Emily P. Weaver

“ N November, 1775, when the British flag had waved for sixteen years over Quebec, there marched into the village of Point Lévis a little army of gaunt half-starved, wayworn men, who for forty days had been pushing their way through the hungry wilderness from the settlements of Maine. On this terrible march the weaklings of their force had fallen or turned back, and those who reached the St. Lawrence (but two-thirds of the original eleven hundred) had proved their fitness for hard service by grim, dogged endurance to the very point of death. ”

“ It is possible for a dullard and an ignoramus to pick a meagre living from amongst the weeds of a neglected farm; but it takes not only brains, but cultivated brains, to farm well. No man is too good, whatever a “smart” lad may think, for the foundation industry of the world; and no farmer can have a too good educational equipment for this work. Perhaps the people of the Dominion, when reviewing what has been done in this country for education, have a reasonably good right to look with pleasure on the effort to bring well-trained minds to bear on agriculture. ”

“ A charm and a glamor hangs over the generally commonplace business of buying and selling, getting gain and making provision for the humble needs of the day. The whole thing seems like a picture-book. The groups of voluble, good-humored habitant women; the queer little carts like ladders mounted on wheels; the small pink pigs, squealing their hardest as they are transferred from the crates of the vendors to the sacks of the purchasers; the background of tall, irregular buildings climbing the great cliff—these lend to the scene a color and character all its own. ”

“ It has no mountains or wild, rugged hills, no great forests, and of course no great rivers; but the land is pleasantly undulating, vegetation is usually richly green, contrasting with soil of a warm reddish hue, with glints of shining water, or with lines of snowy breakers, roaring on the sands. In general the character of the scenery is mild and gentle and smiling; with a glad wealth of colour when the orchards are breaking into bloom, or when the first touch of frost is kindling a magic glow amongst the maples and sumach trees. ”

“ But the military suggestions of Quebec are not confined to historic associations. You have them in concrete form, from the picturesque Citadel—which, however, was not built till long after the latest siege—to the little groups of cannon-balls, piled up in odd corners like a young giant’s marbles. At any turn you may meet a red-coated soldier or a blue-jacket from some visiting iron-clad; you may chance on a long row of obsolete guns, or on an ancient mortar, now powerless for mischief, with a great gag of iron in its throat ”

“ On every hand “unconquered peaks” challenge the daring climber; and, hidden away amongst their recesses, lie lakes which seem the very acme of loneliness. The hunter, the scientist, the recluse, the seeker for adventure, can each strike out a trail for himself in British Columbia, or, if he so desires it, can shut himself up apart from other men in the wilderness of mountains; and sometimes stern necessity compels wild journeys through the unexplored maze of height and precipice and canyon. ”

“ Many Canadians view the rapid influx of immigrants with anxiety, lest the Dominion should fail to assimilate these streams of new arrivals pouring in annually; and in a measure the severe restrictions on immigration are due to this anxiety. It is true in every land that the mistakes or successes of one generation may profoundly affect the well-being of generations to come; but in a country like Canada the public-spirited feel that blunders of to-day, possibly only affecting a mere handful of people, may be bringing misery on populations multiplied a thousandfold to-morrow. ”

“ At any rate, the first anniversary of the founding of Quebec had hardly passed, when was inaugurated the fearful blood-feud between the French and the Iroquois that for the greater part of a century brought out the best and the worst of New France—courage, steadfastness, unselfish heroism on the one hand, and, on the other, dare-devil recklessness and pitiless brutality. ”

“ No wonder that the dweller in the country places loves to see the train pass by. It means in illness, possibility of getting skilled help of doctor and nurse, in health, opportunity of intercourse with friends and neighbours; for the young and old, a fuller social life; for the farmer, access to markets and oftentimes prosperity instead of failure. In one word, it means opportunity in a thousand ways. ”

