TERRA INCOGNITA;
OR,
THE WILDS OF MUSKOKA.
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In reading the history of newly-settled countries and the rise and progress of mighty states, nothing is more interesting than to trace the wonderful and rapid results which spring from the smallest beginnings. In changing the wilderness into a fruitful land, we notice first the laborious efforts to raise the rude and coarse necessaries of daily life, then the struggles for convenience and comfort, then the gradual demand for the luxuries of a higher civilisation.These last can only be obtained by the growth and encouragement of the ornamental as well as useful arts; then comes the dawning of political power, till at length we see with amusement that the scattered hamlet has become a thriving village, the village a populous town, and the town expanded into a stately city, carrying wealth, commerce, and civilisation to the remotest parts of what a few years back was simply unbroken forest.
Such is the future which, under the fulfilment of certain conditions, we may confidently predict for the free-grant lands of Muskoka, to which the Canadian Government are making strenuous efforts to draw the tide of emigration. Nothing can well be more picturesque than the tract of country already embracing twelve townships which constitutes the district of Muskoka, so called, not from the poetical tradition of “clear skies,” “no clouds,” which is by no means applicable to this variableclimate, but more probably from Musquoto, the name of a Chippewa chief, which has been handed down to the present time, though every trace of Indian occupation has long been effaced.
Hill and dale, wood and water, a winding river, tributary streams, rapid waterfalls breaking the solitude with their wild music, the large Muskoka lake, smaller lakes on many of the lots; all these charms combine to form most beautiful scenery. Unfortunately the settlers, looking upon the trees as their natural enemies, hew them down with inexorable rancour, quite ignoring the fact that if they were to clear more judiciously, leaving here and there a clump of feathery balsams, or a broad belt of pine, spruce, maple, and birch, they would have some shelter for their crops from the destroying north-west wind, and some shade for their log-houses during the burning heat of summer.
Having been located in the township of Stephenson for more than two years, I am able to make some observations on the subject, and I find that as most of the settlers in my neighbourhood belong to the lower classes, they have but little sense of the beautiful in any shape, and no appreciation whatever of picturesque scenery. A settler of this class is perfectly satisfied with his own performance when he has cleared thirty or forty acres on his lot, leaving nothing so large as a gooseberry-bush to break the dreary uniformity of the scene.
The London of Muskoka is the pretty thriving town of Bracebridge. I say pretty, advisedly, for its situation on the river Muskoka is beautiful, the scenery highly varied, the environs abounding in lovely walks and choice bits of landscape which an artist might delight to portray.
Ten years ago the first adventurous settlerbuilt 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 theDaily Newsin 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 wehave 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 entirerenovation 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 heis 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 theFree 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; thehead 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 onthe 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-farmingis 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.
This is his wisest plan, even should he bring out (which is not generally the case) sufficient capital to start with. We sadly feel the want in our settlement of a few farmers of better education, and of a higher range of intelligence, who, having a little experience as well as money, might leaven the ignorance which occasions so many mistakes and so much failure among our poorerbrethren in the Bush. It has been said that “a donation of a hundred acres is a descent into barbarism,” but few would be inclined to endorse this opinion who had witnessed, as I have done for two years, the patient daily toil, the perseverance under difficulties and privations, the self-denial, the frugality, the temperance, and the kind helpfulness of one another, found in the majority of our settlers. A black sheep may now and then be found in every flock, and it is undeniable that the very isolation of each settler on his own clearing, and the utter absence of all conventional restraint, engenders something of lawlessness, of contempt for public opinion, and occasionally of brutality to animals, but only I am bound to say in the ungenial and depraved natures of those whose conductoutof the Bush would be equally reprehensible.
After all the pros and the cons of emigration to Muskoka have been fully discussed,one fact stands prominently forward for the consideration of the labouring classes of Great Britain.
The free grants offer an inestimable boon to the agricultural and the manufacturing population. The workmen in both these classes spend the prime of their health and strength in working for others, and after suffering with perhaps wives and families incredible hardships from cold and hunger, which cannot be kept away by insufficient wages, have nothing to look forward to in their declining years but the tender mercies of their parish workhouse, or the precarious charity of their former masters. In emigrating to Muskoka they may indeed count upon hard work, much privation, and many struggles and disappointments, but they may be equally certain that well-directed energy, unflagging industry and patient perseverance, will after a few years insure them a competence,if not affluence, and will enable them to leave to their children an inheritance and a position which would have been almost impossible of attainment in the old country.
A PLEA FOR POOR EMIGRANTS.
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During a visit of some weeks to Bracebridge, at the close of last winter, I was much interested in watching the different parties of emigrants who came into the town, many of them with wives and families, some without, but all looking more or less weary and travel-worn. I noticed also in the countenances of many of the men a perplexed and uneasy expression, as if they hardly knew where to go or what to do next.
Who but must feel the deepest sympathywith these poor wayfarers, whose troubles, far from ending when they have safely crossed the broad Atlantic, seem to begin afresh and to gather strength during the long and wearisome journey from Quebec to Muskoka.
