Backwoods

“ The beautiful dog-wood's sweeping sprays and broad leaves, the maiden-hairs glossy wreathes and pearly buds, and the soft emerald moss, clothing the old fallen trees with its velvet tapestry, and hiding their decay with its cool rich beauty, while the sun light falls in golden tracery down the birch trees silver trunk, and the sparkling water flashes in the rays, or sings on its sweet melody unseen amid the luxuriant vegetation that conceals it. ”

“ A backwoodsman, laden with his axe, wading here, ploutering there, stumbling over rotted trees, protruding stumps, a bit of half-submerged corduroy road for one short space, then an adhesive clay bank, then a mile or two or more of black muck swamp, may, possibly,—clay-clogged and footsore, and with much pain in the small of his back,—find himself at sundown at the foot of a hemlock or cedar, with a fire at his feet, having done manfully about ten miles for his day's work. ”

“ One of these winter-greens that abounds in our pine-woods is extremely beautiful; it seldom exceeds six inches in height; the leaves are a bright shining green, of a long narrow oval, delicately notched like the edges of a rose-leaf; and the plant emerges from beneath the snow in the early part of the year, as soon as the first thaw takes place, as fresh and verdant as before they were covered up: it seems to be a shy blossomer. ”

“ All through the winter the lumberers work in the woods, from sunrise to sunset, making the forest resound with the strokes of their axes as they fell tree after tree in amazing quantities. Often they divide into bands of six or eight men, each company striving to outrival the other in the amount of work it gets through. ”

“ The young growth of timber alone has any pretension of elegance of form, unless I except the hemlocks, which are extremely light and graceful, and of a lovely refreshing tint of green. Even when winter has stripped the forest it is still beautiful and verdant. The young beeches too are pretty enough, but you miss that fantastic bowery shade that is so delightful in our parks and woodlands at home.
There is no appearance of venerable antiquity in the Canadian woods. There are no ancient spreading oaks that might be called the patriarchs of the forest. A premature decay seems to be their doom. ”

“ The forests, especially in the hard wood districts, are beautiful in their fresh unbroken solitude—not the solitude of desolation, but the young wild loveliness of the untamed earth. The trees stand close and thick, with straight pillar-like stems, unbroken by leaf or bough, which all expand to the summit, as if for breathing space. ”

“ A safe rock has to be selected for the conflagration, lest the sparks set on fire the dry wood and destroy the beauty of the island forever. The second growth, after a forest fire, is invariably scrub-oak and small hardwood trees, which afford no shade and are not beautiful in themselves. ”

“ If we feel this so sensibly who enjoy the opening of a lake of full three-quarters of a mile in breadth directly in front of our windows, what must those do whose clearing is first opened in the depths of the forest, hemmed in on every side by a thick wall of trees, through the interminable shades of which the eye vainly endeavours to penetrate in search of other objects and other scenes; but so dense is the growth of timber, that all beyond the immediate clearing is wrapped in profound obscurity. ”

“ Springs of pure water were in abundance, trickling down the steep rugged sides of this wooded glen. The children wandered onwards, delighted with the wild picturesque path they had chosen, sometimes resting on a huge block of moss-covered stone, or on the twisted roots of some ancient gray old oak or pine, whilst they gazed with curiosity and interest on the lonely but lovely landscape before them. Across the lake, the dark forest shut all else from their view, rising in gradual far-off slopes till it reached the utmost boundary of sight. ”

“ The shores on either side are very steep, and the large oak-trees which have anchored their roots in every crevice of the rock, throw their fantastic arms far over the foaming waterfall, the deep green of their massy foliage forming a beautiful contrast with the white, flashing waters that foam over the shoot at least fifty feet below the brow of the limestone rock. By a flight of steps cut in the banks we ascended to the platform above the river on which Mr. Y——'s house stood.
It was a large, rough-looking, log building, surrounded by barns and sheds of the same primitive material. ”

“ I could see a smile hover on the lips of my fellow travellers on hearing of our projected plans for the adornment of our future dwelling.
"If you go into the backwoods your house must necessarily be a log- house," said an elderly gentleman, who had been a settler many years in the country. "For you will most probably be out of the way of a saw- mill, and you will find so much to do, and so many obstacles to encounter, for the first two or three years, that you will hardly have opportunity for carrying these improvements into effect. ”

“ Leaving the Colonel's hospitable house on our left, we again plunged into the woods, and after a few minutes' brisk walking, found ourselves upon the brow of a steep bank that overlooked the beaver-meadow, containing within its area several hundred acres.
There is no scenery in the bush that presents such a novel appearance as those meadows, or openings, surrounded, as they invariably are, by dark, intricate forests; their high, rugged banks covered with the light, airy tamarack and silver birch. ”

“ The only thing to be done if you desire trees, is to plant them while young in favourable situations, when they take deep root and spread forth branches the same as the trees in our parks and hedge-rows.
Another plan which we mean to adopt on our land is to leave several acres of forest in a convenient situation, and chop and draw out the old timbers for fire-wood, leaving the younger growth for ornament. ”

“ My husband had left several beautiful rock-elms (the most picturesque tree in the country) near our dwelling, but, alas! the first high gale prostrated all my fine trees, and left our log cottage entirely exposed to the fierce rays of the sun. The confusion of an uncleared fallow spread around us on every side. Huge trunks of trees and piles of brush gave a littered and uncomfortable appearance to the locality, and as the weather had been very dry for some weeks, I heard my husband daily talking with his choppers as to the expediency of firing the fallow. ”

