The Backwoods of Canada Part 9

I suppose our scientific botanists in Britain would consider me very impertinent in bestowing names on the flowers and plants I meet with in these wild woods: I can only say, I am glad to discover the Canadian or even the Indian names if I can, and where they fail I consider myself free to become their floral G.o.dmother, and give them names of my own choosing.

Among our wild fruits we have plums, which, in some townships, are very fine and abundant; these make admirable preserves, especially when boiled in maple mola.s.ses, as is done by the American housewives. Wild cherries, also a sort called choke cherries, from their peculiar astringent qualities, high and low-bush cranberries, blackberries, which are brought by the Squaws in birch baskets,--all these are found on the plains and beaver meadows. The low-bush cranberries are brought in great quant.i.ties by the Indians to the towns and villages. They form a standing preserve on the tea-tables in most of the settlers' houses; but for richness of flavour, and for beauty of appearance, I admire the high-bush cranberries; these are little sought after, on account of the large flat seeds, which prevent them from being used as a jam: the jelly, however, is delightful, both in colour and flavour.

The bush on which this cranberry grows resembles the guelder rose. The blossoms are pure white, and grow in loose umbels; they are very ornamental, when in bloom, to the woods and swamps, skirting the lakes.

The berries are rather of a long oval, and of a brilliant scarlet, and when just touched by the frosts are semi-transparent, and look like pendent bunches of scarlet grapes.

I was tempted one fine frosty afternoon to take a walk with my husband on the ice, which I was a.s.sured was perfectly safe. I must confess for the first half-mile I felt very timid, especially when the ice is so transparent that you may see every little pebble or weed at the bottom of the water. Sometimes the ice was thick and white, and quite opaque.

As we kept within a little distance of the sh.o.r.e, I was struck by the appearance of some splendid red berries on the leafless bushes that hung over the margin of the lake, and soon recognized them to be the aforesaid high-bush cranberries. My husband soon stripped the boughs of their tempting treasure, and I, delighted with my prize, hastened home, and boiled the fruit with some sugar, to eat at tea with our cakes. I never ate any thing more delicious than they proved; the more so perhaps from having been so long without tasting fruit of any kind, with the exception of preserves, during our journey, and at Peterborough.

Soon after this I made another excursion on the ice, but it was not in quite so sound a state. We nevertheless walked on for about three- quarters of a mile. We were overtaken on our return by S------ with a handsleigh, which is a sort of wheelbarrow, such as porters use, without sides, and instead of a wheel, is fixed on wooden runners, which you can drag over the snow and ice with the greatest ease, if ever so heavily laden. S------ insisted that he would draw me home over the ice like a Lapland lady on a sledge. I was soon seated in state, and in another minute felt myself impelled forward with a velocity that nearly took away my breath. By the time we reached the sh.o.r.e I was in a glow from head to foot.

You would be pleased with the situation of our house. The spot chosen is the summit of a fine sloping bank above the lake, distant from the water's edge some hundred or two yards: the lake is not quite a mile from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e. To the south again we command a different view, which will be extremely pretty when fully opened--a fine smooth basin of water, diversified with beautiful islands, that rise like verdant groves from its bosom. Below these there is a fall of some feet, where the waters of the lakes, confined within a narrow channel between beds of limestone, rush along with great impetuosity, foaming and dashing up the spray in mimic clouds.

During the summer the waters are much lower, and we can walk for some way along the flat sh.o.r.es, which are composed of different strata of limestone, full of fossil remains, evidently of very recent formation.

Those sh.e.l.ls and river-insects that are scattered loose over the surface of the limestone, left by the recession of the waters, are similar to the sh.e.l.ls and insects incrusted in the body of the limestone. I am told that the bed of one of the lakes above us (I forget which) is of limestone; that it abounds in a variety of beautiful river-sh.e.l.ls, which are deposited in vast quant.i.ties in the different strata, and also in the blocks of limestone scattered along the sh.o.r.es. These sh.e.l.ls are also found in great profusion in the soil of the Beaver meadows.

When I see these things, and hear of them, I regret I know nothing of geology or conchology; as I might then be able to account for many circ.u.mstances that at present only excite my curiosity.

[Maps: Charts shewing the Interior Navigation of the District of Newcastle and Upper Canada.]

