Pictures of Canadian Life: A Record of Actual Experiences

by J. Ewing Ritchie

As in duty bound, I have reached Niagara Falls, and from motives equally conscientious forbear to trouble you with either poetry or prose on the scene that now meets my eye. In seeing them I have an advantage—that in this early season of the year I am alone and free from the crowd of visitors that sometimes infest the spot. As it is, there is quite enough of modern civilization there to disturb the poetry of the place; and the scream of the steam-engine sadly interferes with the enjoyment of that everlasting roar which rises as the vast body of waters tumbles over the falls—raising up majestic mountains of mist—and then sweeps grandly to the rapids, in the raging whirlpools of which poor Captain Webb lost his life, or, in plainer words, committed suicide. Then there are the cabmen, who will not give you a moment’s peace, and affect not to understand you when you intimate that you prefer to walk rather than to ride; and a grand walk it is, about a mile from the station on the Canadian side. Far, far below is the river—a chasm in a mass of old dark rock—into which you peer with wondering eyes till the brain is almost dizzy. Words fail to convey the impressions, as passing cloud and fleeting sunshine add to the marvellous beauty of the spot. I scrambled down to where the ferry-boat is, and drank in all the charm of the place, not caring to be ferried across, quite satisfied with watching the eternal fall of water as I sat there—a mere human speck in that mysterious grandeur. The white man has come and made the place his own. He has now thrown three bridges across it, and on the American side has built a brewery, whose ‘Niagara ales’ are famous all over the American Continent. I am glad to say that it is only on the Canadian side that you have a good view of the Falls; but on neither side is there what there ought to be, a wilderness. On each side there are houses and hotels, and churches, all the way; and I was offered Guinness’s Dublin Stout and Bass’s Pale Ale, just as if I were dining in a Fleet Street restaurant. On my return I met a funeral procession. Death had come into one of the wooden houses on the side, and the friends and relatives had ridden in their buggies and country carts to pay the last tribute of respect to the deceased. Yes; death is lord of life—in the New World as well as in the Old.

I went then by way of Hamilton, through a district as fertile and as well-farmed as any in England, looking far more civilized than any part I have yet seen. There are no stumps of trees in the ground, as there are elsewhere, and the houses look as if they had been built long enough to allow of home comforts; and, as Hamilton is the place to which many of our poor lads are sent, I was glad to feel that in such a district they would have few hardships to encounter, and would have every chance of getting on. Here at one time there were bears and wolves; but they have long since disappeared before the march of their master, man. It is not so long since there was quail shooting on the very site of the city of Toronto, and hawks would carry off the chickens the earlier emigrants were attempting painfully to rear, and the Indians were also unwelcome guests. I have heard of an old Scotch settler who, as his last resort, invoked the aid of bagpipes, wherewith to frighten his unwelcome guests; but even that did not frighten the Indians, who carried off the contents of his potato ground, undisturbed by a musical performance which would have struck terror into the stoutest English heart. Well, all that wild forest region is now the home of peace and plenty, and distant be the day when Professor Goldwin Smith’s idea will be realized, and it has been peacefully annexed by the United States. Out in Canada that idea finds little favour. Why should it? It is a favourite boast with Americans that Canada will ultimately be theirs. I am sure that is not a favourite idea of the Canadians themselves. Great Britain, it is to be hoped, will be as loyal to Canada as Canada is to her.

The thing is not to be settled quite so easily as Professor Goldwin Smith anticipates. In Quebec Province we have a million of French Canadians, who make no secret of their preference to a French rather than an English alliance, and who are quite prepared to act accordingly, as soon as British authority shall have become relaxed. Then we have the Acadians of Nova Scotia, who would probably follow the lead of French Canada; nor could the few Britishers of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island escape the same fate. France is quite prepared to increase her influence in this part of the world. Indeed, at the present moment there is talk of her buying the island of Anticosti, which, as you may be aware, though almost uninhabited now—save in the summer, when the fishermen go there—makes a very respectable appearance in the river St. Lawrence. Then we come to Ontario, which, placed as she is, could not withstand an attack from the United States.

Once upon a time the Yankees did make an attempt of the kind—that was in 1837—an attempt which the loyal men of Canada helped Sir Francis Head to put down. Toronto escaped, though she had the enemy at her very gates. I must say that all the Canadians with whom I have spoken have no wish to become Americans. For one thing, they say they can’t afford it. Government is more costly in America than in Canada. I admit as much as anyone the right of the people to decide their fate. If the Canadians prefer to live under the star-spangled banner, it is vain for us to attempt to retain them. But the danger is the indifference of the English public as to the value of such a colony as that of Canada, a country bigger than all Europe, and at present with a sparse population only equalling that of London. A few brief facts will show the importance of the North-West to the English, not merely as a field for emigration, but for other reasons as well.

