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ROMANTIC CANADA
ROMANTIC CANADA
BY VICTORIA HAYWARD ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY EDITH S. WATSON WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY EDWARD J. O’BRIEN TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD. AT ST. MARTIN’S HOUSE 1922 Copyright, Canada, 1922, by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LIMITED Toronto ...
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PUBLISHER’S FOREWORD
PUBLISHER’S FOREWORD
We are proud to announce what we think will come to be regarded as a really outstanding book of travel. We think it fitting that the first important book in this category which we have published should treat of our own country. “Romantic Canada” aims to give, and from the hands of two women singularly fitted to give it, the story of Canada in the romance of its simple industries simply accomplished. It gives the story, in word and in picture, of all sorts and conditions of folk, as they are to b
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INTRODUCTION. By Edward J. O’Brien.
INTRODUCTION. By Edward J. O’Brien.
It is a happy comradeship which has made this interesting volume possible. Those who know and love the by-ways of Canada have frequently encountered Miss Watson and Miss Hayward in the pursuit of a self-imposed task. Hardly a task we should call it, but a delight, to record with the camera and the pen those unique and beautiful racial traditions which have survived in Canada and flourished, while the passion for conformity to a provincial process of standardization has crushed them in the United
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CHAPTER I. NOVA SCOTIA.
CHAPTER I. NOVA SCOTIA.
No call sounded.... N O call sounded by the pipes of this New Era is more insistent than that of the Canadian Sea-coast. One sometimes wonders if Canadians as a whole even yet realize the important gift bestowed, when Heaven gave to Canada so magnificent a coastline as that which the constant sword-play of land and sea traces from Saint John, New Brunswick, to the Newfoundland-Labrador Boundary? The map of Eastern Canada is “a study in charts” worthy of closest attention. For it is here the
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CHAPTER II. BARRELS.
CHAPTER II. BARRELS.
One often wonders.... O NE often wonders what it is in handmade things that warms the heart and enkindles the imagination? It is evident that the charm is there regardless of the value of the object. Perhaps the attraction lies in the human story, the life, the thought and care, that collected the material, conceived the form and colour of the object to be made, and then put it together. How else could the barrels discovered everywhere at harvest time in Bluenoseland be considered romantic? Yet
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CHAPTER III. ‘LONGSHOREMEN.
CHAPTER III. ‘LONGSHOREMEN.
Standing firmly behind.... S TANDING firmly behind the craft, whether large or small, that crown both Bluenose Fishing and Bluenose Foreign Trade with success, is an army of men and boys heterogeneously grouped together as ’Longshoremen. We find them in each and every village-by-the-sea, wherever there is a boat. Here is a caulker, there a tar-boiler and pitch-runner, an old knitter of fishnet, an old sailmaker—needle and “palm”, in hand—a woodcarver, an oakum-picker, an old boat-builder, “the w
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CHAPTER IV. SEA-COAST HOMES OF THE MARITIME PROVINCES.
CHAPTER IV. SEA-COAST HOMES OF THE MARITIME PROVINCES.
The open-door.... T HE open-door to an understanding of the sea coast life, its enthusiasms, its joys, its sorrows and its toil, is by way of the little sea-coast homes edging the ‘long-shore road in out-of-the-way coves and harbours, remote from towns, cities and the big sea-ports. These little houses are as a voice in the land; as soon as one heaves in sight by a turn of the road or a dip of the land we instantly feel their personality. Their dimensions may be small, roofs low, windows few, do
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CHAPTER V. LOW TIDE IN THE BAY OF FUNDY.
CHAPTER V. LOW TIDE IN THE BAY OF FUNDY.
Of all the forces.... O F all the forces of Nature governing human endeavour, none it would seem, are at once more intimate and exacting than Time and Tide. But, while Time is everywhere, Tide is local. And though by a system of daylight-saving we have sought to get the best of Time, Tide, as wiseacres of old put it, “waits for no man.” Such a play of thought and words as can scarcely be conceived, surge and race with “tide”. “A full tide,” “a brimming tide”, “high tide”, are synonyms for succes
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CHAPTER VI. CAPE BRETON.