Just below the waterfall I was mentioning there is a curious natural arch in the limestone rock, which at this place rises to a height of ten or fifteen feet like a wall; it is composed of large plates of grey limestone, lying one upon the other; the arch seems like a rent in the wall, but worn away, and hollowed, possibly, by the action of water rushing through it at some high flood. Trees grow on the top of this rock. Hemlock firs and cedars are waving on this elevated spot, above the turbulent waters, and clothing the stone barrier with a sad but never-fading verdure. Here, too, the wild vine, red creeper, and poison- elder, luxuriate, and wreathe fantastic bowers above the moss-covered ma.s.ses of the stone. A sudden turn in this bank brought us to a broad, perfectly flat and smooth bed of the same stone, occupying a s.p.a.ce of full fifty feet along the sh.o.r.e. Between the fissures of this bed I found some rosebushes, and a variety of flowers that had sprung up during the spring and summer, when it was left dry, and free from the action of the water.

This place will shortly be appropriated for the building of a saw and grist-mill, which, I fear, will interfere with its natural beauty. I dare say, I shall be the only person in the neighbourhood who will regret the erection of so useful and valuable an acquisition to this portion of the township.

The first time you send a parcel or box, do not forget to enclose flower-seeds, and the stones of plums, damsons, bullace, pips of the best kinds of apples, in the orchard and garden, as apples may be raised here from seed, which will bear very good fruit without being grafted; the latter, however, are finer in size and flavour. I should be grateful for a few nuts from our beautiful old stock-nut trees. Dear old trees!

how many gambels have we had in their branches when I was as light of spirit and as free from care as the squirrels that perched among the topmost boughs above us.--"Well," you will say, "the less that sage matrons talk of such wild tricks as climbing nut-trees, the better."

Fortunately, young ladies are in no temptation here, seeing that nothing but a squirrel or a bear could climb our lofty forest-trees. Even a sailor must give it up in despair.

I am very desirous of having the seeds of our wild primrose and sweet violet preserved for me; I long to introduce them in our meadows and gardens. Pray let the cottage-children collect some.

My husband requests a small quant.i.ty of lucerne-seed, which he seems inclined to think may be cultivated to advantage.

LETTER X.

Variations in the Temperature of the Weather.--Electrical Phenomenon.-- Canadian Winter.--Country deficient in Poetical a.s.sociations.--Sugar- making. Fishing Season.--Mode of Fishing.--Duck-shooting.--Family of Indians.--_Papouses_ and their Cradle-cases.--Indian Manufactures.-- _Frogs_.

Lake House, May the 9th. 1833.

WHAT a different winter this has been to what I had antic.i.p.ated. The snows of December were continually thawing; on the 1st of January not a flake was to be seen on our clearing, though it lingered in the bush.

The warmth of the sun was so great on the first and second days of the new year that it was hardly possible to endure a cloak, or even shawl, out of doors; and within, the fire was quite too much for us. The weather remained pretty open till the latter part of the month, when the cold set in severely enough, and continued so during February. The 1st of March was the coldest day and night I ever experienced in my life; the mercury was down to twenty five degrees in the house; abroad it was much lower. The sensation of cold early in the morning was very painful, producing an involuntary shuddering, and an almost convulsive feeling in the chest and stomach. Our breaths were congealed in h.o.a.r-frost on the sheets and blankets. Every thing we touched of metal seemed to freeze our fingers. This excessive degree of cold only lasted three days, and then a gradual amelioration of temperature was felt.

During this very cold weather I was surprised by the frequent recurrence of a phenomenon that I suppose was of an electrical nature. When the frosts were most intense I noticed that when I undressed, my clothes, which are at this cold season chiefly of woollen cloth, or lined with flannel, gave out when moved a succession of sounds, like the crackling and snapping of fire, and in the absence of a candle emitted sparks of a pale whitish blue light, similar to the flashes produced by cutting loaf-sugar in the dark, or stroking the back of a black cat: the same effect was also produced when I combed and brushed my hair*.

[* This phenomenon is common enough everywhere when the air is very dry.--Ed.]

The snow lay very deep on the ground during February, and until the l9th of March, when a rapid thaw commenced, which continued without intermission till the ground was thoroughly freed from its h.o.a.ry livery, which was effected in less than a fortnight's time. The air during the progress of the thaw was much warmer and more balmy than it usually is in England, when a disagreeable damp cold is felt during that process.

Though the Canadian winter has its disadvantages, it also has its charms. After a day or two of heavy snow the sky brightens, and the air becomes exquisitely clear and free from vapour; the smoke ascends in tall spiral columns till it is lost: seen against the saffron-tinted sky of an evening, or early of a clear morning, when the h.o.a.r-frost sparkles on the trees, the effect is singularly beautiful.