From Liverpool to Winnipeg, viâ Hudson’s Bay, the distance is less by 1,100 miles than by way of the St. Lawrence, and they are now talking of making a railway along that route. From Liverpool to China and Japan, viâ the northern route, the distance is 1,000 miles shorter than by any other line. It is really 2,000 miles shorter than by San Francisco and New York. How immense, then, will be the power which the possession of Hudson’s Bay, and of the railway route through to the Pacific, must confer upon Great Britain, so long as she holds it under safe control!—and where is the nation that can prevent her so holding it, as long as her fleets command the North Atlantic? It is utterly inconceivable that English statesmen would be found so mad or so unpatriotic as thus to throw away the key of the world’s commerce, by neglecting or surrendering British interests in the North-West. Our great cities would not sanction such a policy for an instant. England could better afford to give up the Suez Canal, or be rid of her South African colonies. The interests of the two countries are inseparable. We require the North-West to send us grain. She requires us as her best customer. Manitoba has her natural market in Great Britain, and in the near future Great Britain will have her best customers in Manitoba and the North-Western Provinces.

It is to the credit of the Canadians—that is, if figures may be trusted—that they spend less on drink, and more on education, than we do in the Old Country.

Party feeling runs high; but it is difficult to an outsider to understand what is the line of separation between the ins and the outs. An English writer tells us that she once asked a member of the Greek Opposition in Parliament, what was the difference between them and the Government. ‘Why,’ was his reply, ‘it is this. If M. Tricoupi says we want railroads, we say, “No; we want canals.” If he says a thing must be done by horses, we say, “No; it must be done by oxen.”’ It is just the same here. What one party proposes the other opposes. The present rulers rode into power on the wings of Protection. They are Tories; but it is to be feared the Liberals would have done the same, had they had a chance. It is the fashion to use very bad language, and to imply the worst of motives to your opponents; and it is in this easy way the Canadian newspapers fill up their columns when they are not—and this seems their great mission—quarrelling with one another.

The country farmers, who are much keener men of business than their fellow farmers in the Old Country, care little about politics. At the last election a friend of mine said to a farmer, ‘Have you voted?’ ‘Oh yes!’ was the reply. ‘Well, for which party?’ Ah, that was a question he could not answer. He had voted as his neighbour told him; and he knew that his neighbour was a real good man, and that he would not give him bad advice. So long as voters are thus simple, elections will be a mockery and a sham.

I have left Toronto behind, and here I am on Lake Superior, the largest body of fresh water in the world—so large is it, that if you immerse in it Great Britain and Ireland, and add the Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight, there would still be a respectable amount of water to spare—enough, at any rate, to make a river as long as the Thames, which we in England hold to be a very decent sort of river indeed. As I came up the St. Lawrence, some of the Canadians, who are, as they may well be, proud of their grand river, asked me what I thought of it. My reply was that for a colony so young, it was a very tidy sort of river indeed; and I may say the same of the enormous body of water on which I am now floating. It is a big thing indeed—as might be expected, where both Canada and the United States contribute to its bigness. We are in the middle of the lake, having Michigan on one side. Already we have stopped twice—once to take a pilot, and then again at Le Sault, where we had to stay while we waited our turn to enter the canal which connects the Georgian Bay to Lake Superior. There, indeed, we were made conscious of the fact that we were within the United States, as the banner of the stars and stripes floated proudly on each side of us, and there were a few soldiers in blue regimentals standing on the wharf, to say nothing of loafers, and boys and girls and half-breeds, to welcome our arrival.

For one thing I felt proud of my country. The Americans have nothing here equal to the Algoma, a crack steamer built on the Clyde for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and to which, at this present moment, are entrusted Cæsar and his fortunes. It is only the second trip the Algoma has made, as for the greater season of the year this immense water-way, incredible as it seems to us, is a solid block of ice, and we have it all around us still. I boarded the Algoma on Saturday afternoon, after a rapid run by rail from Toronto, which city we left in the morning at half-past eleven, and I assure you I was glad the journey was safely over, as once or twice it seemed to me, at one or two of the curves, the cars were very near leaving the rails; and the boy—they are all boys here—who had to attend to the brake, gave me a grin, as if he thought that we had much to be thankful for that we kept the track at all. I presume I shall get used to that sort of thing, but at present the sensation experienced in rounding some of the curves is more novel than agreeable.