All along the line are paid agents, who strive to turn the tide of emigration in any other direction than this district of Muskoka, and who perplex the tired traveller with recommendations to various places, and with no end of unsought advice.
Till very lately, Muskoka was but little known, and as a fitting place for emigration was greatly undervalued. I remember with some amusement that during my journey with my family from Quebec to Bracebridge, two years ago, it was sufficient in conversation to utter the cabalistic word “Muskoka,” for us to be immediately treated to admonitory shakes of the head, shrugs of theshoulders, uplifted hands, and very clearly expressed opinions that we were rushing to certain destruction.
Now,weemigrated with a definite purpose in view. We were bound to a specific locality, and were in fact coming to join members of the family who had preceded us; but the remarks addressed to us were anything but cheering, and it may be imagined what an effect similar discouragements must have upon the poorer class of emigrants, whose slender resources have been taxed to the utmost to bring them out at all—who feel that poverty renders the step they have taken irretrievable, and who arrive at Bracebridge full of doubts and fears as to their comfortable settlement and ultimate success.
Happy would it be for the emigrant, married or single, if his difficulties were ended by his safe arrival at Bracebridge; but suchis not the case. As in all communities there will be an admixture of worthless and designing characters, so in our thriving little town are to be found a few who lie in wait for the unwary, and throw temptation in the path of those who are not fortified by strong religious principle. Should an unmarried emigrant, a young man from the “old country”—with apparently a tolerable stock of money and clothes—arrive, he is at once followed and courted with professions of friendship, and on the plea of good fellowship is tempted to drink at the bars of the different hotels, and to join in the low gambling which seems unfortunately to be the special vice of Muskoka. Not till his money is all expended is the victim left to himself; and too often he has to begin his Bush-life penniless, or thankfully to engage in some job of hard work which will at least secure his daily bread.
The married emigrant likewise is often deceived and misled by people as ignorant as himself, who give him altogether false impressions of the value of his land, the price of labour and provisions, the tools he ought to buy, the crops he ought to put in, and many other details essential to his success in Bush-farming.
I speak from experience in saying that nothing can exceed the kindness and urbanity of the Commissioner of Crown Lands to all and every one going to his office for the purpose of taking up land; but it would be obviously impossible for this gentleman, and incompatible with the public duties of himself and his assistants, to enter minutely into the wants and requirements of each individual emigrant, or to give that detailed advice and assistance which in many cases is so absolutely necessary.
Could not much be done, and many evilsbe obviated, by the establishment of an “Emigrant Home” in the town, to which all incoming emigrants might be directed by large printed cards conspicuously hung up in the bar of every hotel?
The superintendent of the home ought to be a man of some education, of sound common sense, of large Christian sympathy, one who would feel it a pleasure as well as a duty to smooth the path of the weary travellers who accepted the gratuitous shelter provided for them. Surely for such a desirable object as the one in view, the sanction and co-operation of the Dominion Government might be obtained, and a sum of money granted to establish the home, which might then be kept up by small annual subscriptions from the wealthier inhabitants of Bracebridge, whose commercial prosperity must so greatly depend upon the settlements beyond and about it. Numbers of emigrantscome in every year who have left behind them in the old country dear friends and relations, who only wait for their favourable verdict upon the promised land, to come out and join them.
Would it not be well that emigrants should be enabled to write home truthfully and gratefully that they were met on their arrival at Bracebridge with brotherly kindness, Christian sympathy, shelter for their wives and families, sound reliable advice as to their future course, and help and encouragement suited to their especial need? It may be urged that pecuniary assistance and gratuitous shelter for his wife and children would impair the self-respect of the emigrant, and place him in the light of a pauper to himself and others.
I do not think this would be the case. It appears to me that an emigrant, arriving as too many do with his means utterly exhaustedand with little but starvation in view for his family and himself, would have his British feelings of sturdy independence considerably modified, and would be willing to accept of the help tendered to him, not as a charitable dole from those above him in rank, but as a willing offering from those who for their Saviour’s sake acknowledge a common brotherhood with every suffering member of the great human family. Nor would the establishment of such a home at all interfere with the legitimate profits of the hotel-keepers.
From personal observation, I can testify that in numerous cases they are called upon to give, and do most liberally give, food and shelter gratuitously to those who cannot pay. Of course such a plan as this would have to be matured and carried out by wise heads and efficient hands. I can only humbly offer a suggestion which seems to me worthy ofconsideration, and I cannot end my few observations better than with the refrain of a deservedly popular song:
“Then do your best for one another,Making life a pleasant dream;Help a worn and weary brotherPulling hard against the stream.”
“Then do your best for one another,Making life a pleasant dream;Help a worn and weary brotherPulling hard against the stream.”
“Then do your best for one another,
Making life a pleasant dream;
Help a worn and weary brother
Pulling hard against the stream.”
THE END.
BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, SURREY.
S. &. H.