CHAPTER VI. CAPE BRETON.
Not until the waters.... N OT until the waters of the Gut of Canso sweep into the line of one’s vision, does the fact that Cape Breton is an island have any special meaning for the traveller by train from Halifax to North Sydney. But when you feel your car actually quitting the land for the deck of a steamer, then the insularity of Cape Breton becomes something personal. The “Gut of Canso” is—“The Grand Canal of the Maritime Provinces”, one of the clearest, bluest, most beautiful strips of water
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CHAPTER VII. NEWFOUNDLAND.
CHAPTER VII. NEWFOUNDLAND.
Having stepped aboard.... H AVING stepped aboard the Newfoundland mail-and-passenger boat at North Sydney, a little before ten p.m., the hour of sailing, one awakes next morning at Port aux Basques, in Newfoundland, hardly aware that one is out of Canada, until the courteous Customs Official with “Newfoundland” written on his cap, comes to examine one’s baggage. One hundred and twenty miles is the brief length of Cabot Strait which separates Newfoundland from Canada, but when one has crossed thi
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CHAPTER VIII. LABRADOR.
CHAPTER VIII. LABRADOR.
In the Newfoundland.... I N the Newfoundland outports, especially those of the northern bays—Conception, Trinity, Bonavista and Notre Dame conversation with any old-timer is sure to turn sooner or later to experiences on “The Labrador”. Soon these stories accumulate into a magnetizing force, drawing you to explore that wonderful Northern shore of which these old-timers relate such wonderful tales. Our first trip to the Labrador was decided by an old fellow with a scythe, mowing a pocket-handkerc
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CHAPTER IX. SAINT PIERRE ET MIQUELON.
CHAPTER IX. SAINT PIERRE ET MIQUELON.
Nine miles from.... N INE miles from Newfoundland lies Sainte Pierre et Miquelon, Island Colony of France, her last remaining colonial possession in the “New World”, north of the West Indies. It lies, geographically, in the group of island stepping-stones, a stone’s throw, a night out of North Sydney. It is attended by “an old character” among sea-going craft, by name “Pro Patria”, which has been on the route between Halifax and Saint Pierre for perhaps more than a quarter of a century. She is l
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CHAPTER X. QUEBEC.
CHAPTER X. QUEBEC.
It is in Quebec.... I T is in Quebec, the Old World city so curiously transplanted from sixteenth century France, and set down here on its commanding bluff, above the Saint Lawrence, that one takes the road of romantic history. Driving through the steep, narrow streets, our two-wheeled Caleche, itself the voiture of other centuries, seems a talisman, unlocking the gray, steep-roofed, admirably-preserved houses, churches, monasteries, convents, colleges, public buildings, tiny shops, all of them
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CHAPTER XI. LES ILES DE MADELEINE “THE NECKLACE”.
CHAPTER XI. LES ILES DE MADELEINE “THE NECKLACE”.
Having met some.... THE WOOL FOR THESE HOMEMADE LOOMS IS GROWN ON THE SHEEP GRAZING ON THE SLOPES OF LES DEMOISELLES. SEUMAS O’BRIEN. AUTHOR AND SCULPTOR. H AVING met some notable woman, Queen or Court lady, and been charmed by her graciousness, and having recounted some of the qualities which are component of that grace, one’s thoughts turn naturally to memory of her adorning jewels. It is like that with Quebec. Quebec’s outstanding jewels are Les Iles de Madeleine in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
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CHAPTER XII. PERCÉ.
CHAPTER XII. PERCÉ.
No visible connections.... N O visible connections exist between the faraway Iles des Madeleine and Percé, between Mai Baie and Baie des Chaleurs; but, in the fact that both the Bird Rocks and Percé Rock have been selected as summer homes and nesting-places by those beautiful creatures of the air, the wild sea-birds, there is a certain psychological bond of the deepest nature. Percé Rock, according to surveyors, is fourteen hundred feet long and three hundred feet high at the highest end. It is
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CHAPTER XIII. WAYSIDE CROSSES AND GARDEN SHRINES.
