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THE FAIR DOMINION
THE FAIR DOMINION
A RECORD OF CANADIAN IMPRESSIONS BY R. E. VERNÈDE AUTHOR OF 'THE PURSUIT OF MR. FAVIEL,' 'MERIEL OF THE MOORS,' ETC. With 12 Illustrations in Colour from Drawings by CYRUS CUNEO LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO., LTD. DRYDEN HOUSE, GERRARD STREET, W. 1911 PREFACE You know how long ago, in the earlier-than-Victorian days, the country cousin, in order to see life, went up to the Metropolis. A terrible journey it was, but well worth the labour and anxiety. Accounts are still extant o
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CHAPTER I THE START FROM LIVERPOOL
CHAPTER I THE START FROM LIVERPOOL
Canada and its wonders might lie before us, yet it was not all joy there at the Liverpool docks, where we waited our opportunity to go on board S.S. Empress of Britain . For one thing, the sun on that August day of last year was so unusually warm that standing about with a bag amongst crowds of people who were seeing other people off was hard work; for another, I had left behind me in my Hertfordshire home my bull-mastiff, forlorn ever since I had begun packing, and not a bit deceived by the bon
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CHAPTER II THE STEERAGE PASSAGE
CHAPTER II THE STEERAGE PASSAGE
Apart from its other merits the steerage has this to its credit—every one is very friendly and affable. No one required an introduction before entering into conversation, and the suspicion that we might be making the acquaintance of some doubtful and inferior person who would perhaps presume upon it later did not worry any of us. I sat at a delightful table. Some one who knew the ins and outs of a steerage passage had advised me to go in to meals with the first 'rush,' instead of waiting for the
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CHAPTER III LANDING IN CANADA
CHAPTER III LANDING IN CANADA
It was while we were still out to sea that I first realised what Canada might be like, and how different from England. We had been steaming for five days, and hitherto the Atlantic had seemed a familiar and still English sea. The sky above, the air around, even the vast slowly heaving waters and the set of the sun one might see from an English cliff. But on this last day but one, which was a day of hot sun, the sky seemed to have risen immeasurably higher than in England and to have become incre
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CHAPTER IV A FAIRLY LONG DAY IN QUEBEC
CHAPTER IV A FAIRLY LONG DAY IN QUEBEC
Quebec city is full of charms and memories. I am no lover of cities when they have grown so great that no one knows any longer what site they were built on, or what sort of a country is buried beneath them. Their streets may teem with people and their buildings be very splendid, but if they have shut off the landscape altogether I cannot admire them. Quebec will never be one of those cities, however great she may grow. Quebec stands on a hill, and just as a city on a hill cannot be hid, so too i
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CHAPTER V THE ATTRACTION OF THE SAGUENAY
CHAPTER V THE ATTRACTION OF THE SAGUENAY
Almost directly one lands in Canada, one feels the desire to move west. It is not that the east fails to attract and interest, or that a man might not spend many years in Quebec province alone, and still have seen little of its vast, wild, northern parts. Again there is the Evangeline country, little known for all that it is 'storied.' But the tide is west just at present. Everybody asks everybody else—Have you been West, or Are you going West? And every one who has been West or is going feels h
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CHAPTER VI STE. ANNE DE BEAUPRÉ AND A TRAVELLER'S VOW
CHAPTER VI STE. ANNE DE BEAUPRÉ AND A TRAVELLER'S VOW
Ste. Anne de Beaupré is usually referred to as the Lourdes of Canada. When a metaphor of this sort is used it usually means that the spot referred to is in some way inferior to the original. In the case of Ste. Anne de Beaupré, the inferiority is not, I believe, in the matter of the number of miracles wrought there, but in the matter of general picturesqueness. Ste. Anne de Beaupré is not nearly so picturesque as Lourdes. If you wish to palliate this fact, you say, as one writer has said, that '
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CHAPTER VII A HABITANT VILLAGE AND ITS NOTAIRE
CHAPTER VII A HABITANT VILLAGE AND ITS NOTAIRE
'Il trotte bien.' The second time I made use of this simple compliment I was again being driven by a French Canadian, and again it was on an extraordinarily bad road. But the vehicle was a sulky, and the road was a country road—about halfway between Quebec and Montreal. I had been already two days in the Habitant country which the ordinary Englishman misses. Tourists in particular will go through French Canada too fast. Their first stop after Quebec is Montreal, and the guide-books help them to
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CHAPTER VIII GLIMPSES OF MONTREAL
CHAPTER VIII GLIMPSES OF MONTREAL
Just as a man who knows mountains can in a little time describe the character of a mountain that is new to him, so a man who knows the country in general will soon find himself becoming acquainted with new country. It is not so with cities. Only a long residence in it will reveal the character of a city. I suppose that is because man is more subtle than nature. A clay land is always a clay land; it produces the same crops, the same weeds, the same men. But who will undertake to say what a city o
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CHAPTER IX TORONTO, NIAGARA FALLS, AND A NEGRO PORTER
