Letters from Muskoka

by Mrs. Charles Gerrard King

New-Year’s Day of 1872 was one of those exceptionally beautiful days, when hope is generated in the saddest heart, and when the most pressing cares and anxieties retire for at least a time into the background of our lives. The sky was blue and clear, the sun bright, and the air quite soft and balmy for the time of year. We had had some bitter cold and gloomy weather, and we found the change most delightful. As in France we were in the habit of making presents among ourselves on this day, I looked over all my stores with a view to keeping up the same pretty custom here; but alas! in the absence of all shops I was sorely puzzled. At last I made all right by giving pencils and paper for scribbling to the children; Eau de Cologne, sweet-scented soap, and pots of pomatum to the elders of the party; and finished off with a box of Bryant and May’s “ruby matches” to C. W., who considered them a great acquisition. Your brother E. came over for the whole day. He now boarded and lodged with C——s, to make a little more room for your sister F.’s confinement, which we expected at the end of the month. I watched E. with delight as he felled an enormous birch tree in honour of the day; but though placed in perfect safety myself, I could not avoid a thrill of fear for him, as this monarch of the forest came crashing down. Fatal accidents very seldom occur, but new settlers, inexperienced and unused to the axe, sometimes give themselves serious cuts. Your brother and brother-in-law have had many narrow escapes, but fortunately, as yet, are uninjured. Your brother C——s before we came gave himself a very severe cut, which prevented his chopping for some weeks. One of the settlers told your brother that when he first began chopping he had given himself a most dangerous wound, the axe having glanced from the tree on to his foot; for weeks after the accident he stood in a washing-tub for security while chopping his fire-wood. This account much amused us, and E——d made a neat little caricature of P. in his tub chopping.

I was greatly disappointed in the Canadian forest, and did not think it half as beautiful as I had been led to expect, for though there are certainly some very tall pines, and these of a considerable girth, yet being so closely packed together and hemmed in with small trees and a thick undergrowth of brushwood, they always seem cramped, and their lofty tops unable to spread out to their full size. Hurricanes here are of frequent occurrence, and at these times it is not unusual for full half an acre of trees to be entirely laid flat, giving the greatest trouble to the settler when he wants to clear. At times the “windfall,” as it is called, is a narrow belt of uprooted trees extending for miles, and distinctly marking the path of the hurricane through the forest. I was less astonished at the constant fall of the trees after examining an enormous pine lying on C——s’ land, which was blown down last year. The roots of this tree seemed to have formed an enormous web or network under the surface of the ground, and only a few large fibres here and there appeared to have gone to any depth. I missed the umbrageous oaks, elms, and beeches of our own parks, and also the open forest glades which so greatly enhance the beauty of our woodland scenery. I am told that the trees in the States are much larger and finer, but of this I am of course incompetent to judge, never having been there. The most beautiful tree here is certainly the “balsam,” a slender, delicate tree whose feathery branches droop gracefully to within a few feet of the ground.

We found the winter fearfully cold, the thermometer being at times forty degrees below zero. We had great difficulty in keeping ourselves sufficiently clothed for such a season. All people coming to the Bush bring clothes far too good for the rough life they lead there. In coming out we had no means of providing any special outfit, and therefore brought with us only the ordinary wardrobes of genteel life. We soon found that all silks, delicate shawls, laces and ornaments, are perfectly useless here. Every article we possess of that kind is carefully put away in our trunks, and will probably never see daylight again, unless indeed that, like Mrs. Katy Scudder in the “Minister’s Wooing,” we may occasionally air our treasures. What we found most useful was everything in the shape of woollen or other thick fabrics, winter dresses, warm plaid shawls, flannels, furs, etc.; of these we had a tolerable stock, and as the cold increased we put one thing over another till we must have often presented the appearance of feather-beds tied in the middle with a string. Indeed, as our gentlemen politely phrased it, we made complete “guys” of ourselves, and I must say that they were not one whit behind us in grotesque unsightliness of costume. Your brothers sometimes wore four or five flannels one over the other, thick jerseys and heavy overcoats when not actually at work, and pairs upon pairs of thick woollen socks and stockings, with great sea-boots drawn over all; or in deep snow “moccasins” or else “shoe-packs,” the first being made by the Indians, of the skin of the moose-deer, and the second mostly of sheep-skins. The great mart for these articles is at the Indian settlement of “Lachine” on the St. Lawrence, near Montreal. They also wore snow-shoes, which are not made like the Laplanders’ with skates attached for sliding, but simply for walking on the surface of the deep snow. They consist of a framework of wood three feet long by one and a half wide, filled up with strips of raw deer-skin interlaced, and in shape resembling a fish, more like a monstrous sole than any other. We ladies, too, were thankful to lay aside our French kid boots and delicate slippers, and to wrap our feet and legs up so completely that they much resembled mill-posts. Had you or any of our dear friends seen us in our Esquimaux costume, you would certainly have failed to recognise the well-dressed ladies and gentlemen you had been in the habit of seeing. To crown all, your brother-in-law and C——s had goat-skin coats brought from France, real Robinson Crusoe coats, such as are worn by the French shepherds, and these they found invaluable. We were very sorry that E——d had not one likewise.

Our occupations were manifold; hard work was the order of the day for every one but me; but all the work I was allowed to do was the cooking, for which I consider that I have a special vocation. A great compliment was once paid me by an old Indian officer in our regiment, who declared that Mrs. K. could make a good curry, he was sure, out of the sole of a shoe!

At other times I read, wrote letters, and plied my knitting-needles indefatigably, to the great advantage of our little colony, in the shape of comforters, baby-socks, mittens, Canadian sashes and petticoats for the little children. Sometimes I read to the children out of their story-books, but their happiest time was when they could get your sister P——e to give them an hour or two in the evening of story-telling. You know what a talent she possesses for composing, both in prose and verse, stories for little people, and with these she would keep them spell-bound, to the great comfort of the elders of the party, and of their poor mother especially, who towards night felt much fatigued.

Dear children! they required some amusement after the close confinement of the winter’s day. Meanwhile the gentlemen were busy from morning till night chopping down trees in readiness for burning in spring. This is mostly done in mid-winter, as they are reckoned to chop more easily then.

You must not suppose that all this time we had no visitors. By degrees many of the settlers scattered over the neighbourhood came to see us, some, doubtless, from kindly motives, others from curiosity to know what the strangers were like. I found some of them pleasant and amusing, particularly those who had been long in the country, and who could be induced to give me some of their earlier Bush experiences. A few of them seemed to possess a sprinkling of higher intelligence, which made their conversation really interesting.

One very picturesque elderly man, tall, spare, and upright, came to fell some pine-trees contiguous to the house, which much endangered its safety when the hurricanes, so frequent in this country, blew. He had begun life as a ploughboy on a farm in my beloved county of Kent, and had the unmistakable Kentish accent. It seemed so strange to me at first, to be shaking hands and sitting at table familiarly with one of a class so different from my own; but this was my first initiation into the free-and-easy intercourse of all classes in this country, where the standing proverb is, “Jack is as good as his master!”

I found all the settlers kindly disposed towards us, and most liberal in giving us a share of their flower-seeds, plants, and garden produce, which, as new-comers, we could not be supposed to have. They were willing also to accept in return such little civilities as we could offer, in the shape of books and newspapers from the old country, and sometimes medicines and drugs, which could not be got in the settlement. There might be a little quarrelling, backbiting, and petty rivalry among them, with an occasional dash of slanderous gossip; but I am inclined to think not more than will inevitably be found in small communities.