The Log House by the Lake: A Tale of Canada

by William Henry Giles Kingston

Chapter Nine.

“It is the fashion to say in England, so I hear, that Canada is not the country in which people can make fortunes,” said the sheriff; for such was the office Mr Norman held in his county. “I grant that it is not the country in which fortunes will come of themselves; but, putting the lower province out of the question, I should like to know how the owners of the nice estates and pretty villas scattered so thickly throughout the upper province became possessed of them. How has Toronto sprung up into a first-rate city? How have Hamilton, London, and twenty other towns risen in a few years into importance? How is it that thousands of comfortable farms are found in all directions? Look at our canals—at the thousands of vessels which navigate our lakes and rivers; at our saw-mills, and grist-mills, and manufactories of all sorts; at the tens of thousands of acres of corn land; at our pastures; at our oxen and kine; at our flocks of sheep; at our horses; at our public and private buildings; at our churches; our colleges; our schools; our hospitals; our prisons; at all the conveniences of a highly civilised community which we possess, and then let me ask to whom do all these things belong? To the inhabitants of the province. Who are they? Men mostly who began life in it; some few whose fathers lived in it; but very few indeed whose grandfathers were born here. Of these, the capital of the greater number, when they began this career, might have been counted by shillings;—did I say shillings? I would rather say strong hearts and hands, without coin at all; some few might have reckoned by pounds, fewer by hundreds, and very few indeed, if any, by thousands. Then how did they become possessed of all this wealth? Why they made all this wealth, they created all these advantages, by their labour, their intelligence, and perseverance. They are theirs—to enjoy—to benefit by. It is said in England, ‘We do not find rich Canadians come back and settle at home, as so many Australians do.’ Granted; Canada, I say, is essentially the country to reside in. People who have made fortunes here do not go away, for the best of reasons; because here they have all the requirements of civilisation, all the advantages which the Australians go to England to obtain. I say too that numbers do make very handsome fortunes—though I grant, as I before observed, that fortunes don’t come of themselves; but, which is better, no one who is persevering, industrious, and intelligent, fails to become independent, and to start his children well in the world. I don’t want to disparage other provinces, but I say that we Canadians can and do make fortunes; and what is more, we have the means of enjoying them thoroughly, without going to other lands to do so.”

The sheriff had got on a subject on which he always grew eager, though he was at length obliged to pause for want of breath. “Take myself, for example,” he continued; “I rose, if you like, from the bottom of the tree; and I know fifty—I may say a hundred men, who have got up as I have done—my brother-sheriff of the next county among them. My father came over from England. He was a baker by trade; but though he knew how to make loaves, he did not know how to read. He came to the neighbourhood of Kingston first, and worked as a journeyman. When he had saved a little money he set up for himself; then he got a share in a flour-mill, and bought a little land;—then a little more; and then the flour-mill became his; and lastly, he sold the whole at a considerable profit, and moving westward, pitched his tent at Pentanquishine, on Lake Huron. He invested largely in land; and troops being stationed there during the war with the States, and it becoming a naval station, he realised a considerable profit. Though uneducated himself, he was desirous of giving his sons a good education; so he sent us all to the best school in the province—I might say the only one—kept by the Reverend Dr Strachan, now Bishop of Toronto, in that big city, then known as “Muddy Little York.” The excellent doctor, of whom we all stood in reverential awe, had the art of imparting knowledge; and I believe I, with others, benefited much by it. Of my two elder brothers I will say nothing, except that they tyrannised over me and another brother younger than I was. He and I were fast friends, and made common cause against them. As Pentanquishine could not supply us with clothing fit to appear in at Toronto, our father directed us to get it at that place, and entrusted our elder brother with money to pay for it. He got clothing certainly, and paid the tailor, but it was for himself and not for us, and we were allowed to go on wearing our shabby clothes. I protested vehemently against this iniquitous proceeding, but Arthur, my younger brother, who was of a more gentle nature, yielded quietly and said nothing.

“There was to be a public examination, at which all the big-wigs in the place were to attend; and I told my brother that if he would not order us both proper suits of clothes I would run away to our father and complain. He laughed at me, not believing that I would make the attempt. I was as good as my word, for pretending I was ill one evening, I got leave to go up early to bed. Instead of going to sleep I watched my opportunity, slipped out of the house with all the money Arthur and I could collect, or rather save, in my pocket, and running on all night, before morning I was far away towards Lake Simcoe. You see, boys brought up in the bush, as I was, have no fear of being out alone, and can find their way in any direction they have a mind to follow. Besides which, it was a beaten cart track I followed, mostly in the line the railway now takes. Great changes since then! I might have been caught even then, for I was pursued for some distance; but I was overtaken by an old acquaintance—a carter, or rather a packer or carrier—Jack Johnson by name, to whom I narrated what had occurred. My elder brother had on some occasion offended him, and this made him, probably, more ready to take my part, and to render me assistance. ‘Jump into the waggon, lad, and hide thee away, and if any one comes after thee I’ll show him that Jack Johnson’s waggon is just as much his castle as any man’s house is, and if he pries therein he must take the consequences.’ What those consequences would be he did not say, but he flourished his heavy whip with a ferocity which made it probable that the head of anybody who interfered would be broken. With this consoling reflection I fell asleep, for I was very tired after my long run during all the night. I knew, also, that Jack would be as good as his word, so I had no fears to keep me awake.