CHAPTER IX TORONTO, NIAGARA FALLS, AND A NEGRO PORTER
From Montreal to Toronto is a pleasant run through a southern part of Canada. One passes orchards and woods and Smith's Falls, where bricks are made, and Peterborough, which has the largest hydraulic lift-lock in the world. The Union railway station at Toronto, when I got there, was a seething mass of people and baggage, with an occasional railway official hidden in the vortex. I spent an hour trying to put a bag into the parcel-room, and after that gave up trying. Canadians are singularly patie
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CHAPTER X MASKINONGÉ FISHING ON THE FRENCH RIVER
CHAPTER X MASKINONGÉ FISHING ON THE FRENCH RIVER
A friend, acquainted with Canada, met me in Toronto, and I told him I was tired of cities and thought of going to the Muskoka Lakes. 'What do you expect to get there?' he asked. 'Scenery,' I said—'camping, fishing. A Fenimore Cooper existence in the backwoods. Isn't it to be had there?' 'The scenery's all right,' he said, 'and you can camp out of course, and there are some fish. But if you mean you want a quiet, unconventional life——' 'I do for a few days,' I said. 'You'd better go further than
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CHAPTER XI SUPERFICIAL REFLECTIONS AT SUDBURY
CHAPTER XI SUPERFICIAL REFLECTIONS AT SUDBURY
Coming away from the French River, we spent a night at Sudbury, which lies in the midst of 'rich deposits of nickeliferous pyrrhotite.' Had I a brain capable of appreciating nickeliferous pyrrhotite, I should have got more pleasure out of this prosperous mining town than I did. My chief recollections of it are that it was unattractive, that everybody looked prosperous in it, that trucks were shunted under my bedroom window all night long, and that the hotel proprietor forgot to wake us at the ti
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CHAPTER XII THROUGH THE HIGHLANDS OF ONTARIO
CHAPTER XII THROUGH THE HIGHLANDS OF ONTARIO
I sat in the tail of the train smoking, while Ontario dropped behind, league after league of thin trees growing out of the rock, of rock growing out of bog or lake, of bog or lake covering all solid things. Sometimes the trees were green and dark; sometimes green and light; sometimes nothing but scorched trunks—black skeletons of trees left by a forest fire which had killed everything within reach like a beast of prey, but consumed only the tender parts. Somebody, as we swung over a typical piec
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CHAPTER XIII THE OLD TIMERS OF KILDONAN AND THE NEW TIMERS OF WINNIPEG
CHAPTER XIII THE OLD TIMERS OF KILDONAN AND THE NEW TIMERS OF WINNIPEG
Winnipeg introduces the West. 'If you like Winnipeg,' I had been told before I got there, 'you will like the West.' I had been somewhat disheartened by this information. I had pictured Winnipeg as a smoke-laden city of mean and narrow streets, set off with board walks and wooden shacks of various sizes. I knew that I should not like Winnipeg if it were like that. Well, it is not like that. Main Street, which follows exactly the lines of the old Hudson Bay Company's trail, is a hundred and thirty
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CHAPTER XIV A PRAIRIE TOWN AND THE PRAIRIE POLICE
CHAPTER XIV A PRAIRIE TOWN AND THE PRAIRIE POLICE
Any one who knows the plains of Canada is aware that they rise in three tiers, the rise having a westward trend, and that the scenery of them varies as greatly as does the vegetation. Any one who has only been through the Canadian plains in the train is under the impression that, save for a bit of rolling country here and there in the distance, they are as level as a billiard table; and that, except that parts are cultivated and other parts are not, they look the same almost from start to finish
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CHAPTER XV IN CALGARY
CHAPTER XV IN CALGARY
Alberta is at present the débutante of the Dominion. Countries, like cities, used to grow up and, if we stick to our metaphor, 'come out' anyhow. It is true there were people called statesmen who had at times bright ideas concerning the commonweal which they tried to put into practice, and sometimes succeeded in putting into practice, with not unsatisfactory results. But the commonweal they had in mind was a limited one. It was not truly 'common,' either in respect of the people whose weal was c
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CHAPTER XVI THE AMERICANISATION QUESTION
CHAPTER XVI THE AMERICANISATION QUESTION
There is vague talk at times about the Americanisation of Canada. Very dismal people talk about its Americanisation by force of arms. Minor pessimists think the change will come about peaceably. How can the Canadians—they ask—continue to assert themselves for ever against the constant influx from the other side? Monsieur André Siegfried, in that most lucid and excellent book, Les Deux Races en Canada , considers this question a little, but the very fact that he has called the book Les Deux Races
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CHAPTER XVII AMONG THE READY-MADE FARMS
CHAPTER XVII AMONG THE READY-MADE FARMS
There was a time when Englishmen got a very bad name in Canada. It was not to be wondered at. For a long time English youths, who came to be known as Remittance Men, used to be shipped out by relations anxious only to get rid of them. These helped to create an opinion that Englishmen were more remarkable for their drinking than their working powers; and when to them was added shipload after shipload of unemployables from yet lower classes, Canadians began to get impatient of English immigrants.
