Canada and the Canadians Volume I Part 7

Whether they individually are gainers or losers by thus adhering to the rules which guided their ancestors, is another question, too difficult for discussion to grapple with here. As far as worldly happiness and simple contentment are concerned, I believe they would lose by the change, which, however, must take place. The restless and enterprising American is too close a neighbour to let them slumber long in contented ignorance.

The Frenchman was, however, adapted, by his nature, to win his way, either by friends.h.i.+p or by force, among the warlike and untutored sons of the forest. Accommodating himself with ease to the nomadic life of the tribes; contrasting his gay and lively temperament with the solemn taciturnity and immoveable phlegm of the savage; dazzling him with the splendour of his religious ceremonies; abstemious in his diet, and coinciding in his recklessness of life; equally a warrior and equally a hunter; unmoved by the dangers of canoe navigation, for which he seemed as well adapted as the Red Man himself; the enterprising Gaul was everywhere feared and everywhere welcome.

The Briton, on the contrary, cold as the Indian, but not so cunning; accustomed to comparative luxury and ease; despising the child of the woods as an inferior caste; accompanied in his wars or wanderings by no outward and visible sign of the religion he would fain implant; unaccustomed to yield even to his equals in opinion; unprepared for alternate seasons of severe fasting or riotous plenty; and wholly without that sanguine temper which causes mirth and song to break forth spontaneously amidst the most painful toil and privations; was not the best of pioneers in the wilderness, and was, therefore, not received with open arms by the American aboriginal nations, until experience had taught the sterling value of his character, or, rather, until it became thoroughly apparent.

To this day, where, in the interminable wilderness, all trace of French influence is buried, the Indian reveres the recollections of his forefathers respecting that gallant race; and, wherever the canoe now penetrates, the solemn and silent shades of the vast West, the Bois Brule, or mixed offspring of the Indian and the Frenchman, may be heard awakening the slumber of ages with carols derived from the olden France, as he paddles swiftly and merrily along.

Such was the Frenchman, such the French Canadian; let us therefore give due honour to their descendants, and let not any feeling of distrust or dislike enter our minds against a race of men, who, from my long acquaintance with them, are, I am fully persuaded, the most innocent, the most contented, and the most happy yeomanry and peasantry of the whole civilized world.

I have observed already, in a former work, that, as far as my experience of travelling in the wilds of Canada goes, and it is rather extensive, I should always in future journeys prefer to provide myself with the true French Canadian boatmen, or voyageurs, or, in default of them, with Indians. With either I should feel perfectly at ease; and, having crossed the mountain waves of Huron in a Canada trading birch canoe with both, should have the less hesitation in trusting myself in the trackless forest, under their sole guidance and protection.

Honneur a Jean Baptiste!

C'est un si bon enfant!

CHAPTER V.

Penetanguishene--The Nip.i.s.sang Cannibals, and a Friendly Brother in the Wilderness.

Penetanguishene, p.r.o.nounced by the Indians Pen-et-awn-gu-shene, "the Bay of the White Rolling Sand," is a magnificent harbour, about three miles in length, narrow and land-locked completely by hills on each side. Here is always a steam-vessel of war, of a small cla.s.s, with others in ordinary, stores and appliances, a small military force, hospital and commissariat, an Indian interpreter, and a surgeon.

But the presents are no longer given out here, as in 1837 and previously, to the wild tribes; so that, to see the Indian in perfection, you must take the annual government trader, and sail to the Grand Manitoulin Island, about a hundred miles on the northern sh.o.r.e of Lake Huron, where, at Manitou-a-wanning, there is a large settlement of Indian people, removed thither by the government to keep them from being plundered of their presents by the Whites, who were in the habit of giving whiskey and tobacco for their blankets, rifles, clothing, axes, knives, and other useful articles, with which, by treaty, they are annually supplied.

The Great Manitoulin, or Island of the Great Spirit, is an immense island, and, being good land, it is hoped that the benevolent intentions of the government will be successful. An Indian agent, or superintendent, resides with them; and a steamboat, called the G.o.derich, has made one or two trips to it, and up to the head of Lake Huron, last summer.

I went to Penetanguishene with the intention of meeting this vessel and going with her, but fear that her enterprise will be a failure. She was chartered to run from Sturgeon Bay, about nineteen miles beyond the narrows of Lake Simcoe, in connection with the mail or stage from Toronto, and the Beaver steamboat, plying on Lake Simcoe.

