Following the lake shore, camping at night, and fording the streams where they debouch, they at last reached the site of York, then a cluster of Indian wigwams with a few houses in process of erection. The river Don being too deep to ford, they hired Indians to convey them over in their canoes. The waggons were taken apart and so ferried across, when they were put together again, and the emigrants proceeded along the broken shores of the lake.
CHAPTER III.
A home in the wilderness—Salmon fishing—An idyllic life—Logging—Fur trade—Durham boats—Rapids of the St. Lawrence—Trading with the Indians—The Hudson’s Bay Company—Coureurs du bois—Maple sugar making—Friendly Indians.
“Our young, wild land, the free, the proud!
Uncrush’d by power, unawed by fear,
Her knee to none but God is bow’d,
For nature teaches freedom here;
From gloom and sorrow, to light and flowers
Expands this heritage of ours:
Life, with its myriad hopes, pursuits,
Spreads sails, rears roofs, and gathers fruits.
But pass two fleeting centuries back,
This land, a torpid giant, slept,
Wrapp’d in a mantle, thick and black,
That o’er its mighty frame had crept,
Since stars and angels sang, as earth
Shot from its Maker into birth.”
GOLDEN autumn days were those when the emigrants’ long journey was nearing its end. Provision must first be made for the cattle and horses. October was upon them and winter near.
ROGER CONANT’S FIRST SETTLEMENT IN DARLINGTON, CO. DURHAM, UPPER CANADA, 1778.
BARCLAY, CLARK & CO. LITHO. TORONTO
At Arnall’s Creek—then known as Barber’s Creek—they found a flat of marsh-grass quite free from the forest trees which then were universal above the water’s edge of Lake Ontario.