Lake Ontario

“ Ontario means the beautiful, and the word is worthy of its signification, and the lake is worthy of its beautiful name; yet I can hardly tell you in what this fascination consists: there is no scenery around it, no high lands, no bold shores, no picture to be taken in at once by the eye; the swamp and the forest enclose it, and it is so wide and so vast that it presents all the monotony without the majesty of the ocean. Yet, like that great ocean, when I lived beside it, the expanse of this lake has become to me like the face of a friend. ”

“ As a reminder of their trip each tourist was given by us a souvenir of Toronto, and even if excursionists struck a rough day and rendered up their tributes to Lake Ontario, it was of novel interest to many who had never before seen a lake wide enough to have been "out of sight of land," and sailing over waves big enough to make a large steamer rock. ”

“ Above this, the dell contracted to the width of Dovedale, and through it all, the river, sometimes a foaming, brawling stream, at others fringed with flowers, and quiescent in deep, clear pools, pours down to the lake. After galloping upon this savannah we plunged into the river, and, after our horses had broken through a plank-bridge at the great risk of their legs, we rode for many miles through bush and clearing, down sandy tracks and scratching thickets, to the pebbly beach of Lake Ontario. ”

“ Yet Lake Ontario affords great advantages to both Canada and the United States. The former has the large towns of Hamilton, Toronto, and Kingston on its shores, with the exporting places of Oakville, Credit, and Cobourg. The important towns of Oswego and Rochester, with smaller ones too numerous to name, are on the American side. This lake is five hundred miles round, and, owing to its very great depth, never freezes, except just along the shores. ”

“ The outlet of Lake Ontario is the beginning of the river St. Lawrence; and a little below are the famous rapids of that magnificent current, which make the scene of the Canadian Boat-song.
Lake Erie lies south-west of Lake Ontario, its eastern termination being at Buffalo, and running in a south-westerly course two hundred and fifty miles, in breadth seventy miles; having the most desirable agricultural regions of Upper Canada in the north, and parts of the states of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, on the south. ”

“ There are rivers whose currents, running red with the silt and mud of their soft alluvial shores, carry far into the ocean the record of their muddy progress; but this glorious river system, through its many lakes and various names, is ever the same crystal current, flowing pure from the fountain-head of Lake Superior. Great cities stud its shores; but they are powerless to dim the transparency of its waters. Steam-ships cover the broad bosom of its lakes and estuaries; but they change not the beauty of the water, no more than the fleets of the world mark the waves of the ocean. ”

“ It rained repeatedly; the wind grew stronger; the vessel pitched, and several persons became sea-sick. Lake Ontario is of an elliptical form, is about two hundred miles long, and fifty-five miles at its widest part. It is everywhere very deep, in some places five hundred feet, and never freezes completely over. It contains several good harbours, and the I.82 boundary line between Canada and the United States, divides it into two nearly equal parts. ”

“ The main tributaries of Ontario from New York are the Black, Oswego and Genesee Rivers. The Black River gathers various streams draining the western slopes of the Adirondacks, and its name comes from the dark amber hue of the waters. It flows northwest through a forest-covered region, pours down Lyons Falls, a fine cataract of seventy feet, passes the manufacturing towns of Lowville and Watertown, and finally discharges by the broadened estuary of Black River Bay into the east end of Lake Ontario. From Rome, on the Mohawk, a canal is constructed northward to the Black River. ”

“ On the south side of Lake Ontario, opposite Toronto, is the Niagara Portal, where the mouth of the Niagara River, with high banks on either hand, makes its entrance into the lake, forming the only uninterrupted deep water harbour on that shore.
Here the rapid waters, outfall of all the gatherings of the inland Upper Lakes, pour out in fullest volume, enabling entrance even in winter, when all other harbours are closed in the grasp of ice. It is worthy of its mighty source, the product of the greatest Fresh Water Lakes in all the world. ”