From Sturgeon Bay she went to Penetanguishene, and then to St. Vincent Settlement, and Owen's Sound, on Lake Huron, where a vast body of emigrants are locating. From Owen's Sound, she coasted and doubled Cabot's Head, and then ran down three hundred miles of the sh.o.r.e of Lake Huron to G.o.derich, Sarnia, Fort Gratiot, Windsor, and Detroit, with an occasional pleasure-trip to Manitoulin, St. Joseph's, and St. Mary's; so that all the north sh.o.r.e of Lake Huron could be seen, and the pa.s.sengers might take a peep at Lake Superior, by going up the rapids of St. Mary to Gros Cap. But a variety of obstacles occurred in this immense voyage, although ultimately they will no doubt be overcome.

By starting in the Toronto stage early in the morning, the traveller slept on board the G.o.derich at Sturgeon Bay, a good road having been formed from the Narrows, although, by some strange oversight, this road terminates in a marsh six hundred feet from the bank to the island, on which the wharf and storehouse built for the steamer are erected. This caused much inconvenience to the pa.s.sengers.

The stage went, or goes, once a week, on Monday, to Holland Landing, thirty six miles, meets the Beaver, which then crosses Lake Simcoe to the Narrows, a small village, thriving very fast since it is no longer a government Indian station, fifty miles, and there lands the travellers, who proceed by stage to Sturgeon Bay, nineteen more, and sleep on board the G.o.derich, arriving about eight p.m. The vessel gets under weigh, and reaches Penetanguishene by six in the morning: thus the whole route from Toronto, which takes three days by the land road, is performed in twenty-four hours.

But there are drawbacks: the Georgian Bay, between Sturgeon Bay and Penetanguishene, is, as I have already observed, dangerous at night, or in a fog. At Owen's Sound, the population is not far enough advanced to build the extensive wharf requisite, or to lay in sufficient supplies of fuel, and thus great detention was experienced there. At Penetanguishene, the wharf is not taken far enough into deep water for the vessel to lie at, and thus she usually grounded in the mud, and detention again arose. Then again, after rounding Cabot's Head and getting into the open lake, the coast is very dangerous, having not one harbour, until we arrive at the artificial one of G.o.derich, which is a pier-harbour; for the Saugeen is a roadstead full of rocks, and cannot be approached by a large vessel.

If, therefore, any thing happens to the machinery, and a steamer has to trust to her sails, the westerly winds which prevail on Lake Huron and blow tremendously, raising a sea that must be seen to be conceived of in a fresh-water lake, she has only to keep off the sh.o.r.e out into the main lake, and avoid G.o.derich altogether, by making for the St. Clair River.

However, the vessel did perform the voyage successfully seven times; and in summer it may do, and, if it does do, will be of incalculable benefit to the Huron tract, and the new settlements of the far west of Canada.

I am, however, afraid that the railroad schemes for opening the country to the south of this tract will for some time prevent a profitable steamboat speculation, although vast quant.i.ties of very superior fish are caught and cured now on the sh.o.r.es of Huron, such as salmon-trout and white fish, which, when properly salted or dried, are equal to any salt sea-fish whatever.

The Canadian French, the half-breeds, and the Indians, are chiefly engaged in this trade, which promises to become one of great importance to the country, and is already much encroached upon by adventurers from the United States.

The herring, as far as I can learn, ascends the St. Lawrence no higher than the Niagara River, but Ontario abounds with them and with salmon; a smaller species of white fish also has of late years spread itself over that lake, and is now sold plentifully in the Kingston market, where it was never seen only seven years ago. It is a beautiful fish, firm and well tasted, but rather too fat.

A farmer on the Penetanguishene road has introduced English breeds of cattle and sheep of the best kind. He was, and perhaps still is, contractor for the troops, and his stock is well worth seeing; he lives a few miles from Barrie. Thus the garrison is constantly supplied with finer meat than any other station in Canada, although more out of the world and in the wilderness than any other; and, as fish is plentiful, the soldiers and sailors of Queen Victoria in the Bay of the White Rolling Sand live well.

I was agreeably surprised to find at this remote post that only one soldier drank anything stronger than beer or water; and of course very little of the former, owing to the expense of transport, was to be had.

The soldier that did drink spirits did not drink to excess.

How did all this happen in a place where drunkenness had been proverbial? The soldiers, who were of the 82nd regiment, had been selected for the station as married men. Their young commanding officer patronized gardening, cricketing, boating, and every manly amus.e.m.e.nt, but permitted no gambling. He formed a school for the soldiers and their families, and, in short, he knew how to manage them, and to keep their minds engaged; for they worked and played, read and reasoned; and so whiskey, which is as cheap as dirt there, was not a temptation which they could not resist. In winter, he had sleighing, snowshoeing, and every exercise compatible with the severe weather and the very deep snow incident to the station.

