Letters from Muskoka

by Mrs. Charles Gerrard King

LETTER VIII.

I begin this letter with a few observations in support of my oft-repeated assertion that poor ladies and gentlemen form the worst, or at least the most unsuccessful, class for emigration to Canada. I must give you a slight sketch of the class of settlers we have here, and of the conditions they must fulfil before they can hope to be in easy circumstances, much less in affluent ones. Of course I am speaking of settlers from the “old country,” and not of Canadians born who sometimes find their way from the front to try their fortunes in the backwoods. The settlers in this neighbourhood, for a circuit of about eight miles, are all of the lower classes; weavers from Scotland, agricultural labourers from England, artisans and mechanics from all parts. Whatever small sum of money a family of this class can collect with a view to emigration, very little of it is spent in coming over. They are invariably steerage passengers, and on landing at Quebec are forwarded, free of all expense, and well provided for on the road, by the Emigration Society, to the part where they intend settling. Say that they come to the free-grant lands of Muskoka. The intending settler goes before the commissioner of crown-lands, and (if a single man) takes up a lot of a hundred acres; if married and with children, he can claim another lot as “head of a family.” He finds the conditions of his tenure specified on the paper he signs, and sees that it will be five years before he can have his patent, and then only if he has cleared fifteen acres, and has likewise built thereon a log-house of certain dimensions. He pays some one a dollar to point out his lot, and to take him over it, and then selecting the best site, and with what assistance he can get from his neighbours, he clears a small patch of ground and builds a shanty. In the meantime, if he have a wife and family they are lodged and boarded for a very small sum at some near neighbour’s. When he and his family have taken possession, he underbrushes and chops as much as he possibly can before the winter sets in; but on the first approach of the cold weather he starts for the lumber-shanties, and engages himself to work there, receiving from twenty to twenty-five dollars a month and his food. Should he be of any particular trade he goes to some large town, and is tolerably sure of employment.

It is certainly a very hard and anxious life for the wife and children, left to shift for themselves throughout the long dreary winter, too often on a very slender provision of flour and potatoes and little else.

When spring at last comes, the steady, hard-working settler returns with quite a little sum of money wherewith to commence his own farming operations. One of the most respectable and thriving settlers near us is a man who began life as a sturdy Kentish ploughboy. He is now an elderly man with a very large family and a good farm. He has thirty acres well cleared and under cultivation, has thirteen head of cattle and some fine pigs, has the best barn in the place, and has just removed his family into a large commodious plank house, with many rooms and a very fine cellar, built entirely at odd times by himself and his son, a steady, clever lad of eighteen.

This man for several years has gone at the beginning of the winter to one of the hotels in Bracebridge, where he acts as “stable-boy,” and makes a great deal of money besides his food, which, in such a place, is of the best. He could very well now remain at home, and reap the reward of his thrift and industry, but prefers going on for a year or two longer, while he still has health and strength.

Now it is obvious that ladies and gentlemen have not, and cannot have these advantages. The ladies of a family cannot be left unprotected during the long winter, and indeed are, for the most part, physically incapable of chopping fire-wood, drawing water, and doing other hard outdoor work; I speak particularly of poor ladies and gentlemen. Should people of ample means choose to encounter the inevitable privations of the Bush, there are of course few which cannot be at least alleviated by a judicious expenditure of money.

It may well be asked here, who is there with ample means who would dream of coming to Muskoka? I answer boldly, none but those who are entirely ignorant of the miseries of Bush life, or those who have been purposely misled by designing and interested people.