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CHAPTER XVIII INTO THE ROCKIES WITH A DEFENDER OF THE FAITH
CHAPTER XVIII INTO THE ROCKIES WITH A DEFENDER OF THE FAITH
For several days I had seen the Rockies far off—a black and jagged coil of mountains, that seemed at times almost to be moving like some prehistoric great scaly beast on its endless crawl across the plains. Now I was to see them near by—some part of them at least. What has any man seen in that ocean of mountains but a few drops? At the unpleasing hour of 3.30 A.M. I disengaged myself from one of the three double beds with which my room in the hotel was furnished, washed slightly, dressed complet
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CHAPTER XIX A HOT BATH IN BANFF
CHAPTER XIX A HOT BATH IN BANFF
Everybody stops at Banff. The popular places of the world are not necessarily the most beautiful; and even if they start beautiful, they are not rendered more so by the accretion in their midst of a large number of even first-class hotels. Perhaps first-class hotels increase the feeling for beauty. Indeed the sole defence of luxury worth consideration is that it has this effect. Without luxury, would there exist such an appreciator of beauty as d'Annunzio, to name but one? Pardon, I am getting a
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CHAPTER XX CANADA AND WOMAN
CHAPTER XX CANADA AND WOMAN
Few books are complete nowadays without a chapter on the woman question. Man can be treated of in between; one would not as yet care to write a book without mentioning man in it. As a subsidiary agent for keeping the world going man is still not without his importance. But woman, as I have said, must have a chapter to herself. And since I unwittingly arrived on the last page at the subject of woman's work in Canada, I will pause—even on the threshold of the mountains—and go further into the matt
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CHAPTER XXI THE LAKES AMONG THE CLOUDS
CHAPTER XXI THE LAKES AMONG THE CLOUDS
Who thinks the Rockies only of a forbidding magnificence, of a grandeur always dark and fierce? Let him go to Lake Louise. The only phrase I know that fits it is that German one— märchenhaft schön —lovely as a scene of fairyland. Coming upon it suddenly, on a moonlight night, it seems so unlooked-for, so exquisite, that one says to oneself, 'Surely it will vanish like a dream.' LAKE LOUISE, LAGGAN, ALBERTA LAKE LOUISE, LAGGAN, ALBERTA It is quite a little lake, shut in for the most part by hills
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CHAPTER XXII A SOLITARY RIDE INTO THE YOHO VALLEY
CHAPTER XXII A SOLITARY RIDE INTO THE YOHO VALLEY
Emerald Lake is beautiful, but less beautiful, I think, than Lake Louise. It is more like a lake among mountains, and less like a lake in a dream. I went to it because I wanted to get into the Yoho Valley, if only for a day, and the trail from Emerald Lake into the Yoho is, I had heard, the most picturesque of all. Even superficially to see the valley takes four days, and I had left myself with only one, so that it was in a deprecating spirit that I asked the manageress of the lake chalet if I c
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CHAPTER XXIII THE FRUIT-LANDS OF LAKE WINDERMERE
CHAPTER XXIII THE FRUIT-LANDS OF LAKE WINDERMERE
It would have been harder to leave the Rockies if I had not been bound for the Selkirks, which have this advantage over the Rockies, that they are perhaps less known. That part I was bound for is, indeed, not known at all to tourists, and very little known to anybody. The known part of the range lies round Glacier House, and includes Mount Abbott, the Great Illecillewaet Glacier, Mount Sir Donald, etc., which high places the railway has now made accessible for tourists who can climb. The part I
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CHAPTER XXIV THE SELKIRKS—A GRIZZLY-BEAR COUNTRY
CHAPTER XXIV THE SELKIRKS—A GRIZZLY-BEAR COUNTRY
Behind Wilmer lies a part of the Selkirks which is known only to a few ranchers in the neighbourhood, and is scarcely accessible except from this point. We had spent two days in the neighbourhood of Lake Windermere, and on the third, though each of us was booked to be hundreds of miles further on our way by the end of the week, and heaven only knew how we were even going to reach Golden again, for we had let the rig go back and the boat was reported stuck somewhere on the Columbia River, we neit