I feel persuaded that, now government has provided such handsome garrison libraries of choice and well selected books for the soldiers, if a ball alley, or racket court, and a cricket ground were attached to every large barrack, there would not only be less drinking in the army, but that vice would ultimately be scorned, as it has been within the last twenty years by the officers. A hard-drinking officer will scarcely be tolerated in a regiment now, simply because excessive drinking is a low, mean vice, being the indulgence of self for unworthy motives, and beneath the character of a gentleman. To be brought to a court-martial for drunkenness is now as disgraceful and injurious to the reputation of an officer as it was to be tried for cowardice, and therefore seldom occurs in the British army.

The vice of Canada is, however, drink; and Temperance Societies will not mend it. Their good is very equivocal, unless combined with religion, as there is only one Father Matthew in the world, nor is it probable that there will be another.

Penetanguishene is at present the _ultima Thule_ of the British military posts in North America. It borders on the great wilderness of the North, and on that backbone of primary rocks running from the Alleghanies, across the thousand islands of the St. Lawrence, to the unknown interior of the northern verge of Lake Superior.

Penetanguishene will not, however, be long the _ultima Thule_ of British military posts in Western Canada, as a large and most important settlement is making at Owen's Sound, on Lake Huron, connected by a long road through the wilderness with Saugeen river, another settlement on the sh.o.r.es of that lake, to prevent the necessity of the difficult water-pa.s.sage round Cabot's Head; and a steamboat has been put on the route by the Canada Company, to connect Saugeen with G.o.derich.

The government, up to the 31st of December, 1845, had sold or granted 54,056 acres of land at Owen's Sound, of which 1,168 acres had been chopped or cleared of the forest last year alone; and 1,787 acres of wheat and 1,414 acres of oats had been harvested in 1845. There were 483 oxen, 596 cows, 433 young cattle, and 26 horses; and the population was 1,950, of which 759 were males above sixteen, and 399 males under sixteen, with 395 females above, and 399 under, the same age.

In this new colony there were 1,005 Presbyterians, 195 Roman Catholics, 173 Methodists, 167 of the Church of England, 67 Baptists, 8 Quakers.

The other sects or divisions were not enumerated with sufficient accuracy to detail; and Owen's Sound, being as yet buried in the Bush, cannot be visited by casual travellers, unless when an occasional steamer plies from Penetanguishene. There is yet no post-office; but 1,500 newspapers and letters were received or sent in 1845; and two flour-mills and two saw-mills are erected and in use. Three schooners of a small cla.s.s ply in summer to Penetanguishene. The village is at the head of Owen's Sound, fifteen miles from Cape Croker, and is named Sydenham, containing already thirty-six houses. Government gives 50 acres free, on condition of actual settlement, and that one third is cleared and cropped in four years, when a deed is obtained: another fifty is granted by paying 8s. an acre within three years, 9s. within six years, 10s. an acre within nine years. The soil is good and climate healthy.

North-north-west and north-east of Penetanguishene, all is wood, rock, lake, river, and desert, in which, towards the French river, the Nip.i.s.sang Indian, the most degraded and helpless of the Red Men, wanders, and obtains scanty food, for game is rare, although fish is more plentiful.

An exploring expedition into this country was sent by Sir John Colborne, in 1835, with a view of ascertaining its capabilities for settlement. An officer of engineers, Captain Baddely, was the astronomer and geologist; a naval officer the pilot; with surveyors and a hardy suite.

They left Lake Simcoe in the towns.h.i.+p of Rama from the Severn river, and, going a short journey eastward, struck the division line of the Home and the Newcastle districts, which commences between the towns.h.i.+ps of Whitby and Darlington, on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario, and runs a little to the westward of north in a straight course, until it strikes the south-east borders of Lake Nip.i.s.sang, embracing more than two degrees of lat.i.tude, not one half of which has ever been fully explored.

The plan adopted was to cut out this line, and diverge occasionally from it to the right and left, until a great extent of unknown land on the east, and the distance between it and Lake Huron, which contained a large portion of the Chippewa Indian hunting-grounds, was thoroughly surveyed.

In performing so very arduous a task, much privation and many obstacles occurred--forests, swamps, rivers, lakes, rocky ridges--all had to be pa.s.sed.