“ Amongst the low curved roofs of the villages rise the towers of great churches, like that at Beauport and the miraculous St. Anne, whither every year come pilgrims in thousands seeking health or peace of mind. Behind these villages, if you step but a little aside from the splendid waterway of the St. Lawrence, you may lose yourself on sparsely-tracked, forest-covered hills, cleft with gullies, down which foam torrents, choked at times with thousands of grinding logs. But, after all, it is only a hermit who would long bury himself amongst these hills.
French Canadians. ”

“ It is possible for anyone to live long in another part of Canada without getting much idea of the history, resources or characteristics of the “Provinces down by the Sea,” but it adds immensely to one’s interest and pride in the Dominion when one realizes that Quebec and Ontario—wealthy and important as they unquestionably are—are now only a part of Canada, and that for a comprehensive understanding of the country as a whole, there is needed at least some knowledge of the prairie provinces, and British Columbia to the west, and of the little old less restless Lower Provinces to the east. ”

“ The first glimpse of Quebec, whether from the River, Point Lévis, or Beauport, shows grey bastions and battlements above all other buildings, and it will be strange if further knowledge of the place does not remind you more and more of the warlike times gone by. The very notices in the shop-windows—bilingual and giving to the beginner in the Gallic tongue of our compatriots a pleasing sense of walking in the pages of a dictionary—are a reminder of the long struggle between French and English for the domination of this continent. ”

“ It is interesting that, to a large extent, the political institutions of Canada, like those of the Mother-land, are not what might be described as an invention of any statesman, or group of statesmen, but rather resemble a living organism, which, in order to survive and grow, has had to adapt itself to its environment. At first, after the rude shock of the secession from the Empire of the Thirteen Colonies, British statesmen were nervously apprehensive that the growth of the new colonies in wealth and power would inevitably result in their separation from Britain. ”

“ He received a joyous welcome from the few French families who had remained in the colony. The Indians, who came down the river by hundreds in their canoes, gave him a still more enthusiastic greeting. Never before had there been at Quebec such feasting, such speech-making, such a smoking of peace-pipes; and Champlain, knowing that the very life of the colony was bound up with the fur-trade, cherished high hopes for the prosperity of Quebec.
What matter that the original settlement below the cliff lay in ruins? ”

“ Through it pours annually the vast stream of wheat from the grain fields of the West, for it is “the greatest grain market of the world”; whilst another stream flows westward—of more interest and account than any merchandize—the stream of humanity bound to the land of new chances. But part of this human river, as everywhere, tends to drift into the eddies. Some newcomers (foreigners and British alike) never get beyond Winnipeg, and some, failing on the land, return thither, rendering its social problems inexpressibly difficult. ”

“ Of its sea of mountains, two hundred thousand square miles in extent, might be made twenty-four Switzerlands, but those who know the far-famed land of the European mountaineers are impressed with the fact that as yet man has gained no such hold upon the Rockies and the Selkirks and the Coast Ranges as upon the Alps. There are no picturesque châlets clinging to the sides of these Canadian mountains, and for the most part the snow-capped monarchs of the ranges lift up their heads from a land that seems almost as much outside the dominion of man as the blue heavens themselves. ”

“ Manitoba farmers, however, are discovering many other avenues to comfort and success than the almost exclusive growth of this grain, with the advantage of much better prospects to their lands of continued productivity than by the repetition, year after year, of a single crop. Still the province raises immense quantities of wheat, but mixed farming has its advocates, who not only preach but practise their favourite agricultural doctrine.
Nor is this wonderful, in a community which lives chiefly by agriculture and yet cannot begin to supply its own cities (nay, its own farmhouses!) ”

“ In these years of hardship the courageous spirit and the useful experience of the Loyalists triumphed, and well and truly did they lay the foundation of a new British nation in the north. Some Americans of adventurous turn of mind, but not of their political creed, early found their way into the land; but when in June, 1812, there broke out between the young American Republic and England a war, which had grown out of the struggle of the last-named nation with Napoleon, it was the old spirit of the Loyalists which dominated Canada ”

