John George Bourinot

“ On the coast and in the rich valleys stand the giant pines and cedars, compared with which the trees of the Eastern division seem mere saplings. The coast is very mountainous and broken into innumerable inlets and islands, all of them heavily timbered to the water's edge. The history of this region offers little of picturesque interest except what may be found in the adventures of daring sailors of various nationalities on the Pacific coast, or in the story of the descent of the Fraser by the Scotch fur-trader who first followed it to the sea, and gave it the name which it still justly bears. ”

“ The tourist who travels through the province of Quebec sees on all sides the evidence that he is passing through a country of French origin. Here and there in Quebec and Montreal, or in some quiet village sequestered in a valley or elevated on the Laurentian Hills, he sees houses and churches which remind him of many a hamlet or town he has visited in Brittany or Normandy. The language is French from the Saguenay to the Ottawa, and in some remote communities even now English is never spoken, and is understood only by the curé or notary. ”

“ As we wander among the old burying grounds of those founders of Western Canada and New Brunswick, and stand by the gray, moss-covered tablets, with names effaced by the ravages of years, the thought will come to us, what interesting stories could be told by those who are laid beneath the sod, of sorrows and struggles, of hearts sick with hope deferred, of expectations never realised, of memories of misfortune and disaster in another land where they bore so much for a stubborn and unwise king. ”

“ Fields of golden grain brighten the prairies, where the tracks of herds of buffalo, once so numerous but now extinct, still deeply indent the surface of the rich soil, and lead to some creek or stream, on whose banks grows the aspen or willow or poplar of a relatively treeless land, until we reach the more picturesque and well-wooded and undulating country through which the North Saskatchewan flows. ”

“ Maple sugar was a great luxury, when the people once learned to make it from the noble tree, whose symmetrical leaf may well be made the Canadian national emblem. It took the people a long while to accustom themselves to the conditions of their primitive pioneer life, but now the results of the labours of these early settlers and their descendants can be seen far and wide in smiling fields, richly laden orchards, and gardens of old-fashioned flowers throughout the country which they first made to blossom like the rose. ”

“ Cities, towns, and villages were built up with a rapidity not exceeded even on the other side of the border. In those days Ontario became the noble province that she now is by virtue of the capacity of her people for self-government, the energy of her industrial classes, the fertility of her soil, and the superiority of her climate. The maritime industry of the lower provinces was developed most encouragingly, and Nova Scotia built up a commercial marine not equalled by that of any New England State. ”

“ The Canadian lumberer among the pines of the Ottawa and its tributaries, the Métis or half-breeds of what was once the great Lone Land, still sing snatches of the songs which the coureurs de bois, who followed Duluth and other French explorers, were wont to sing as they paddled over the rivers of the West or camped beneath the pines and the maples of the great forests. It is impossible to set the words of all of them to the music of the drawing-room, where they seem tame and meaningless ”

“ After the capitulation of this fort a large number of helpless men, women, and children were barbarously murdered by the body of Indians that accompanied the French—one of the saddest episodes in American history, which must always dim the lustre of Montcalm's victory, though it is now generally admitted that the French general himself was not responsible for the treachery of his Indian allies, but used his most earnest efforts—even at the risk of his own life—to save the English when the savages were mad with lust for the blood of their enemies. ”