Ten years ago the first adventurous settler built his log-hut on the hill south of the present town between the pretty falls at the entrance and the South Falls at three miles’ distance. All was then unbroken forest, its solitude only disturbed by occasional visits from a few scattered Chippewa Indians or lonely trappers in pursuit of the game, more and more driven northward by the advancing tide of civilisation.
A few statistics of Bracebridge at the close of the present year (1873) will show what progress has been made in every department.
Besides these are many wheelwrights, carpenters, joiners, etc. The gentleman who wrote to the Daily News in England from Huntsville in this neighbourhood, most unduly disparaged the little town of Bracebridge, but as he visited Muskoka in exceptionally bad weather at the close of a long-continued rainy season, and as his stay in the district was limited to a few days at most, his opinion can hardly be received as gospel truth. His dismay at the mud in the streets and the general badness of the roads was very natural in a stranger to this part of Canada. We certainly are greatly in want of assistance from some McAdam, and we have every hope that improvement in our roads, as in everything else, will reach us in time.
The climate of Muskoka is most favourable to health, even to invalids, provided they have no consumptive tendencies. For all pulmonary complaints it is most unsuitable, on account of the very sudden atmospheric changes. The short summer, with its inevitable accompaniment of tormenting mosquitoes, is burning hot, and the winter, stretching sometimes over seven months of the year, is intensely cold, and both these extremes render it a trying climate for consumptive patients. The air, however, is pure, clear, and bracing, and nervous and dyspeptic invalids soon lose many of their unpleasant sensations. A gentleman who formed one of our little colony when we came out in 1871, has to thank the air of Muskoka for the entire renovation of his health. His constitution was very much shattered by over-working his brain during a long course of scholastic pursuits, and as his only chance of recovery, he was ordered an entire change of climate and outdoor occupation instead of study.
The Bush-life and the pure air worked miracles; his recovery was complete, and he has been now, for some months, in holy orders as a clergyman of the Church of England. He is able to preach three times every Sabbath day, and to perform all the arduous duties of an out-station without undue fatigue or exhaustion. The same gentleman’s eldest child has derived as much benefit as his father from the change of climate. At five years old, when he was brought to Muskoka, he was most delicate, and had from infancy held life by a most precarious tenure; but at the present time he is a very fine specimen of healthy and robust childhood.
The twelve townships of Muskoka are increasing their population every day, from the steady influx of emigrants from the old country. It is most desirable that an Emigrant’s Home should be established in Bracebridge for the purpose of giving gratuitous shelter and assistance to the poorer class of emigrants, and sound and reliable advice to all who might apply for it. In my “Plea for Poor Emigrants,” contributed to the Free Grant Gazette, I earnestly endeavoured to draw public attention to this great want, and I still hope that when the necessary funds can be raised, something of the sort will be provided. Government has thrown open the free-grant lands to every applicant above the age of eighteen years; each one at that age may take up a lot of one hundred acres; the head of a family is allowed two hundred. The person located is not absolute master of the land till the end of five years from the date of his or her location, when, if the stipulated conditions have been fulfilled, the patent is taken out, and each holder of a lot becomes a freehold proprietor. The conditions are simply that he shall have cleared and got under cultivation fifteen acres, and have raised a log-house of proper dimensions.
Government found that some restrictions were absolutely necessary, as unprincipled speculators took up lots which they never meant to cultivate or settle on, but for the fraudulent purpose of felling and selling off the pine timber, and then leaving the country.
When a person has it in view to come to Muskoka, let him as much as possible abstain from reading any of the books published on the subject. Without accusing those who write them of wilfully saying the thing that is not, I must say that the warmth of their colouring and the unqualified praise they bestow greatly misleads ignorant people.
The poor emigrant comes out to Muskoka firmly believing it to be a veritable “Land of Promise” flowing with milk and honey, an El Dorado where the virgin soil only requires a slight scratching to yield cent. per cent. His golden visions speedily vanish; he finds the climate variable, the crops uncertain, the labour very hard, and Bush-farming for the first four or five years very uphill work. If, however, instead of yielding to discouragement he steadily perseveres, he may feel assured of ultimately attaining at least a moderate degree of success. It is also necessary for a settler in Muskoka to get out of his head once and for ever all his traditions of old-country farming. Bush-farming is different in every respect; the seasons are different, the spring seldom opens till the middle of May, and between that time and the end of September, all the farm-work of sowing, reaping, and storing away must be completed. The winters are mostly occupied in chopping. The best way for obtaining an insight into Bush-farming is for the newly-arrived emigrant to hire himself out to work on another person’s ground for at least a year before finally settling upon his own.