CHAPTER XIII. WAYSIDE CROSSES AND GARDEN SHRINES.
Vanishing roads.... “V ANISHING roads,” no less than “the broad highway” of rural Quebec, are all more or less edged by wayside crosses and tiny garden shrines. From east to west and north to south the Quebecquois travels a la rue Calvaire . But this via crucis is by no means a via dolorosa. Far from it! For the habitant does not set up his handmade, roadside cross, abounding with symbols of the crucifixion, in a spirit of sadness, but rather as the expression of a happy life full of rich tradit
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CHAPTER XIV. SAINT ANNE L’EGLISE.
CHAPTER XIV. SAINT ANNE L’EGLISE.
Saint Anne de Beaupré.... “S AINT Anne de Beaupré, Saint Anne l’eglise!” Thus, the car conductor on the “Electric” between Quebec and Saint Anne de Beaupré on the arrival of the car at the station-gate to the great Shrine. He pronounces the name of this station with an air not expended on any of the other stopping-places along the line. The people in the car receive it in a different manner, as if with the baited breath of assurance that now “something is going to happen”, something they have lo
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CHAPTER XV. M. JOBIN.
CHAPTER XV. M. JOBIN.
How constantly experience.... H OW constantly experience reminds us that in the overwhelming presence of outstanding natural scenery, world events and great men, we are apt to completely lose sight of equally beautiful, though perhaps less magnificent scenery, events only a little less momentous and of many men, who except for the tedious bugbear of comparison, would be great in our sight, being truly great in themselves. Personally our eyes were thus opened only a few summers ago at Saint Anne
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CHAPTER XVI. ROMANCE AND THE TWO-WHEELED CART.
CHAPTER XVI. ROMANCE AND THE TWO-WHEELED CART.
Two wheels are both leisurely .... T WO wheels are both leisurely and elegant. No doubt it was these considerations which in the beginning of Time decided Romance on riding in a two-wheeled cart. We cannot imagine Romance anything but leisurely. She lives where time stands still, yet paradoxically hitches to the wheels of Progress. It is true we cannot imagine the automobile or even the aeroplane without a four-wheel carriage. But it is equally difficult to think of either of these as leisurely.
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CHAPTER XVII. BUBBLE, BUBBLE, BUBBLE.
CHAPTER XVII. BUBBLE, BUBBLE, BUBBLE.
From early spring.... F ROM early spring until late in the fall, by every highway and by-path of rural Quebec, and almost as generally in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, the visitor happens upon many a housewife turning into multitudinous service a great iron pot or cauldron, neatly suspended from a log, or perched skilfully between two heaps of field-stones. These wayside cauldrons of eastern Canada, with their constant fires, and their contents always “a-bubble, bubble, bubble”, unlike the witche
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CHAPTER XVIII. WOODCARVING.
CHAPTER XVIII. WOODCARVING.
Making things out.... “M AKING things out of wood” seems to be a “gift” with the Quebecquois. But wood-carving is not confined to Quebec, although possibly it occurs more generally in that Province than in any other. All Canada sponsors “woodcarving” in her sons, because of the generous supply of wood everywhere, with the exception of the Prairie Provinces. And even these may easily obtain it from their generous sister Provinces East and West. Down Nova Scotia way a man seems to concentrate bett
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CHAPTER XIX. INDIAN LORETTE.
CHAPTER XIX. INDIAN LORETTE.
Slish—squish!... S LISH—squish! Who is it comes so swiftly down the snowy highway? Who is it cuts “eights”, “eighty-eights” and Paisley patterns, among the snowbound trees of the northern Canadian forests? Who tames the wild, free, northern country into proper service? Who follows the fur-bearing animals to the death far in these same northern wilds? Who but the man on snow-shoes? And who makes snowshoes? Dropping down for a week at Indian Lorette in the Province of Quebec we found “rooms” in a
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CHAPTER XX. THE ABENAKI BASKET-MAKERS.
