Forest, Lake and Prairie: Twenty Years of Frontier Life in Western Canada 1842-62

My parents were pioneers. I was born on the banks of the Sydenham River in a log-house, one of the first dwellings, a very few of which made up the frontier village of Owen Sound. This was in the year 1842.


My earliest recollections are of stumps, log heaps, great forests, corduroy roads, Indians, log and birch-bark canoes, bateaux, Mackinaw boats, etc. I have also a very vivid recollection of deep snow in winter, and very hot weather and myriad mosquitoes in summer.

My father was first settler, trapper, trader, sailor, and local preacher. He was one of the grand army of pioneers who took possession of the wilderness of Ontario, and in the name of God and country began the work of reclamation which has ever since gone gloriously on, until to-day Ontario is one of the most comfortable and prosperous parts of our great country.

God fitted those early settlers for their work, and they did it like heroes. Mother was a strong Christian woman, content, patient, plodding, full of quiet, restful assurance, pre-eminently qualified to be the companion and helper of one who had to hew his way from the start out of the wildness of this new world. My mother says I spoke Indian before I spoke English.

My first memories are of these original dwellers in the land. I grew up amongst them, ate corn-soup out of their wooden bowls, roasted green ears at their camp-fires, feasted with them on deer and bear's meat, went with them to set their nets and to spear fish at nights by the light of birch-bark flambeaux, and, later on, fat pine light-jack torches. Bows and arrows, paddles and canoes were my playthings, and the dusky forest children were my playmates.

Father, very early in my childhood, taught me how to swim, and, later on, to shoot and skate and sail. Many a trip I had with my father on his trading voyages to the Manitoulin and other islands of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay, where he would obtain his loads of fish, furs and maple sugar, and sail with these to Detroit and other eastern and southern ports. Father had for cook and general servant a colored man, Isaiah by name. Isaiah was my special friend; I was his particular charge. His bigness and blackness and great kindness made him a hero in my boyish mind. My contact with Isaiah, and my association with the Indians, very early made a real democrat of me. I never could bear to hear a black man called a "nigger," nor yet an Indian a "buck." Isaiah was an expert sailor, as also a good cook, but it was his great big heart that won me to him, and which to-day, though nearly fifty years have passed since then, brings a dampness to my eye as I remember my "big black friend."

On some of his voyages father had a tame bear with him. This bear was a source of great annoyance to Isaiah, for Bruin would be constantly smelling around the caboose in which the stove and cooking apparatus were placed, and where Isaiah would fain reign supreme. One evening Isaiah was cooking pancakes, and was, while doing so, absent-minded—perhaps thinking of those old slavery days when he had undergone terrible hardships and great cruelty from his ignorant and selfish brothers, who claimed to own him, "soul and body." Whatever it was, he forgot to watch his cakes sufficiently, for Mr. Bear was whipping them off the plate as fast as Isaiah was putting them on. Father and a fellow-passenger were looking on and enjoying the fun. By and by Isaiah was heard to say, "Guess he had enough for the gentlemans to begin with;" but, lo! to his wonderment when he went to take the cakes, they were gone; and in his surprise he looked around, but there was no one near but the bear, and he looked very innocent. So Isaiah seemed to conclude that he had not made any cakes, and accordingly went to work in earnest, but, at the same time, determined that there should be no mistake in the matter. Presently he caught the thief in the act of taking the cake from the plate, and then he went for the bear with the big spoon in his hand, with which he was dipping and beating the batter. The chase became exciting. Around the caboose, across the deck, up the rigging flew the bear. Isaiah was close after him, but finally found that the bear was too agile for him, for presently he came back, a wiser and, for the time, a more watchful man.

When I was six years of age I had two little brothers, one between three and four, and the other a baby boy, about a year old—the older one named David, who is still living, and is now my nearest neighbor. The other we called Moses; he was a beautiful little fellow, and father almost idolized him. Once we lost him. What excitement we had, and also great alarm! By and by I found him in a sort of store-room behind the door, digging into a "mo-kuk," or bark vessel of maple sugar, face and hands smeared with it. What joy there was over the little innocent!