Roughing It in the Bush

by Susanna Moodie

When I say that Canada is destined to be one of the most prosperous countries in the world, let it not be supposed that I am influenced by any unreasonable partiality for the land of my adoption. Canada may not possess mines of gold or silver, but she possesses all those advantages of climate, geological structure, and position, which are essential to greatness and prosperity. Her long and severe winter, so disheartening to her first settlers, lays up, amidst the forests of the West, inexhaustible supplies of fertilising moisture for the summer, while it affords the farmer the very best of natural roads to enable him to carry his wheat and other produce to market. It is a remarkable fact, that hardly a lot of land containing two hundred acres, in British America, can be found without an abundant supply of water at all seasons of the year; and a very small proportion of the land itself is naturally unfit for cultivation. To crown the whole, where can a country be pointed out which possesses such an extent of internal navigation? A chain of river navigation and navigable inland seas, which, with the canals recently constructed, gives to the countries bordering on them all the advantages of an extended sea-coast, with a greatly diminished risk of loss from shipwreck!

Little did the modern discoverers of America dream, when they called this country “Canada,” from the exclamation of one of the exploring party, “Aca nada,”—“there is nothing here,” as the story goes, that Canada would far outstrip those lands of gold and silver, in which their imaginations revelled, in that real wealth of which gold and silver are but the portable representatives. The interminable forests—that most gloomy and forbidding feature in its scenery to the European stranger, should have been regarded as the most certain proof of its fertility.

The severity of the climate, and the incessant toil of clearing the land to enable the first settlers to procure the mere necessaries of life, have formed in its present inhabitants an indomitable energy of character, which, whatever may be their faults, must be regarded as a distinguishing attribute of the Canadians, in common with our neighbours of the United States. When we consider the progress of the Northern races of mankind, it cannot be denied, that while the struggles of the hardy races of the North with their severe climate, and their forests, have gradually endowed them with an unconquerable energy of character, which has enabled them to become the masters of the world; the inhabitants of more favoured climates, where the earth almost spontaneously yields all the necessaries of life, have remained comparatively feeble and inactive, or have sunk into sloth and luxury. It is unnecessary to quote any other instances in proof of this obvious fact, than the progress of Great Britain and the United States of America, which have conquered as much by their industry as by their swords.

Our neighbours of the United States are in the habit of attributing their wonderful progress in improvements of all kinds to their republican institutions. This is no doubt quite natural in a people who have done so much for themselves in so short a time; but when we consider the subject in all its bearings, it may be more truly asserted that, with any form of government not absolutely despotic, the progress of North America, peopled by a civilised and energetic race, with every motive to industry and enterprise in the nature of the country itself, must necessarily have been rapid. An unbounded extent of fertile soil, with an increasing population, were circumstances which of themselves were sufficient to create a strong desire for the improvement of internal communications; as, without common roads, rail-roads, or canals, the interior of the country would have been unfit to be inhabited by any but absolute barbarians. All the first settlers of America wanted was to be left to themselves.

When we compare the progress of Great Britain with that of North America, the contrast is sufficiently striking to attract our attention. While the progress of the former has been the work of ages, North America has sprung into wealth and power almost within a period which we can remember. But the colonists of North America should recollect, when they indulge in such comparisons, that their British ancestors took many centuries to civilise themselves, before they could send free and intelligent settlers to America. The necessity for improvements in the internal communications is vastly more urgent in a widely extended continent than in an island, no part of which is far removed from the sea-coast; and patriotism, as well as self-interest, would readily suggest such improvements to the minds of a people who inherited the knowledge of their ancestors, and were besides stimulated to extraordinary exertions by their recently-acquired independence. As the political existence of the United States commenced at a period when civilisation had made great progress in the mother-country, their subsequent improvement would, for various reasons, be much more rapid than that of the country from which they originally emigrated. To show the influence of external circumstances on the characters of men, let us just suppose two individuals, equal in knowledge and natural capacity, to be placed, the one on an improved farm in England, with the necessary capital and farm-stock, and the other in the wilds of America, with no capital but his labour, and the implements required to clear the land for his future farm. In which of these individuals might we reasonably expect to find the most energy, ingenuity, and general intelligence on subjects connected with their immediate interests? No one who has lived for a few years in the United States or Canada can hesitate for a reply.

The farmer in the more improved country generally follows the beaten track, the example of his ancestors, or the successful one of his more intelligent contemporaries; he is rarely compelled to draw upon his individual mental resources. Not so with the colonist. He treads in tracks but little known; he has to struggle with difficulties on all sides. Nature looks sternly on him, and in order to preserve his own existence, he must conquer Nature, as it were, by his perseverance and ingenuity. Each fresh conquest tends to increase his vigour and intelligence, until he becomes a new man, with faculties of mind which, but for his severe lessons in the school of adversity, might have lain for ever dormant.

While America presents the most forbidden aspect to the new settler, it at the same time offers the richest rewards to stimulate his industry. On the one hand, there is want and misery; on the other, abundance and prosperity. There is no middle course for the settler; he must work or starve. In North America there is another strong incentive to improvement, to be found in the scarcity of labour; and still more, therefore, than in Europe must every mechanical contrivance which supersedes manual labour tend to increase the prosperity of the inhabitants. When these circumstances are duly considered, we need no longer wonder at the rapid improvements in labour-saving machinery, and in the means of internal communication throughout the United States. But for the steam-engine, canals, and railroads, North America would have remained for ages a howling wilderness of endless forests, and instead of the busy hum of men, and the sound of the mill and steam-engine, we should now have heard nothing but

“The melancholy roar of unfrequented floods.”

The scenes and characters presented to the reader in the preceding pages, belong, in some measure, rather to the past than the present state of Canada. In the last twenty years great changes have taken place, as well in the external appearance of the country, as in the general character of its inhabitants. In many localities where the land was already under the plough, the original occupants of the soil have departed to renew their endless wars with the giants of the forest, in order to procure more land for their increasing families where it could be obtained at a cheaper price. In the back-woods, forests have been felled, the blackened stumps have disappeared, and regular furrows are formed by the ploughman, where formerly he had not time or inclination to whistle at his work. A superior class of farmers has sprung up, whose minds are as much improved by cultivation as their lands, and who are comfortably settled on farms supposed to be exhausted of their fertility by their predecessors. As the breadth of land recovered from the forest is increased, villages, towns, and cities have grown up and increased in population and wealth in proportion to the productiveness of the surrounding country.

In Canada, it is particularly to be noted, that there is hardly any intermediate stage between the rude toil and privation of the back-woods, and the civilisation, comfort, and luxury of the towns and cities, many of which are to outward appearance entirely European, with the encouraging prospect of a continual increase in the value of fixed property. When a colony, capable, from the fertility of the soil and abundance of moisture, of supporting a dense population, has been settled by a civilised race, they are never long in establishing a communication with the sea-coast and with other countries. When such improvements have been effected, the inhabitants may be said at once to take their proper place among civilised nations. The elements of wealth and power are already there, and time and population only are required fully to develope the resources of the country.