J. Ewing Ritchie

“ It is at home impossible to realize the solitariness of the settler’s life, far away from friends and the civilizing and elevating influences of home. I met men in the North-West who seemed to have almost lost the power of speech, so long had they been left on their homesteads alone. Emigration in communities would do away with this state of things. At present it is a serious sacrifice for a man with a family to emigrate into a new country. It is not good for man to be alone. As a rule, he degenerates on the prairie; civilization is the gift of towns to humanity. ”

“ Canada is not the place for members of the British Association who long for the flesh-pots of Egypt or the champagne-cup. In Canada one has to live simply and to work hard. He who does so work, though in England he may die a pauper, there becomes a man. Canada offers to all independence, a fertile soil, a bracing air. ”

“ On the green forest, rising up above the town and overlooking Thunder Bay, it is intended to build a first-class summer hotel for the comfort of holiday makers and health seekers. There the visitor will enjoy fine cool air in the sultry heat of summer, while bathing in the lake will invigorate his enfeebled frame. The waters abound with fish. Islands and lakes and rivers tempt the yachtsman. If the workmen who squander their hard-earned wages in reckless drunkenness would but learn to be sober, few places on the Canadian lakes would be more enjoyable than Port Arthur. ”

“ Imagine a poor woman leaving her native land, crossing the restless Atlantic, perhaps feeble with poor living, and worried with the care of nine helpless children, perhaps scarce recovered from sea-sickness, put on board an emigrant train, snatching hasty meals, or such accommodation as is provided at the expense of Dominion Government (I do not blame them or the railway authorities, they do all they can) , travelling at uncertain hours, and arriving at her destination utterly overcome by fatigue. ”

“ Perhaps nowhere has a village so suddenly sprung up into a city as at Winnipeg, which first obtained notoriety by the advent of Lord Garnet Wolseley, then a young man, who came to suppress the rebellion raised there by a half-breed of the name of Riel, a daring young French Canadian, wily as a savage, brilliant and energetic. ”

“ Toronto, or the Queen City of the West, as she loves to call herself, stands upon the north shore of Lake Ontario, and has not only achieved a great success, but may be said, in spite of all the moving to the North-West of which we hear so much, to have a great future before it, on account of its position with regard to railways, which alone in this great country decide the fate of towns and cities. Immediately in front is a broad bay, from which you get an imposing view of the city, while its forest of spires and factory chimneys gives evidence of prosperous and busy life. ”

“ Grand shops and well-built offices everywhere attract the eye. Ladies in the latest fashion meet you one minute, and the next you jostle a swarthy Indian, half civilized, and his squaw, still less civilized than himself. Odd fur-skins are exposed for sale, while a stuffed bear adorns the main street, up and down which run all day long the newsboys with the latest telegrams from London, or Paris, or New York. ”

“ You can’t sleep in an American railway-car unless you are a navvy or a contractor—who can sleep anywhere. In England, even in a third-class carriage, the chances are you can lie down at your full length and sleep. In Canada you can’t do that, as the seats are too short. So there I sat, bolt upright, all through that tedious night, watching for the light of day, while my companions sat smoking and talking and expectorating. In a playful moment one of them suggested that they should all take off their boots. ”

“ Villages, churches, hotels, are all built of wood on a stone foundation, and, painted as the houses are, they remind one not a little of Zaandam, and the little wooden cottages you may see in that old quarter of the world. But the original colonists are a poor people, living frugally and with little desire for the comforts and luxuries of life. It is the same in Quebec, where the poor all talk French, and where the Protestants are in a very small minority. In Quebec there is little to attract the stranger. It looks its best at it stands on its picturesque rock rising out of the St. Lawrence. ”

“ Traill must be an advanced octogenarian—she is older than Mrs. Moodie, and Mrs. Moodie claims to be far over eighty. Yet Mrs. Traill retains her conversational power intact, and is full as ever of ‘the lore that nature brings,’ and is as enthusiastic as ever in its pursuit. As much as ever her manners are queenlike. They have never left her, in spite of all the hardships she has had to undergo as wife and mother in the wilderness, and her face still retains something of the freshness and fairness of her youth. She is a wonderful old lady, and Canada must be a wonderful country for such. ”

“ We who are old must stop at home; but there is no reason why our sons should do so. Why should a young man be a drudge because his father was a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water, when in a colony there are many ways of becoming well-off to a man who has good muscles and brains, has the sense to avail himself of opportunity when it occurs, and to keep his money in his pocket? I say Canada, because Canada is easy to get at, and is yet almost in a virgin state. It is only recently that it has been opened up by the Canadian Government and the Canadian Pacific Railway. ”

“ However, as long as the present Canadian Government are in power, there is no chance of Free Trade. It was the Protection cry that placed the Conservatives in power. With so many French as there are in Canada, vainly dreaming of a restoration of French rule, it is idle to talk of the interests of the mother country. Nor does Great Britain deserve very well of the Canadians. ”

“ Port Arthur, which stands near the ancient Hudson Bay Company’s station of Fort William, was in a state of intense activity. Every one was building wooden houses and shops who could do so. According to all appearances, it is certainly a busy place; but architecturally I cannot say that it is of much account. The main street opens on to the railway, along which the engines, ringing a doleful bell in order to bid passengers keep out of the way, pass every few minutes. Then there are wooden shops and wooden hotels, and the usual concourse of rough, unwashed, half-dressed loafers in the streets. ”

“ It is true these big American cars have certain advantages ours lack. You can change your position; you can talk without breaking a blood-vessel; and you can see more of the country, especially as they do not go the pace we are accustomed to at home; but there is such a confusion of persons in them, that to one accustomed to the society to be met with in an English first-class carriage, the result is anything but pleasing. In the Canadian first-class carriage Jack and his master ride side by side, unless the latter takes a berth in a sleeping car, for which he has to pay extra. ”