“ Happily it is not only blunders that are subjected to the process of multiplication and magnification; and in quietness and patience (scarcely noticed amidst the buzz of advertising and boasting of the great things to be) some people are earnestly labouring to begin the building of the new nation well; and perhaps are actually building better than they know. In the social freedom of the new lands, men and women of strong character count for much in either good or evil.
Upon the whole, the people of the Dominion are law-abiding. ”

“ I might tell of the vigorous, and upon the whole, successful, struggle which men and women are making in the cause of temperance—in Ontario and in other provinces—and of other efforts, needed even in this new land of opportunities, to prevent the exploiting of helpless children and young girls by greedy money-makers, to stamp out tuberculosis, to guard infant life, to cleanse the land of evils, physical and spiritual. ”

“ Throughout New Brunswick there is much excellent land, suited for different purposes. Like Nova Scotia, the province has its salt marshes and dyked lands on the Bay of Fundy, and its “intervales” along the rivers, both famous for their enormous crops of hay. It has, too, districts as well adapted, it is said, for the culture of apples, as the Annapolis valley itself. In fact it, also, is a mixed farming region, where grains of all kinds will grow; where one man pins his faith to dairying; another urges the profits to be made from sheep or poultry or pigs ”

“ It is difficult for people who have lived always in small well-settled countries to imagine what the opening of a great new railway means to the Dominion.
Over seventy years ago the people who see visions and dream dreams were prophesying a new trade route between east and west, by which the teas and silks of China and Japan would be brought by steam power along rivers, canals and railways across what is now the Dominion of Canada. ”

“ For, after all, the newcomer must learn for himself the things he most needs to know. Many of these things cannot be put into a book, for books must deal largely with generalities, while each immigrant brings his own idiosyncrasies to the problem of fitting into a peculiar environment.
Finally, it is good that the newcomer should realize and remember that “immigration” has two sides to it—that the new country deserves consideration as well as the new arrival, and that this “land of opportunities” only yields its best to the man or woman prepared to give as well as to get. ”

“ Rocks that cost the railway companies vast expense and toil in blasting have proved mines of precious metals. The chill waters of Hudson Bay may yet furnish the tables of half a continent with fish; and lands, supposed to be too far north for any useful growth, are so bathed in sunshine during the long days of the brief northern summer that roots and grains are forced to swift perfection, and the harvest seems to tread on the heels of the sowing. What will the next few decades show even in Ontario? Who can say? But bigness means difficulty and toil and struggle, as well as opportunity ”

“ The task that faced Canada’s first British pioneers was more strenuous than that which has faced any pioneers since, though the opening and subduing of a new land to the uses of civilized man is always a task that tests to the utmost the manhood and womanhood of those who essay it.
The land was thickly covered with huge trees, and in many places the soil, which the sun’s rays could scarcely ever reach through the shadowy verdure of the woods, was cold and wet and swampy. When the Loyalists came, there were no roads in Upper Canada or New Brunswick. ”

“ Edmonton is still a centre of the fur-trade, and even now, in winter time, picturesque dog-trains arrive from the north in the provincial capital, whilst in the heart of Alberta traders, surveyors, mail-carriers and missionaries are leading the kind of life described in the “Wild West” books of our childhood. Still, on winter’s nights, in the white Albertan wilderness, many a man, for one motive or another, is sleeping out under the stars, defiant of the frost and loneliness ”

“ At that time it seemed as if the long-desired boon of responsible government were going to prove a failure in Canada, for the representatives of the people were split up into so many different groups—French and English; Reformers and Conservatives, both moderate and extreme, none of whom could arrive at any means of working harmoniously together. Any one of the numerous parties, standing alone, was sure to be outvoted; and it sometimes happened that opponents would unite to drive a third party from power, but not to give strength to any government. ”

“ It is a wonderful thing, when travelling westward after crossing the prairies, where Nature appears to be rather insisting on the one idea of broad simplicity, and after plunging through the mountains, where she seems to invite your special attention to the magnificence of her backgrounds (though she herself has energy to spare for details too) , to come down to this paradise of growing things, ranging from trees that tower to heaven to blossoms that climb on the houses, peep over grey walls and swing from the porches, bent apparently on breaking all bounds. ”