Letters from Muskoka

by Mrs. Charles Gerrard King

Here the settlers’ wives and daughters work almost as hard as their husbands and fathers—log, burn, plant, and dig; and, in some instances, with the work adopt the habits of men, and smoke and chew tobacco to a considerable extent. This, I am happy to say, is not the case with all, nor even, I hope, with the majority; but nearly all the women, long before attaining middle age, look prematurely worn and faded, and many of the settlers themselves bear in their faces the unmistakable signs of hard work, scanty food, and a perpetual struggle for existence.

I have not yet mentioned the subject of wild beasts, but I may truly say that ever since I came out here, they have been a complete bugbear to me, and my dread of them is still unconquerable. I have been much laughed at for my fears, but as it is well-known that there are wild animals in the recesses of these woods, and as they do sometimes show themselves without being sought for, I cannot consider my fears groundless.

I have been told by one settler, who has been here for many years, and has often “camped out” all night in the woods, that he has never seen anything “worse than himself;” but another settler, the trapper mentioned in a former letter, kills some wild animals every year, and two or three times he has been met going over our lots in search of some bear or lynx which had escaped him.

We are told that when the clearings are larger, and more animals kept, especially pigs, that our visits from Bruin at least will be more frequent; and since your brother Charles, some months ago, got two fine pigs, he has repeatedly found bear-tracks in his beaver meadow, and even close up to the fence of his clearing. To say the least of it, the pleasure of a solitary walk is greatly impaired by the vague terror of a stray bear confronting you on the pathway, or of a spiteful lynx dropping down upon your shoulders from the branch of a tree.

The morning before H. L. left us for Toronto, he went to the post-office, but before he got to the end of our clearing, he saw at some distance a grey animal, which at first he took to be a neighbour’s dog; long before he got up to it, it cleared the fence at one bound, and vanished into the Bush. He thought this odd, but went on; returning in the twilight he was greatly astonished to see the same animal again in the clearing, and this time he might have had a good shot at it, but unfortunately he was encumbered with a can of milk, which he had good-naturedly brought for me, and before he could bring his gun to bear upon it, the creature was again in the depths of the Bush.

Much conversation ensued about it; some thought it must have been a chance wolf, but Charles, whose opinion we all looked to, was more inclined to the idea of its being a grey fox; he hardly thought that any other wild animal would have come so fearlessly into the clearing.

H. L. went to Toronto, and in a few days your brother received a letter from him saying that he had just seen a lynx newly killed which had been brought into the town, and that in colour, shape, and size, it exactly resembled the animal he had seen in my clearing. It has since been supposed that this might be the lynx the trapper said he was tracking when he passed near here in the spring.

I have often spoken of the broad deep gully at the end of my lot near the “concession” road. We had an old negro located on the strip of land between for more than five weeks. One fearfully cold day last winter, during a heavy snow-storm, your brother Charles came upon the poor old man “camping” for the night on the road near here. He talked to him a little, gave him all the small change he happened to have about him, and coming home and telling us, we made a small collection, which with a loaf of bread, he took to the old man next morning before he went away.

Before the close of this autumn, Charles again met his old acquaintance, looking more ragged and feeble than ever. He had with him only his axe and a small bundle. He said that he was making his way to a lot which he had taken up eight miles off, where he was going to locate himself and remain. He spoke too of having friends in the front who would give him some assistance, and at least send him some flour.