“ At meals I meet queer company. We have a Chinese cook. I have a faint idea that he has murderous designs on us all, his smile is so childlike and bland; yet I prefer his placid pleasant round face to those of his female helps, sour and ill-looking, who earn wages such as an English servant-girl never dreams of. His messes seem to be appreciated, and little is left after meal-time. It is enough for me to see the men eat. Every particle of food is conveyed into the mouth by means of the knife, which is also freely used if sugar or salt be required. ”

“ Firs, all larch and pine, in all the freshness of their new-found greenery, clothe their base; while the snow, in wreaths like marble, glistens on their dark sides or crowns their rugged peaks. It would seem as if there could be no world beyond. ”

“ Yet there are parts of Manitoba which contain undoubtedly as fine corn-growing country as any in the world.
This is especially true of the new tract of country opened up by the Canadian Pacific in the south-west. As a rule, the further from the railway the land is, the better it is. At the same time, it is to be remembered that a farmer who has no railway access is at a great disadvantage, and that in the winter it is no joke sending a man with a team of oxen and a waggon-load of produce twenty or thirty miles across the prairie, where a snowstorm, or ‘a blorrard’ at any time, may occur. ”

“ I met a reverend gentleman from England here, who, the other night, at a meeting of mechanics, vainly endeavoured to say a word in favour of emigration, and had to desist under the threat that if he did not they would knock off his head. The mechanics here are very much afraid that if more of their own class come out, wages will be lowered. Nor are Irish emigrants in much favour here, as they stop in the city instead of going into the country in search of work, and have to be supported by the charitable and humane. ”

“ There may be a station-master, there may be a whole herd of officials, there may be an army of porters, but Canadians in one respect resemble the Americans—and that is, that they think it inconsistent with their manly dignity to wear any kind of garb which can in any possible way distinguish them from the crowd of lookers-on, always to be met with in a railway station, so that the railway traveller is always in a perplexity. ”

“ They are to be honoured for their work’s sake. They plant, we gather the fruit. They sow the seed, we reap the harvest, and their work remains a monument of perseverance, of the benefits of the Union, of enterprise, and capital and skill. ”

“ If a young Englishman wishes to try farming in Canada, he cannot do better than hire himself to a farmer for a year or two and keep his money in his pocket for the purchase of a farm.
p. 223But even then he must not buy a farm till he knows something about it, and he cannot be long out here before he will find out where the good land is. A Canadian whom I met at Calgary, told me that he knew a farm near Toronto which was regularly in the market every year. It is safe to be bought by an Englishman, who tries it for a time, gives it up in despair, and then it comes into the market again. ”

“ What a pity the discontented men whom I left at Montreal, because work was not offered them immediately they landed, did not come thus far! As to rockmen and labourers, they are wanted by the hundred. Surely, Port Arthur must be a good place for the working man and the working girl. Even at Calgary they were paying the female helps at the hotel—as sour a set as I ever saw—and who were constantly quarrelling with John Smith, the Chinaman cook—as much as 40 dollars a month. But even out here a man must have brains. ”

“ Again, I repeat, people in England ought to have fuller information about Canada ere they go thither. It is a fortune for the strong man, but even he has to run risks. Everywhere I hear of what is called mountain fever, or Red River fever, or fever with some other name which stands for typhoid disease. Grand and beautiful as is the country, fertile as is the soil, people forget to observe sanitary laws at times and suffer in consequence. But I must own that all the men I met in Holt City were pictures of health and strength. For one thing, the company feeds them well. ”

“ Just now there is a feeling growing up in favour of Free Trade with America; but that will not aid the British manufacturer one jot. The system of duties between Canada and America is an enormous nuisance, when one thinks of the daily personal and commercial intercourse between the two countries. For instance, I lost by changing English money into Canadian dollars; and then again, when I had to change Canadian dollars into American greenbacks, I had to submit to a further loss. ”

“ I have left Toronto behind, and here I am on Lake Superior, the largest body of fresh water in the world—so large is it, that if you immerse in it Great Britain and Ireland, and add the Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight, there would still be a respectable amount of water to spare—enough, at any rate, to make a river as long as the Thames, which we in England hold to be a very decent sort of river indeed. ”

“ At Ottawa I saw a large lumber-yard worth many thousand pounds, which was the property of one who came from England as a working man. As to mechanics, I fear the case is different. In Ontario, in all the towns, the mechanics have strong unions, and they do all they can to keep out emigrants of that class, fearing that their own wages will be reduced. This dog-in-the-manger policy prevails everywhere, and many mechanics, directly they land, are thus frightened by them, and want to get back to England at once. There are two sides to every question. ”

“ A month up here in the Rockies would make a young man of me or of anyone else. I must be off before I become as gay as a horse fed on beans. This is, I take it, the real and sufficient reason of the peculiar spirits of the mountaineers, who rather alarmed me with their liveliness at Calgary. Their exuberance is due to air, and air alone. As I sit, a long row of mules files past; a man is riding at the head, the others follow with their burdens packed on their backs. He is a ‘prospector,’ and is on his way to the other side. ”

“ I visited the school-room, which was filled with bright and well-fed boys and girls, where the children are taught free, as they are all over Canada—where they have, by-the-bye, a compulsory law, which is never enforced, as it is impossible to do so. And then I made my way to the best-looking building in the town—the emigrants’ shed—where already 3,600 emigrants have this season been lodged gratis by the Dominion Government previous to their passing onwards to the North-West.
People tell me there is no room for mechanics in Canada. In Port Arthur I see them in constant demand. ”