BY AN EMIGRANT LADY. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen. 1878. [ All Rights Reserved. ]...

In laying before the public a sketch of our “Bush” experiences during the first year after our arrival in Muskoka, Ontario, Canada, I desire to state the reasons which prompted us to such an imprudent step as emigration, without even the moderate capital necessary for any one who would start with the slightest chance of success. The Franco-German War in 1870 was the means of breaking up our happy home in France, which, with one short interval, had been the shelter of my family and myself during

You ask me, my dear child, to give you a few particulars of our voyage across the Atlantic to Canada, our journey from Quebec to the Bush of Muskoka, and our residence here as emigrant farmers for the last year. As in my diary I have only chronicled the bare events of each passing day, you must only expect outlines of Bush life, and not well filled up pictures. I pass over the anguish of my separation from you and your dear ones, and can only say that when I thought of the attached circle of fri

My last letter left us starting from Quebec in the seven p.m. train for Montreal. Our party consisting of four people, we had a compartment to ourselves, but were some time in settling comfortably, as our old dog “Nero” had to be smuggled in and kept quiet under your sister’s waterproof-cloak, for fear the vigilant guard should consign him to the luggage-car, where he would infallibly have barked himself to death. I noticed very little in the neighbourhood of Quebec, being too much occupied with

The next morning, after a brief and very unsatisfactory toilet, and a breakfast which needs no description, your brother C. and his wife left us to return to their own log-house, entreating me to go and see them as soon as I should have recovered from the fatigue of the journey. You will perhaps wonder that they should have remained the night with us, over-crowded as we were; but the fact is, when we first came here, the forest-paths between our lots were so indistinctly marked out and so little

New-Year’s Day of 1872 was one of those exceptionally beautiful days, when hope is generated in the saddest heart, and when the most pressing cares and anxieties retire for at least a time into the background of our lives. The sky was blue and clear, the sun bright, and the air quite soft and balmy for the time of year. We had had some bitter cold and gloomy weather, and we found the change most delightful. As in France we were in the habit of making presents among ourselves on this day, I looke

The first months of this year found us very anxious to get the log-house finished, which had been so well begun by our four gentlemen, and as soon as the weather moderated a little, and our means allowed us to get help, we had it roofed, floored, chinked, and mossed. It was necessary to get it finished, so that we might move before the great spring thaw should cover the forest-paths with seas of slush and mud, and before the creek between us and our domicile should be swollen so as to render it

Summer and mosquitoes! Inseparable words in Canada, except in the large towns, where their attacks are hardly felt. In the Bush, the larger the clearing the fewer the mosquitoes. It is, above all things, desirable to avoid building a log-house near swampy ground, for there they will be found in abundance. We have four acres and a half quite clear, but unfortunately our log-house, instead of being placed in the middle, is at one end, with a well-wooded hill and a portion of dense forest at the ba

All journeys to and from the Bush are prosecuted under such difficulties, that it is very fortunate they are few and far between. Indeed, few of the better class of settlers would remain, but for the near prospect of Government granting roads in the township, and the more distant one of the different companies for buying the pine-wood bridging over the deep gullies on the lots to facilitate their taking away the timber. When one of the expectant members for Muskoka paid us, in the course of the

I begin this letter with a few observations in support of my oft-repeated assertion that poor ladies and gentlemen form the worst, or at least the most unsuccessful, class for emigration to Canada. I must give you a slight sketch of the class of settlers we have here, and of the conditions they must fulfil before they can hope to be in easy circumstances, much less in affluent ones. Of course I am speaking of settlers from the “old country,” and not of Canadians born who sometimes find their way

In my former letters I spoke in a tone of mingled hope and fear as to the result of our efforts to make Bush-farming succeed without capital, and without even the means of living comfortably while trying the experiment. It is needless to say to those who know anything of Muskoka, that the misgivings were fully realised, and the hopes proved mere delusions, and melted away imperceptibly as those airy fabrics too often do. We were certainly much deceived by the accounts given of Muskoka; after a f

I freely acknowledge that I am a romantic old woman; my children are continually telling me that such is my character, and without shame I confess the soft impeachment. I do not look upon romance as being either frivolous, unreal, or degrading; I consider it as a heaven-sent gift to the favoured few, enabling them to cast a softening halo of hope and beauty round the stern and rugged realities of daily life, and fitting them also to enter into the warm feelings and projects of the young, long af

Thirty years ago, when I went into the Bush, quite a young girl, with my newly-made husband, the part in which we settled was a complete wilderness. Our lot was taken up about thirty miles east of Belle Ewart, now quite a flourishing village, with the railway passing through it. Our small log-house was perfectly isolated, as at that time we had not a single neighbour nearer to us than twelve miles; all was dense forest, with but a very faint imperfect track leading by degrees to the main road. H

In reading the history of newly-settled countries and the rise and progress of mighty states, nothing is more interesting than to trace the wonderful and rapid results which spring from the smallest beginnings. In changing the wilderness into a fruitful land, we notice first the laborious efforts to raise the rude and coarse necessaries of daily life, then the struggles for convenience and comfort, then the gradual demand for the luxuries of a higher civilisation. These last can only be obtained

During a visit of some weeks to Bracebridge, at the close of last winter, I was much interested in watching the different parties of emigrants who came into the town, many of them with wives and families, some without, but all looking more or less weary and travel-worn. I noticed also in the countenances of many of the men a perplexed and uneasy expression, as if they hardly knew where to go or what to do next. Who but must feel the deepest sympathy with these poor wayfarers, whose troubles, far