Anna Brownell Jameson - Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada

THE NEW CANADIAN LIBRARY

General Editor: David Staines

ADVISORY BOARD

Alice Munro

W.H. New

Guy Vanderhaeghe

CONTENTS

Toronto

A Winter Journey

Winter Visits

Sleighing

Visit of Indians

Winter Miseries

Clergy Reserves

The Tragedy of Correggio

German Actresses

Sleigh-journey

Niagara in Winter

Trees in Canada

Society in Toronto

Politics and Parties

Fire at Toronto

A True Story

Goethes Tasso, Iphigenia, and Clavigo

A Soldier of Fortune

Music and Musicians

Constitution of Upper Canada

Prorogation of the House of Assembly

Acts of the Legislature in 1837

On the Female Character

Goethe and Ekermann

Goethes Last Love

Goethes Table Talk

His Ideas on the Position of Women

Criminal Calendar of Toronto

Grillparzers Sappho and Medea

Lake Ontario

Return of Spring

Village of the Credit

Erindale

The Return of Summer

Sternbergs Novels

Detached Thoughts

Mrs. MacMurray

Niagara in Summer

Story of a Slave

The Rapids

Schillers Don Carlos

A Dream

The Niagara District

Buffalo

Canadian Stage Coaches

The Emigrant

Town of Hamilton

Town of Brandtford

Forest Scenery

Roads in Canada

BlandfordA Settlers Family

A Forest Chteau

The Pine Woods

Miss Martineau

Town of London

Women in Canada

The Talbot Country

Story of an Emigrant Boy

Some Account of Colonel Talbot

Journey to Chatham

The Post Office in Canada

The Moravian Delawares

Anecdote of an Indian

Voyage Across Lake St. Clair

The American Emigrants

Detroit

War of Pontiac

Contrast Between the Canadian and the American Shores

Churches at Detroit

Voyage up Lake Huron

The Steam-boat

The River St. Clair

Marriage

Henrys Travels

Island of Mackinaw

Indian Dandies

Indian Lodges

Anecdote

Indian Missionaries

Story of Chusco

Cave of Skulls

Indian Vestal

Indian Amazon

Indian Morals and Manners

The Chippewa Language

Indian Story-tellers

The Story of the Forsaken Brother

the Magician and his Daughters

the Robin

Religious Opinions and Mythology of the Indians

A Talk

Indian Dance

A Voyage in an Open Boat to the Sault Ste. Marie

Night on Lake Huron

Anecdote of Indian Fortitude

Mosquitoes

The Sault Ste Marie

Descent of the Falls

The History of Waub Ojeeg

A Chippewa Allegory

Chippewa Songs

Indian Missions

Chippewa Courtship

Voyage Down Lake Huron

Queen Victoria

Scenes on the Great Manitoolin Island

A Grand Council

A War-dance by Torch Light

Condition of the Indian Women

Canoe Voyage Down Lake Huron

Scenery and Islands of the Northern Shores of Lake Huron

The Voyageurs

Sporting on Lake Huron

Penetanguishene

PREFACE

I n venturing to place before the public these fragments of a journal addressed to a friend, I cannot but feel considerable misgiving as to the reception such a work is likely to meet with, particularly at this time, when the country to which it partly refers is the subject of so much difference of opinion, and so much animosity of feeling. This little book, the mere result of much thoughtful idleness and many an idle thought, has grown up insensibly out of an accidental promise. It never was intended to go before the world in its present crude and desultory form; and I am too sensible of its many deficiencies, not to feel that some explanation is due to that public, which has hitherto regarded my attempts in literature with so much forbearance and kindness.

While in Canada, I was thrown into scenes and regions hitherto undescribed by any traveller, (for the northern shores of Lake Huron are almost new ground,) and into relations with the Indian tribes, such as few European women of refined and civilised habits have ever risked, and none have recorded. My intention was to have given the result of what I had seen, and the reflections and comparisons excited by so much novel experience, in quite a different formand one less obtrusive: but owing to the intervention of various circumstances, and occupation of graver import, I found myself reduced to the alternative of either publishing the book as it now stands, or of suppressing it altogether. Neither the time nor the attention necessary to remodel the whole were within my own power. In preparing these notes for the press, much has been omitted of a personal nature, but far too much of such irrelevant matter still remains; far too much which may expose me to misapprehension, if not even to severe criticism; but now, as heretofore, I throw myself upon the merciful construction of good women, wishing it to be understood that this little book, such as it is, is more particularly addressed to my own sex. I would fain have extracted, altogether, the impertinent leaven of egotism which necessarily mixed itself up with the journal form of writing: but, in making the attempt, the whole work lost its original characterlost its air of reality, lost even its essential truth, and whatever it might possess of the grace of ease and pictorial animation: it became flat, heavy, didactic. It was found that to extract the tone of personal feeling, on which the whole series of action and observation depended, was like drawing the thread out of a string of beadsthe chain of linked ideas and experiences fell to pieces, and became a mere unconnected, incongruous heap. I have been obliged to leave the flimsy thread of sentiment to sustain the facts and observations loosely strung together; feeling strongly to what it may expose me, but having deliberately chosen the alternative, prepared, of course, to endure what I may appear to have defied; though, in truth, defiance and assurance are both far from me.

These notes were written in Upper Canada, but it will be seen that they have little reference to the politics or statistics of that unhappy and mismanaged, but most magnificent country. Subsequently I made a short tour through Lower Canada, just before the breaking out of the late revolt. Sir John Colborne, whose mind appeared to me cast in the antique mould of chivalrous honour, and whom I never heard mentioned in either province but with respect and veneration, was then occupied in preparing against the exigency which he afterwards met so effectively. I saw of course something of the state of feeling on both sides, but not enough to venture a word on the subject. Upper Canada appeared to me loyal in spirit, but resentful and repining under the sense of injury, and suffering from the total absence of all sympathy on the part of the English government with the condition, the wants, the feelings, the capabilities of the people and country. I do not mean to say that this want of sympathy now exists to the same extent as formerly; it has been abruptly and painfully awakened, but it has too long existed. In climate, in soil, in natural productions of every kind, the upper province appeared to me superior to the lower province, and well calculated to become the inexhaustible timber-yard and granary of the mother country. The want of a sea-port, the want of security of property, the general mismanagement of the government landsthese seemed to me the most prominent causes of the physical depression of this splendid country, while the poverty and deficient education of the people, and a plentiful lack of public spirit in those who were not of the people, seemed sufficiently to account for the moral depression everywhere visible. Add a system of mistakes and mal-administration, not chargeable to any one individual, or any one measure, but to the whole tendency of our Colonial government; the perpetual change of officials, and change of measures; the fluctuation of principles destroying all public confidence, and a degree of ignorance relative to the country itself, not credible except to those who may have visited it; add these three things together, the want of knowledge, the want of judgment, the want of sympathy, on the part of the government, how can we be surprised at the strangely anomalous condition of the governed? that of a land absolutely teeming with the richest capabilities, yet poor in population, in wealth, and in energy! But I feel I am getting beyond my depth. Let us hope that the reign of our young Queen will not begin, like that of Maria Theresa, with the loss of one of her fairest provinces; and that hereafter she may look upon the map of her dominions without the indignant blushes and tears with which Maria Theresa, to the last moment of her life, contemplated the map of her dismembered empire, and regretted her lost Silesia.