CHAPTER XX. THE ABENAKI BASKET-MAKERS.
It is the proud boast.... I T is the proud boast of the people of Pierreville on the St. Francois river, on the south side of the St. Lawrence, that there is no bridge other than the railroad bridges over any river between Pierreville and Montreal, and that if you desire to cross any of these rivers you must do so on the picturesque ferry-scow which m’sieu the ferryman, guides over the calm water, mirroring reflections on every hand, on a wire-cable cleverly seized by him in the snapping jaw of
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CHAPTER XXI. “TO MARKET, TO MARKET.”
CHAPTER XXI. “TO MARKET, TO MARKET.”
There is a day.... STEPPING STONES. THE FLOWER OF ST. ROCH’S. T HERE is a day in the year 1676 which must ever stand out from the murk of the early centuries as a Red Letter Day in Canadian history. That is the day whose dawn broke on the first Canadian Public Market in full swing. The scene is laid in La Place de Notre Dames des Victoires in the shadow of Chateau Saint Louis, in old Quebec. It takes but little imagination to reconstruct the colourful scene upon which the first beams of the risi
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CHAPTER XXII. ONTARIO.
CHAPTER XXII. ONTARIO.
Ontario is so modern.... O NTARIO is so modern, and, to use a popular term, “up-to-date”, that some years ago we were told by Torontonian after Torontonian that if we were on the quest of the romantic we would not find it in Ontario. We did not know what to make of it at the time, having in mind a number of quaint old field-stone houses which we had seen along the road from the car window in coming through from Montreal. About these houses there was that certain unmistakable “something” which fo
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CHAPTER XXIII. ONTARIO CONTINUED.
CHAPTER XXIII. ONTARIO CONTINUED.
History furnishes Ontario.... VIEW FROM HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY, GEORGE III’S CHAPEL TO THE MOHAWKS, NEAR BRANTFORD. FORT MISSISSAUGA, NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE. H ISTORY furnishes Ontario with a dramatic inheritance hardly less colourful than that of Quebec. In the early part of the seventeenth century this was the real battleground between conquering Europeans and the Redmen for the possession of the vast inland stretches of country about the Great Lakes. It was the sanctuary of thousands of Empire Lo
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CHAPTER XXIV. THE PRAIRIE.
CHAPTER XXIV. THE PRAIRIE.
The Canadian Prairie.... CANADA, “THE BREAD-MOTHER OF THE WORLD”. STEADY, THERE! T HE Canadian Prairie may be compared to a vast stage set through the length of three entire provinces for the enactment of one great epic entitled “WHEAT”. Wheat is the greatest piece of realism staged in Canada. And its companion-piece, in point of size and importance, is “Fish”—The Maritime. Taken together they seem to point to Canada as the living parable of “the loaves and the fishes.” The ovens of Quebec as we
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CHAPTER XXV. ROMANCE CLINGS TO THE SKIRTS OF WINNIPEG.
CHAPTER XXV. ROMANCE CLINGS TO THE SKIRTS OF WINNIPEG.
An extended sojourn.... A N extended sojourn in Winnipeg is in the nature of a revelation. One goes to Winnipeg expecting and finding it as a city—the Colossus of the Plains—modern, business-like, a pattern-builder in wide streets, with everything else in keeping on a big scale, but just a little crude and bare along certain lines, as every new city, or even house, is bound to be. That is the picture one draws aforetime. But the fact is that a few weeks in Winnipeg reveal it—and the revelation i
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CHAPTER XXVI. MINE HOST—THE MENNONITE.
CHAPTER XXVI. MINE HOST—THE MENNONITE.