To the eastward of the main line, and for some distance to the westward, good land appeared; and, as the agricultural probe was freely used, chance was not permitted to sway. The agricultural probe is an instrument which I first saw slung over my friend Baddely's shoulders, and of his invention. It is a sort of huge screw gimblet, or auger, which readily penetrates the ground by being worked with a long cross-handle, and brings up the subsoil in a groove to a considerable depth. Specimens of the soil and of rocks and minerals were collected, and a plan was adopted which is a useful lesson to future explorers. A small piece of linen or cotton, about four inches square, had two pieces of twine sewed on opposite corners, and the cloth was marked in printers' ink, from stamps, with figures from 1 to 500. A knapsack was provided, and the specimens were reduced to a size small enough to be carefully tied up in one of these numbered square cloths; and, as the specimens were collected, they were entered in the journal as to number and locality, strata, dip, and appearance. Thus a vast number of small specimens could be brought on a man's back, and examined at leisure.

The toils, however, of such a journey in the vast and untrodden wilderness are very severe, and the privations greater. For, in this tract, on the side next to Lake Huron, there was an absence of game which scarcely ever occurs in the forest near the great lakes. With ice forming and snow commencing, and with every prospect of being frozen in, a portion of the explorers missed their supplies, and subsisted for three whole days and nights on almost nothing; a putrid deer's liver, hanging on a bush near a recent Indian trail, was all the animal food they had found; but this even hunger could scarcely tempt them to cook.

I was exploring in a more civilized country near them; but even there our Indian guide was at fault, and, from want of proper precaution, our provision failed. A small fish amongst four or five persons was one day's luxury.

The Nip.i.s.sang Indians, a very degraded and wretched tribe, live in this desolate region, and, it is said, have sometimes been so reduced for want of game as to resort to cannibalism. We heard that they had recently been obliged to resort to this practice. I was directed, with my friends, to conciliate these people, and to a.s.sure them that the British government, so far from intending to injure them by an examination of their country, desired only to ameliorate their sad condition.[3]

[Footnote 3: Some time afterwards, during the period in which Lord Glenelg held the Colonial Office, I was appointed to report upon the state and condition of the Indians of Canada, by his lords.h.i.+p, without my knowledge or solicitation; this was never communicated to me by the then Lieut.-Governor of Upper Canada, and I only knew of it last year, by accidentally reading a report on the subject made by order of the House of a.s.sembly, after I left Canada. I do not know if his lords.h.i.+p will ever read this work, or the gentleman to whom I believe I was indebted for the intended kindness; and, if either should, I beg to tender my thanks thus publicly.]

We had a council. The astronomer royal, who was also the geologist, was a fine, portly fellow, whose bodily proportions would make three such carcases as that which I rejoice in. The nation sat in council and the Talk was held. Grim old savages, filthy and forbidding, half-starved warriors, hideous to the eye, sat in large circle, with the two great Red Fathers, as they called my friend and myself, on account of our scarlet jackets. The pipe pa.s.sed from hand to hand and from mouth to mouth, and many a solemn whiff ascended in curling clouds: all was solemn and sad.

The speech was made and answered with an acuteness which we were not prepared for. But our explanation and mission were at length received, and the pledge of peace, the wampum-belts, were accepted and worn by the aged chiefs. My friend jogged my elbow once or twice, and thought they were eyeing him suspiciously, for he was to proceed into their country.

He looked so fat and so healthy, that he thought their greasy mouths watered for a roasted slice of so fine a subject!

But the wampum pledge is never broken, and we had smoked the calumet of friends.h.i.+p. Thus, although he luxuriated, after a total abstinence of three days, on the sight of a decayed deer's liver, which he could not be prevailed upon to partake of, yet the Nip.i.s.sang, starving as he must also have been, never fried my friend, nor feasted on his fatness.

This is not the only good story to be told of Penetanguishene; for the American press of the frontier, with its accustomed adherence to truth, discovered a mare's nest there lately, and stated that the British government kept enormous supplies of naval stores, several steam-vessels, a depot of coal, and everything necessary for the equipment of a large war fleet on Lake Huron, at this little outpost of the West, and that a tremendous force of mounted cavaliers were always ready to embark on board of it at all times.

There are now certainly a good many horses at the village, whereas, in 1837, perhaps one might have found out a dozen by great research there: as for cavalry, unless Brother Jonathan can manufacture it as cheaply and as lucratively as he does wooden clocks or nutmegs, it would be somewhat difficult to _raise_ it at Penetanguishene.

The village is a small, rambling place, with a little Roman Catholic church and a storehouse or general shop or two, about which, in summer, you always see idle Indians playing at some game or other, or else smoking with as idle villagers.