W. Sherwood Fox - The Bruce Beckons

THE BRUCE BECKONS

Barrow Bay
After etchings by John Byrne

The Story of Lake Hurons Great Peninsula

WILLIAM SHERWOOD FOX

REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION

DRAWINGS BY CLARE BICE AND VINCENT ELLIOTT

University of Toronto Press 1952

Toronto Buffalo London

First printing, October 1952
Reprinted November, December 1952, January 1953, 1957
Revised and enlarged edition, 1962
Reprinted 1962, 1964, 1968, 1973, 1975, 1978, 1988, 1991, 1999, 2002

Printed in Canada
ISBN 0-8020-6007-2

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Fox, William Sherwood, 1878-1967

The Bruce beckons

Rev. and enl. ed.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-8020-6007-2

1. Bruce Peninsula (Ont.) History. 2. Bruce
Peninsula (Ont.) Description and travel. I. Title.

FC3095.B78F691088 971.321 C88-093409-3
F1059.B95F69 1988

To the Men and Women of The Bruce

who accepted the challenges

of a hard land and moody waters

with brave hearts and smiling faces

T HIS book would never have been written but for the generous help accorded me by many friends. Of all the documents that I have found to be of real service The History of Bruce County, published by the late Mr. Norman Robertson of Walkerton in 1906, stands indisputably in the first place. Most of the articles on the Bruce Peninsula that have appeared since then have been based upon passages in that book; few indeed have been derived from other records or from independent observations.

To the Queens Quarterly and to Inland Seas (the bulletin of the Great Lakes Historical Society) I am grateful for permission to include as chapters in this book papers of mine that originally were printed in these journals. In retelling stories of nearly a century of shipwrecks I am under obligation to Saturday Night of Toronto and to the Daily Sun-Times of Owen Sound, in whose columns accounts of some of the wrecks have appeared at sundry times during the last fifty years. To the Canadian Lumberman and to Walter M. Newman of Wiarton I am indebted for many of the details recorded in the chapter, And the Trees Trooped Out.

Much of the material that is published here for the first time has been drawn out of the memories of several of the Peninsulas oldest inhabitants; worthy of special mention are: William Gilchrist (who died in Owen Sound at the age of ninety-two on February 28 of this year); Charles Williams (who died at the age of eighty in Lions Head on January 15); Robert Lymburner, of Owen Sound, eighty-nine; Canon R. W. James, long Sky Pilot of Lions Head, who is now enjoying active retirement in Port Burwell, Ontario. To various sources of information already in print I have been guided by Howard Fleming of Owen Sound; J. Stuart Fleming of Niagara Falls, New York, and Owen Sound; Roy F. Fleming of Ottawa; James Baillie Jr. of the Royal Ontario Museum of Zoology, Toronto; Norman Fee of the Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa; Dr. Percy J. Robinson, Toronto; Dr. Fred Landon, London, author of Lake Huron; the staff of the Canadian Hydrographic Service, Ottawa. It was Miss Edith L. Marsh of Clarksburg, Grey County, who generously placed at my disposal the late Peter Trouts manuscript, What I Know of John Muir. Shortly before his lamented death, my old friend, Arthur Stringer, Canadian poet and novelist, gave permission to quote from one of his new poems the lines that fittingly head the chapter, Lilacs and Log Cabins.

Among my former colleagues of the University of Western Ontario who have unstintingly assisted me in numerous ways are: Professors W. F. Tamblyn, G. H. Reavely, Helen Battle, N. C. Hart; Dr. J. J. Talman, and Miss Lillian Benson of the Library. Through their skilful, interpretative sketches Clare Bice and Vincent Elliott, both former students of mine and among my companions on many a ramble in the Peninsula, have given this book an atmosphere quite beyond my unaided power to create. Another former student, Mr. Archie Stevens of London, has rendered valuable service in making the publication of the book known to the reading public. In writing the text I have found my daughter, Katharine Sherwood Fox, a consistently exacting and stimulating critic and in the reading of proof vision itself. My friend Mr. Donald Campbell of Goderich has graciously given me experienced assistance in ways too various to specify. From the authors point of view his relations with the University of Toronto Press have been of the happiest and in every respect most helpful. No small measure of such qualities as The Bruce Beckons may possess is to be credited to the several representatives of the Press with whom I have conferred, notably the Editor, Professor George Brown, and Miss Eleanor Harman, and their associates, Misses Francess Halpenny and M. Jean Houston.

London, Ontario
August 1, 1952

W. S HERWOOD F OX

I have taken the opportunity provided by this new printing to add a sketch of Tobermory, Scotland, by Clare Bice, as a companion to that of Little Tub. I have included also, as an appendix, additional material on the lumbering industry in The Bruce, which rounds out the story of , And the Trees Trooped Out.

W.S.F.

Native sons and residents of Bruce County, the Bruce Peninsula and neighbouring places, Councils and Service Clubs of the district, whose gracious sponsorship of this volume is gratefully welcomed by the publishers and the author