One morning in autumn.... CURING A PELT, WHICH, SOONER OR LATER, GRACES THE SHOULDERS OF SOME LADY OF THE LAND. ON THE GIRLS’ SIDE. O NE morning in autumn we left Winnipeg by a C.P.R. train to Morden with the avowed intention of visiting the Mennonites of that section, getting acquainted with them and seeing their community life from the inside. On arriving in Morden we were somewhat at a loss to find ourselves far away from the typical Mennonite village to which we had been recommended by a you
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CHAPTER XXVII. THE PAS: GATEWAY OF THE GREAT NORTHLAND.
CHAPTER XXVII. THE PAS: GATEWAY OF THE GREAT NORTHLAND.
Romantic Canada is.... KASLO AFTER RAIN. MOUNTAIN GOATS, SNOWFLAKES AGAINST THE BLUE SKY. R OMANTIC Canada is never halted by natural obstacles. Like the true diplomat, she wins over hindrances to become aids. High mountains, large rivers with swirling rapids and falls, immense lakes, inland seas, have thus become to Romance, mere stepping-stones. So the cold of the Great Northland, from being a barrier of conquest, has simply inspired Madame Romance to call for her heaviest and finest furs, her
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CHAPTER XXVIII. BRITISH COLUMBIA.
CHAPTER XXVIII. BRITISH COLUMBIA.
No greater contrast.... A MADONNA OF THE KOOTENAYS. DRAWING WATER FROM THE COLUMBIA. N O greater contrast can be afforded by Nature than that between level Prairie and the Rocky Mountains. It is at the moment of the change from one to the other that one realizes both are Characters, each separate, individual and eternal. Here, as the train swings along by the banks of the Bow River, one looks up to those towering peaks, their gray and aged cheeks flushed with the wine of the air into perpetual y
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CHAPTER XXIX. THE DOUKHOBORS: A COMMUNITY RACE IN CANADA.
CHAPTER XXIX. THE DOUKHOBORS: A COMMUNITY RACE IN CANADA.
In the Russian Doukhobor.... IN A COMMUNITY DOOR YARD. DOUKHOBOR WOMEN WINNOWING. I N the Russian Doukhobor settlements of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia, the Canadian West houses the Community-life of a curious religious sect. Through them it may be said that Canada is perhaps the only country in the world outside Russia having a very intimate living, human-interest acquaintance with the Slav on the land—the only country presenting an opportunity to study him in his daily life. And
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CHAPTER XXX. DOUKHOBORS: A COMMUNITY RACE—Continued.
CHAPTER XXX. DOUKHOBORS: A COMMUNITY RACE—Continued.
Early in the morning.... E ARLY in the morning of a Sunday when daylight still leaves the shadows deep under the fruit-trees in the orchard, and the grass is wet and the air full of the dewy freshness that only melts with the sun, the Doukhobors may be seen—a figure or two at a time—stepping lightly under the apple-trees, clad in their homespun suits of bleached linen, the men in their Russian blouses and bareheaded, the women in full skirts, and tight “bodies” with snowy plotoks on their heads,
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CHAPTER XXXI. STEVESTON.
CHAPTER XXXI. STEVESTON.
B OOM! Um-mmm-m!... Every Sunday evening at six o’clock during the salmon-run, the signal gun that marks the beginning of another fishing-week rings out upon the evening air of Steveston the capital of the British Columbia salmon fisheries at the mouth of the great Fraser River. Not a net passes over any gunwale of the hundred odd motorboats that for the past hour have been jockeying up-and-down picking up the great river’s signals-of-fish and the way they “set”, until the crack of the official
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CHAPTER XXXII. THE INDIANS OF ALERT BAY.
CHAPTER XXXII. THE INDIANS OF ALERT BAY.
Although situated directly .... A LTHOUGH situated directly on the Alaskan coastal highway, with a constant stream of large freight and passenger steamers calling at the cannery pier or dropping anchor in its fine harbour, Alert Bay is a spot haunted by the spirit of the untamed, full of those powerful undercurrents that thrive on the edge of the wilderness. It is altogether mysterious and bizarre. Part of this spirit is due to the wildness of nature hereabouts, to the high-reaching mountains, t
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