“ Some years hence the timbers that are now burned up will be regretted. Yet it is impossible to preserve them; they would prove a great encumbrance to the farmer. The oaks are desirable for splitting, as they make the most durable fences; pine, cedar, and white ash are also used for rail-cuts; maple and dry beech are the best sorts of wood for fires: white ash burns well. In making ley for soap, care is taken to use none but the ashes of hard wood, as oak, ash, maple, beech; any of the resinous trees are bad for the purpose, and the ley will not mingle with the fat. ”

“ Moodie had made during the winter a large clearing of twenty acres around the house. The progress of the workmen had been watched by me with the keenest interest. Every tree that reached the ground opened a wider gap in the dark wood, giving us a broader ray of light and a clearer glimpse of the blue sky. ”

“ The forest-trees grow so thickly together that they have no room for expanding and putting forth lateral branches; on the contrary, they run up to an amazing height of stem, resembling seedlings on a hot- bed that have not duly been thinned out. Trees of this growth when unsupported by others are tall, weak, and entirely divested of those graces and charms of outline and foliage that would make them desirable as ornaments to our grounds ”

“ It is an open cleared space, that mound beneath the pine-tree; a few low shrubs and seedling pines, with the slender waving branches of the late-flowering pearly-tinted asters, the elegant fringed gentian with open bells of azure blue, the last and loveliest of autumn flowers and winter-greens, brighten the ground with wreaths of shining leaves and red berries. ”

“ 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 the case on the small lakes and on the banks of the Otanabee; the back lots are generally much finer in quality, producing hard wood, such as bass-wood, maple, hickory, butter-nut, oak, beech, and iron- wood; which trees always indicate a more productive soil than the pine tribe.
In spite of the indifference of the soil the advantage of a water frontage is considered a matter of great importance in the purchasing of land; and, lots with water privileges usually fetch a much higher price than those further removed from it. ”

“ No dreary breadth of marshes, covered with flags, hide from our gaze the expanse of heaven-tinted waters; no foul mud-banks spread their unwholesome exhalations around. The rocky shores are crowned with the cedar, the birch, the alder, and soft maple, that dip their long tresses in the pure stream; from every crevice in the limestone the harebell and Canadian rose wave their graceful blossoms. ”

“ Louis was to carve wooden platters and dishes, and some stools were to be made with hewn blocks of wood till something better could be devised. Their bedsteads were rough poles of ironwood, supported by posts driven into the ground, and partly upheld by the projection of the logs at the angles of the wall. Nothing could be more simple. The frame-work was of split cedar; and a safe bed was made by pine boughs being first laid upon the frame, and then thickly covered with dried grass, moss, and withered leaves. Such were the lowly but healthy couches on which these children of the forest slept. ”

“ Few enter with their whole heart into a settler's life. They miss the little domestic comforts they had been used to enjoy; they regret the friends and relations they left in the old country; and they cannot endure the loneliness of the backwoods. ”

“ They could fashion arrow-heads, and knew how best to season the wood for making both the long and cross bow. They had seen the fish-hooks these people manufactured from bone and hard wood. They knew that strips of fresh-cut skins would make bowstrings, or the entrails of animals dried and rendered pliable. They had watched the squaws making baskets of the inner bark of the oak, elm, and bass-wood, and mats of the inner bark of the cedar, with many other ingenious works that they now found would prove useful to them, after a little practice had perfected their inexperienced attempts. ”

“ So completely were we sheltered from the wind by the thick wall of pines on either side, that I no longer felt the least inconvenience from the cold that had chilled me on crossing the lake in the morning.
To the mere passing traveller, who cares little for the minute beauties of scenery, there is certainly a monotony in the long and unbroken line of woods, which insensibly inspires a feeling of gloom almost touching on sadness. ”

“ The log-houses have fallen to decay—a growth of young pines, a waste of emerald turf with the charred logs that once formed part of the enclosure, now scarcely serve to mark out the old settlement; no trace or record remains of the first breakers of the bush—another race occupy the ground. ”

“ As one generation falls and decays, new ones of a different character spring up in their places. This is illustrated in the circumstance of the resinous substance called fat-pine being usually found in places where the living pine is least abundant, and where the ground is occupied by oak, ash, buck, maple, and bass-wood. ”

“ Persons who lose their way in the pathless woods have no idea of distance, or the points of the compass, unless they can see the sun rise and set, which it is not possible to do when surrounded by the dense growth of forest-trees ”

“ We cannot help regarding with infinite satisfaction the few acres that are cleared round the house and covered with crops. A space of this kind in the midst of the dense forest imparts a cheerfulness to the mind, of which those that live in an open country, or even a partially wooded one, can form no idea. ”

“ The work went merrily on with the help of plenty of Canadian nectar (whiskey) , the honey that our bees are solaced with. Some huge joints of salt pork, a peck of potatoes, with a rice-pudding, and a loaf as big as an enormous Cheshire cheese, formed the feast that was to regale them during the raising. This was spread out in the shanty, in a very rural style. In short, we laughed, and called it a pic-nic in the backwoods; and rude as was the fare, I can assure you, great was the satisfaction expressed by all the guests of every degree, our "bee" being considered as very well conducted. ”

“ In point of size there are none to surpass them. They tower above all the others, forming a dark line that may be distinguished for many miles. The pines being so much loftier than the other trees, are sooner uprooted, as they receive the full and unbroken force of the wind in their tops ”

“ Finding it difficult to force their way through the thick underwood that always impedes the progress of the traveller on the low shores of the lake, they followed the course of an ascending narrow ridge, which formed a sort of natural causeway between two parallel hollows, the top of this ridge being in many places not wider than a cart or wagon could pass along. The sides were most gracefully adorned with flowering shrubs, wild vines, creepers of various species, wild cherries of several kinds, hawthorns, bilberry bushes, high-bush cranberries, silver birch, poplars, oaks, and pines ”