“ Lake Ontario is 180 miles long and 65 miles wide. Out of its north-eastern end falls the broad stream which here generally takes the name of the Saint Lawrence, and which proceeds onward, now widening into lake-like expanses full of islands, now compressed into a narrow channel, in a north-easterly direction. The true Saint Lawrence may indeed be considered as traversing the whole system of the great lakes of North America, and thus being little less than a thousand miles in direct length ”

“ Before turning our steps westward from this inland ocean, Lake Superior, it will be well to pause a moment on its shore and look out over its bosom. It is worth looking at, for the world possesses not its equal. Four hundred English miles in length, one hundred and fifty miles in breadth, six hundred feet above Atlantic level, nine hundred feet in depth; one vast spring of purest crystal water, so cold that during summer months its waters are like ice itself, and so clear that hundreds of feet below the surface the rocks stand out as distinctly as though seen through plate-glass. ”

“ I crossed Lake Ontario in the iron steamer Peerless; the lake was rough as usual, and, after a promenade of two hours on the spray-drenched deck, I retired to the cabin, and spent some time in dreamily wondering whether Niagara itself would compensate for the discomforts of the journey thither. Captain D——— gravely informed me that there were "a good many cases" below, and I never saw people so deplorably sea-sick as in this steamer. An Indian officer who had crossed the Line seventeen times was sea-sick for the first time on Lake Ontario. The short, cross, chopping seas affect most people. ”

“ To the north and west, we behold the Bay of Quinté, stretching far away into the land, and dividing itself into many beautiful inlets. There are too, the promising settlements and clearances all along the coast, which can never fail to raise and exhilarate the spirits of every one who wishes well to the destinies of his species. There is, however, one view at this lake, which, above all others, I have most delighted to enjoy. It is from the woods, upon the most elevated part of the eminence which bounds the lake to the south. ”

“ The hand that made us is divine.
“The country in which Lake Erie lies is elevated nearly 300 feet above that which surrounds Ontario. The extensive slope, or mountain, as it is called, which divides the lower country from the upper, is, in many places, nearly perpendicular. It commences on the northern side of Lake Ontario, and runs thence round its north-western point, until it is intersected by the road which leads from York to Amherstburgh. It afterwards pursues an eastern direction, and finally embanks the strait or river of Niagara. ”

“ Steamers not of too great draught can run the rapids going down, but vessels must come up through the canals. All the other rivers in southern Ontario are tributaries of the lakes or of the St Lawrence, the Ottawa, navigable in many parts, being the largest, and the Trent next in importance. In northern Ontario lakes are innumerable and often very picturesque, forming favourite summer resorts, such as Lake Temagami, the Muskoka Lakes and Lake-of-the-Woods. ”

“ With these observations, we are prepared to examine the evidence that points to the site of the Iroquois fort.
When the expedition, emerging from Quinté Bay, arrived at the eastern end of Lake Ontario, at the point where the lake ends and the River St. Lawrence begins, they crossed over the lake, passing large and beautiful islands. Some of these islands will be found laid down on the map of 1632. They then proceeded, a distance, according to their estimation, of about fourteen leagues, to the southern side of Lake Ontario, where they landed and concealed their canoes. ”

“ The craft in greatest favour everywhere on lake, river and bay of Ontario, is the canoe. I do not think anyone can know what an extensive cult is the “canoe” till they see it in Ontario. In season it creeps on the bosom of the lake like a leaf dropped silently from the tree. And Romance rides in more or less every canoe, so that, if anything, the Romantic may be said to be more difficult to keep up with in Ontario than any of the Provinces. The trail of the Romantic invariably leads to a tent somewhere by a stream. ”