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CHAPTER XXV AN EIGHTY-MILE WALK THROUGH THE COLUMBIA VALLEY
CHAPTER XXV AN EIGHTY-MILE WALK THROUGH THE COLUMBIA VALLEY
We got back to Wilmer the following morning, and the problem then was—how to reach Golden again. The boat was due up the river some time in the day, but sandbanks do not encourage punctuality. I had my suspicions of that boat, and in any case, even if it arrived that day, it would certainly not start back again till the morning following. I did not want to wait for it at Wilmer, and decided instead that I would start walking down the valley at once and pick the boat up at Spellamacheen, forty mi
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CHAPTER XXVI FROM GOLDEN TO THE COAST
CHAPTER XXVI FROM GOLDEN TO THE COAST
I managed to get that train, and also a half bottle of rye whisky on the way to it, and sank into a seat in the smoking compartment, where I sat all soaked and miserable, supping my rye whisky at intervals and half dozing until two grizzly-bear hunters got in a few stations down the line. They were very wonderfully arrayed in moccasins and Arctic socks and turned-up overalls and sweaters and cartridge belts; and though they were modest enough in their bearing, and did not talk about their exploi
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CHAPTER XXVII A LITTLE ABOUT VANCOUVER CITY
CHAPTER XXVII A LITTLE ABOUT VANCOUVER CITY
A diminutive Japanese who picked up my fairly heavy trunk, slung it over his shoulder and walked down the platform with it as though it were nothing but a shawl, was the first person I met in Vancouver, reminding me that that land-locked sea below was the Pacific, which white men do not own but only share with the brown and yellow Orientals. I wonder—will the day come when the latter want an ocean all to themselves? And are there, in view of this contingency, plans of this intricate coast among
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CHAPTER XXVIII THE HAPPY FARMERS OF THE ISLAND
CHAPTER XXVIII THE HAPPY FARMERS OF THE ISLAND
There are no lotus-lands attached to the Dominion, and will not be, unless we make over to it at some date the West Indies. But because Vancouver Island has a climate excelling that of any other part of Canada, and a beauty of scenery not surpassed anywhere; because also the men who have settled there have reckoned these possessions dearer than other things, such as the fat soil of the prairie and the chance of growing quickly rich, Canadians of the mainland are given at times to lay a charge of
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CHAPTER XXIX A CHAT WITH THE PRIME MINISTER OF BRITISH COLUMBIA AND A BIG FIRE AT VICTORIA
CHAPTER XXIX A CHAT WITH THE PRIME MINISTER OF BRITISH COLUMBIA AND A BIG FIRE AT VICTORIA
As everybody knows who has been in Canada, there are two hotel systems in vogue there. By the one system you pay for your room and board separately, and this is called the European plan. By the other you take your meals and lodging at a fixed price, and that is called the American plan. In much the same way one might say there are two systems of life in Canada, and indeed elsewhere. By the one you distinguish between your work and your play, and treat each as a separate item. By the other you mi
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CHAPTER XXX BACK THROUGH OTTAWA
CHAPTER XXX BACK THROUGH OTTAWA
It was just before sunrise that I first saw Ottawa. I was on my way back from Vancouver, and had spent four successive days in the train, getting out only for minutes at a time to stamp about platforms where the train waited long enough to permit of such exercise. Such days, varied only by meals for which one is always looking, but never hungry, tend to become monotonous, even though one spends them mostly in the observation car. The fact is, observation pure and simple is one of the most diffic
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