“We jogged on all day, stopping only to bait and water the cattle. Now and then I awoke and looked out; it was the same scene—forest on either side, with now and then a small lake, or pond, or creek. Jack was at his horses’ heads, whistling away, as if he had nothing in the world to care for. He hadn’t either. He had been a workhouse-boy in the old country, and would have ended his days as a labourer, and now he was laying by a good bit of money every trip, and expected to be able to buy a comfortable farm before long. So he did, and has brought up a numerous family, all well-to-do in the world, and lives himself as comfortably as any man with four or five hundred a-year would, I guess, in England. At night we stopped at a log-hut, the only inn on the road, and Jack brought me some food and told me to be quiet, and that we would be off early in the morning.

“The second day passed much as did the first, except that I had lost all fear of being overtaken. The confession is somewhat humbling, but the truth is, I was not considered worth sending after. ‘Let the chiel gang,—wie sae little brains in his head he’s sure to fall on his feet,’ observed the doctor, when informed of my flight—so I was told. In the evening of the second day we reached Holland’s Landing, at the south end of Lake Simcoe. Settlers had begun to take up the land on either side of the lake: they were chiefly naval and military officers, forced into idleness at the end of the war, without any previous training for the life they were to lead, or knowledge of what would be required of them as settlers. The naval men did the best, and many of them succeeded, as did a few of the military men, but the greater number, after a few years’ trial, I might say months, left in disgust, or ruined. Many never came even to occupy their grants. Jack’s business was to supply these gentlemen with goods, which most of them came to fetch at Holland’s Landing.

“As he was going no further, I had now to consider how I was to perform the rest of my journey West. While standing in the bar of the store with Jack, who should come in but a trapper, known to him, Jean Baptiste by name, to make some purchases. ‘Whither bound, friend Baptiste?’ asked Jack. I could make out clearly enough the meaning of his reply, but I cannot repeat the extraordinary mixture of Canadian, French, English, and Ojibbeway, in which it was couched. He intimated that he was going a few days’ journey west, over ground where there was then an abundance of beaver, martin, mink, and other fur-bearing animals, which are rare enough now. Jean Baptiste showed his Indian origin by his long, Jewish-like countenance, dark eyes, and raven black hair. He was dressed in skins, the hair being inside, in spite of the heat, his leggings and waistcoat ornamented with bead-work and gaily-dyed porcupine quills, and mingled with coloured fibres and worsted.

“I slept in Jack’s cart, and just at daybreak Baptiste came and roused me up. I thanked Jack heartily for his kindness, and with a stout stick in my hand, with which he presented me, set off to follow my strange-looking guide towards his camp. Here, under a lean-to of birch-bark, I found Mrs Baptiste, an Indian squaw, who, if not a solace to him in his hours of trial, took a great deal of trouble off his shoulders, for she worked for him from morning till night like a slave, with small thanks. In the way he treated his wife he was no better than an Indian. She had her hand-sleigh already packed, and as soon as we appeared she harnessed herself into it and began dragging it off without saying a word. Talk of the romance of Indian life, there is none of it of an elevated nature. All the stuff novelists have written is sheer downright nonsense. It is simple brutality from beginning to end. I speak of the natives I have met with before they became Christians. Baptiste, on the strength of his being a French-Canadian, on his father’s side, called himself a Christian, but he was as ignorant of religion as was his squaw; and here let me remind you, whenever you write to your friends in England, tell them that there is a grand opening for missionary labours among the wide-scattered Indian tribes still existing on this continent. Something is being done, but much more may be done; and not only is there work to be done among Indians, but among the out-settlers, and especially among the lumberers on the Ottawa. Never mind whether they are Romanists or not. They never hear the Gospel of free grace preached from one end of the year to the other. I believe that a missionary going among them would find abundant fruit as the result of his labours.

“To return to Baptiste. He had set his traps in the forest along the route we were to take, and so we had to push our way through it, sleigh and all, he scarcely condescending to help his squaw when it stuck between the stumps of the trees, she also looking with supreme contempt on me when I attempted to help her; indeed she, I fancy, considered me rather officious than otherwise. I travelled on for several days with this unattractive couple, and yet I believe that they were really fond of each other. They were hospitable in their way also, for their pot was always well supplied with meat, and they gave me as much as I could eat. It was not of the choicest land, I must confess, for every creature the trapper caught went into it, with a mixture of herbs and roots, among which garlic predominated.