“ Suddenly the southern river bends towards the north, and, at a point some six hundred miles from the mountains, pours its volume of water into the northern channel. Then the united river rolls, in vast, majestic curves, steadily towards the north-east, turns once more towards the south, opens out into a great reed-covered marsh, sweeps on into a large cedar-lined lake, and finally, rolling over a rocky ledge, casts its waters into the northern end of the great Lake Winnipeg, fully one thousand three hundred miles from the glacier cradle where it took its birth. ”

“ Lawrence and Lake Ontario, was a task of no easy nature, and the steps by which they came were taken literally inch by inch, and were attended with labor hard and venturesome. Records are not wanting of the severe hardships endured by families on their way to their wooded lands. Supplied with limited comforts, perhaps only the actual necessaries of life, they advanced slowly by day along dangerous rapids, and at night rested under the blue sky. ”

“ It has, from ten to twelve miles above its embouchure into Lake Ontario, one of the finest cataracts in the world. All the Indians say that the river falls from a rock higher than the tallest pines. We heard the roar at the distance of ten or twelve miles. The fall gives such momentum to the water, that its current prevented our ascending, except with great difficulty. The current above the falls is so rapid, that it often sucks in deer and stags, elk and roebuck, endeavoring to cross the river, and overwhelms them in its frightful abyss. ”

“ On the north-west parts of this Lake, and to the south-east of Lake Huron, is a tribe of Indians called the Missisauges, whose town is denominated Toronto, from the lake on which it lies; but they are not very numerous. The country about Lake Ontario, especially the more north and eastern parts, is composed of good land, and in time may make very flourishing settlements. ”

“ On the whole, the north shore of Lake Ontario has the preference, for it’s never so hot here at any time as it is about Geneva or Constantinople. We have in Ontario great inland, fresh-water seas, having pure, limpid waters, and a soil which will discount any in the world beside them, and an equable climate. ”

“ It is the grand reservoir from whence proceed the waters of Michigan, Huron, and Erie. It gives birth to Niagara, the wonder of the world, fills the basin of Ontario, and rolls a mighty flood down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
This lake lies in the bosom of a mountainous region, where the Indian yet reigns and roams in his wonted freedom. Except an occasional picketed fort or trading house, it is yet a perfect wilderness. The entire country is rocky and covered with a stunted growth of vegetation such as is usual in high latitudes. ”

“ Passing from Erie to the last-mentioned lake the descent is not gradual, but one finds a gently rolling plain with almost no slope for nineteen miles until almost at the very shore of Lake Ontario, where almost unexpectedly one comes upon a high precipice from which a magnificent view of the lower lake may be gained, only a narrow strip of beach intervening. This cliff is called by geologists the Niagara escarpment. ”

“ In Lake Ontario the water is advancing on all shores, the rate at any place being proportional to its distance from the isobase through the outlet. At Hamilton and Port Dalhousie it amounts to six inches in a century. ”

“ But having passed that, its impetuosity relents, gliding along more gently for two leagues, till it arrives at the Lake Ontario, or Frontenac.
Any bark or greater vessel may pass from the fort to the foot of this huge rock above mentioned. This rock lies to the westward, and is cut off from the land by the river Niagara, about two leagues farther down than the great fall; for which two leagues the people are obliged to carry their goods over-land; but the way is very good, and the trees are but few, and they chiefly firs and oaks. ”

“ Indian canoe-men in coasting along the shore of Lake Ontario from the east or west, would, we may conceive, naturally point to "the trees rising out of the water," the pines and black poplars looming up from the Toronto island or peninsula, as a familiar land-mark by which they knew the spot where they were to disembark for the "populous region to the north." ”

“ The Lake of the Mountain is however, an object of sufficient interest, without adding to its wonders those of a subterraneous communication with Lake Erie, and an unfathomable depth. There is, for instance, the very singular manner in which it is separated from the Bay of Quinté, by a wall of solid rock, and the extraordinary form of its basin. The fine views, too, with which the mountain abounds, ought to be sufficient to attract the attention of all those whose minds are capable of enjoying the various forms in which beauty may be contemplated. ”