I enjoy a walk in the woods of a bright winter-day, when not a cloud, or the faint shadow of a cloud, obscures the soft azure of the heavens above; when but for the silver covering of the earth I might look upwards to the cloudless sky and say, "It is June, sweet June." The evergreens, as the pines, cedars, hemlock, and balsam firs, are bending their pendent branches, loaded with snow, which the least motion scatters in a mimic shower around, but so light and dry is it that it is shaken off without the slightest inconvenience.

The tops of the stumps look quite pretty, with their turbans of snow; a blackened pine-stump, with its white cap and mantle, will often startle you into the belief that some one is approaching you thus fancifully attired. As to ghosts or spirits they appear totally banished from Canada. This is too matter-of-fact country for such supernaturals to visit. Here there are no historical a.s.sociations, no legendary tales of those that came before us. Fancy would starve for lack of marvellous food to keep her alive in the backwoods. We have neither fay nor fairy, ghost nor bogle, satyr nor wood-nymph; our very forests disdain to shelter dryad or hamadryad. No naiad haunts the rushy margin of our lakes, or hallows with her presence our forest-rills. No Druid claims our oaks; and instead of poring with mysterious awe among our curious limestone rocks, that are often singularly grouped together, we refer them to the geologist to exercise his skill in accounting for their appearance: instead of investing them with the solemn characters of ancient temples or heathen altars, we look upon them with the curious eye of natural philosophy alone.

Even the Irish and Highlanders of the humblest cla.s.s seem to lay aside their ancient superst.i.tions on becoming denizens of the woods of Canada.

I heard a friend exclaim, when speaking of the want of interest this country possessed, "It is the most unpoetical of all lands; there is no scope for imagination; here all is new--the very soil seems newly formed; there is no h.o.a.ry ancient grandeur in these woods; no recollections of former deeds connected with the country. The only beings in which I take any interest are the Indians, and they want the warlike character and intelligence that I had pictured to myself they would posses."

This was the lamentation of a poet. Now, the cla.s.s of people to whom this country is so admirably adapted are formed of the unlettered and industrious labourers and artisans. They feel no regret that the land they labour on has not been celebrated by the pen of the historian or the lay of the poet. The earth yields her increase to them as freely as if it had been enriched by the blood of heroes. They would not spare the ancient oak from feelings of veneration, nor look upon it with regard for any thing but its use as timber. They have no time, even if they possessed the taste, to gaze abroad on the beauties of Nature, but their ignorance is bliss.

After all, these are imaginary evils, and can hardly be considered just causes for dislike to the country. They would excite little sympathy among every-day men and women, though doubtless they would have their weight with the more refined and intellectual members of society, who naturally would regret that taste, learning, and genius should be thrown out of its proper sphere.

For myself, though I can easily enter into the feelings of the poet and the enthusiastic lover of the wild and the wonderful of historic lore, I can yet make myself very happy and contented in this country. If its volume of history is yet a blank, that of Nature is open, and eloquently marked by the finger of G.o.d; and from its pages I can extract a thousand sources of amus.e.m.e.nt and interest whenever I take my walks in the forest or by the borders of the lakes.

But I must now tell you of our sugar-making, in which I take rather an active part. Our experiment was on a very limited scale, having but one kettle, besides two iron tripods; but it was sufficient to initiate us in the art and mystery of boiling the sap into mola.s.ses, and finally the mola.s.ses down to sugar.

The first thing to be done in tapping the maples, is to provide little rough troughs to catch the sap as it flows: these are merely pieces of pine-tree, hollowed with the axe. The tapping the tree is done by cutting a gash in the bark, or boring a hole with an auger. The former plan, as being most readily performed, is that most usually practised. A slightly-hollowed piece of cedar or elder is then inserted, so as to slant downwards and direct the sap into the trough; I have even seen a flat chip made the conductor. Ours were managed according to rule, you may be sure. The sap runs most freely after a frosty night, followed by a bright warm day; it should be collected during the day in a barrel or large trough, capable of holding all that can be boiled down the same evening; it should not stand more than twenty-four hours, as it is apt to ferment, and will not grain well unless fresh.

My husband, with an Irish lad, began collecting the sap the last week in March. A pole was fixed across two forked stakes, strong enough to bear the weight of the big kettle. Their employment during the day was emptying the troughs and chopping wood to supply the fires. In the evening they lit the fires and began boiling down the sap.

It was a pretty and picturesque sight to see the sugar-boilers, with their bright log-fire among the trees, now stirring up the blazing pile, now throwing in the liquid and stirring it down with a big ladle. When the fire grew fierce, it boiled and foamed up in the kettle, and they had to throw in fresh sap to keep it from running over.

