Peeps at Many Lands: Canada

by J. T. Bealby

This behaviour excited the curiosity of one of the gentlemen, a stranger, and he asked his companion: "Who's that odd-looking figure?"

"Ah! I don't wonder at your asking that? He's an old Indian. For years he has haunted the shores of this lake. Every summer he has attacks of fever or some such illness, and when he feels them coming on he goes away from the reserve in which his own people live and makes himself a hut of the branches of trees beside the lake, in a lonely spot where nobody can see him, and there he remains until he recovers, and never speaks to a single individual all the time he is here."

Now, this poor old Indian is typical of his race. The Indian, the glorified Redskin of Fenimore Cooper as well as the fierce Indian of the Western Plains, whom Mayne Reid has made familiar to English readers, is rapidly dying out. As a race, the North American Indian is as decrepit, as sad, and as dejected a creature as the poor old man who sought healing beside the lake. In Canada the Indians are fairly numerous in certain parts; but they are very little seen in the cities and towns of the white man. You may catch a fleeting glimpse of one or two at some wayside station, come to offer moccasins, gloves, purses, deer's horns, or other curios for sale to the passing traveller; but it is not until the Indian is spoken to that the traveller hears the sound of his voice, and even then the native may not open his lips, but will content himself with using the language of signs.

The Indians nearly all live in "reserves"—that is, tracts of land which the Government gives to them, and off which it keeps all white men. The reserve is meant for the Indian alone, and he is allowed to till it and do what he pleases with it. The Government also gives him help in providing him with food. The Indians do, however, make a little by hunting, earning bounties on the slaying of harmful wild beasts, or selling venison and deer's horns to white settlers. Then, again, in certain districts they help to gather strawberries in the middle of the summer, and in other districts pick hops towards the autumn, or fall, as the Canadians call that season. The full phrase—which, however, is never used—would be "the season of the fall of the leaf."

A missionary who laboured in the Far North of Canada once astonished, and yet deeply interested, a small company of listeners by describing his own strange wedding.

"After we came out of church," he said, "we both got ready for our honeymoon journey. When we were dressed, you could hardly have told the bride from the bridegroom. We were both wrapped up in furs from top to toe, so that the only part of our persons which could be seen was just round the eyes, and over the eyes we both wore large coloured goggles, to protect them against the dazzling snows.

"Well, we got into our sleigh, wrapped our fur aprons and rugs well round us, said good-bye to our nearest white neighbours, and after I had gathered up the reins and cracked my long whip over our team of fourteen dogs, off we started on our 200 mile drive!"

The people this devoted couple were going to live and work amongst were the Eskimo, a people who live all the year round amongst the Arctic snow and ice. These folk are another, though not a very numerous, element in the population of Canada.

Besides these two races—the Redskins and the Eskimo—there are two, or rather three, other races now dwelling in Canada who have not white skins. These are Hindus, Chinese, and Japanese. They are found chiefly in the West, in the province of British Columbia. The people of that province object strongly to the presence of all three races, and if only they were able to do it, they would sweep every man Jack of them into the ocean.

At first the Chinese came into the province without restriction, and they began to arrive in such large numbers that the Government of the province grew alarmed. With the view of checking them, the authorities imposed a head-tax on every Chinaman who landed, and went on increasing the amount until it reached no less a sum than £100 per head. This large tax is paid for the Chinese immigrants by wealthy fellow-countrymen already settled in the country, and known as tyees. These men determine the wages at which the immigrants shall work, and then they themselves pocket a certain proportion of each man's wages! The slang names for a Chinaman are Chink and Celestial.