his axe with nervous strokes in the court-yard, casting from time to time wistful glances through the parlour-window at the party within.

The dresses of the children were of a coarse sort of stuff, a mixture of woollen and thread, the produce of the farm and their mother's praiseworthy industry. The stockings, socks, muffatees, and warm comforters were all of home manufacture. Both girls and boys wore mocassins, of their own making: good sense, industry, and order presided among the members of this little household.

Both girls and boys seemed to act upon the principle, that nothing is disgraceful but that which is immoral and improper.

Hospitality without extravagance, kindness without insincerity of speech, marked the manners of our worthy friends. Every thing in the house was conducted with attention to prudence and comfort. The living was but small (the income arising from it, I should have said), but there was glebe land, and a small dwelling attached to it, and, by dint of active exertion without-doors, and economy and good management within, the family were maintained with respectability: in short, we enjoyed during our sojourn many of the comforts of a cleared farm; poultry of every kind, beef of their own killing, excellent mutton and pork: we had a variety of preserves at our tea-table, with honey in the comb, delicious butter, and good cheese, with divers sorts of cakes; a kind of little pancake, made from the flour of buck-wheat, which are made in a batter, and raised with barm, afterwards dropped into boiling lard, and fried; also a preparation made of Indian corn-flour, called supporne-cake, which is fried in slices, and eaten with maple-syrup, were among the novelties of our breakfast-fare.

I was admiring a breed of very fine fowls in the poultry-yard one morning, when my friend smiled and said, "I do not know if you will think I came honestly by them."