When the sap begins to thicken into mola.s.ses, it is then brought to the sugar-boiler to be finished. The process is simple; it only requires attention in skimming and keeping the ma.s.s from boiling over, till it has arrived at the sugaring point, which is ascertained by dropping a little into cold water. When it is near the proper consistency, the kettle or pot becomes full of yellow froth, that dimples and rises in large bubbles from beneath. These throw out puffs of steam, and when the mola.s.ses is in this stage, it is nearly converted into sugar. Those who pay great attention to keeping the liquid free from sc.u.m, and understand the precise sugaring point, will produce an article little if at all inferior to muscovado*.

[* Good well-made maple-sugar bears a strong resemblance to that called powdered sugar-candy, sold by all grocers as a delicate article to sweeten coffee; it is more like maple-sugar in its regular crystallizations.]

In general you see the maple-sugar in large cakes, like bees' wax, close and compact, without showing the crystallization; but it looks more beautiful when the grain is coa.r.s.e and sparkling, and the sugar is broken in rough ma.s.ses like sugar-candy.

The sugar is rolled or sc.r.a.ped down with a knife for use, as it takes long to dissolve in the tea without this preparation. I superintended the last part of the process, that of boiling the mola.s.ses down to sugar; and, considering it was a first attempt, and without any experienced person to direct me, otherwise than the information I obtained from ------. I succeeded tolerably well, and produced some sugar of a fine sparkling grain and good colour. Besides the sugar, I made about three gallons of mola.s.ses, which proved a great comfort to us, forming a nice ingredient in cakes and an excellent sauce for puddings.

The Yankees, I am told, make excellent preserves with mola.s.ses instead of sugar. The mola.s.ses boiled from maple-sap is very different from the mola.s.ses of the West Indies, both in flavour, colour, and consistency.

Beside the sugar and mola.s.ses, we manufactured a small cask of vinegar, which promises to be good. This was done by boiling five pails-full of sap down to two, and fermenting it after it was in the vessel with barm; it was then placed near the fire, and suffered to continue there in preference to being exposed to the sun's heat.

With regard to the expediency of making maple-sugar, it depends on circ.u.mstances whether it be profitable or not to the farmer. If he have to hire hands for the work, and pay high wages, it certainly does not answer to make it, unless on a large scale. One thing in its favour is, that the sugar season commences at a time when little else can be done on the farm, with the exception of chopping, the frost not being sufficiently out of the ground to admit of crops being sown; time is, therefore, less valuable than it is later in the spring.

Where there is a large family of children and a convenient sugar-bush on the lot, the making of sugar and mola.s.ses is decidedly a saving; as young children can be employed in emptying the troughs and collecting fire-wood, the bigger ones can tend the kettles and keep up the fire while the sap is boiling, and the wife and daughters can finish off the sugar within-doors.

Maple-sugar sells for four-pence and six-pence per pound, and sometimes for more. At first I did not particularly relish the flavour it gave to tea, but after awhile I liked it far better than muscovado, and as a sweetmeat it is to my taste delicious. I shall send you a specimen by the first opportunity, that you may judge for yourself of its excellence.

The weather is now very warm--oppressively so. We can scarcely endure the heat of the cooking-stove in the kitchen. As to a fire in the parlour there is not much need of it, as I am glad to sit at the open door and enjoy the lake-breeze. The insects are already beginning to be troublesome, particularly the black flies--a wicked-looking fly, with black body and white legs and wings; you do not feel their bite for a few minutes, but are made aware of it by a stream of blood flowing from the wound; after a few hours the part swells and becomes extremely painful.

These "_beasties_" chiefly delight in biting the sides of the throat, ears, and sides of the cheek, and with me the swelling continues for many days. The mosquitoes are also very annoying. I care more for the noise they make even than their sting. To keep them out of the house we light little heaps of damp chips, the smoke of which drives them away; but this remedy is not entirely effectual, and is of itself rather an annoyance.

This is the fishing season. Our lakes are famous for masquinonge, salmon-trout, white fish, black ba.s.s, and many others. We often see the lighted canoes of the fishermen pa.s.s and repa.s.s of a dark night before our door. S------ is considered very skilful as a spearsman, and enjoys the sport so much that he seldom misses a night favourable for it. The darker the night and the calmer the water the better it is for the fishing.

It is a very pretty sight to see these little barks slowly stealing from some cove of the dark pine-clad sh.o.r.es, and manoeuvring among the islands on the lakes, rendered visible in the darkness by the blaze of light cast on the water from the jack--a sort of open grated iron basket, fixed to a long pole at the bows of the skiff or canoe. This is filled with a very combustible substance called fat-pine, which burns with a fierce and rapid flame, or else with rolls of birch-bark, which is also very easily ignited.