The Backwoods of Canada
By Catherine Parr Traill
The Laurel is not a regular passenger ship, which I consider an advantage, for what we lose in amusement and variety, we assuredly gain in comfort. The cabin is neatly fitted up, and I enjoy the luxury (for such it is, compared with the narrow berths of the state cabin) of a handsome sofa with crimson draperies in the great cabin. The state cabin is also ours. We paid fifteen pounds each for our passage to Montreal. This was high but included every expense, and we had no choice.
The only vessel in the river bound for Canada was a passenger ship swarming with emigrants, chiefly of the lower class of Highlanders. The only passengers besides ourselves in the Laurel are the captain’s nephew, a pretty yellow-haired lad, about fifteen years of age, who works his passage out, and a young gentleman who is going out as a clerk in a merchant’s house in Quebec. He seems too much wrapped up in his affairs to be very communicative to others; he walks much, talks little, and reads less, but often amuses himself by singing as he paces the deck, “Home, sweet home,” and that delightful song by Camoens, “Isle of beauty.” It is a sweet song, and I can easily imagine its charm for a home-sick heart. I was much pleased with the scenery of the Clyde; the day we set sail was lovely, and I remained on deck till nightfall. The morning light found our vessel dashing gallantly along, with a favourable breeze, through the north channel; that day, we saw the last of the Hebrides and, before night, lost sight of the north coast of Ireland.
A vast expanse of water and sky is now our only prospect, unvaried by any object save the distant and scarcely-to-be-traced outline of some vessel just seen at the verge of the horizon, a speck in the immensity of space or sometimes a few sea-fowl. I love to watch these wanderers of the ocean rise and fall with the rocking billows or flit about our vessel. Often I wonder whence they came, to what distant shore they are bound, and if they make the rude wave their home and resting- place during the long day and night; and then I recall to mind the words of the American poet Bryant— “He who from zone to zone. Guides through the boundless air their certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone Wilt guide my steps aright.”
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Catherine Parr Traill
Catharine Parr Traill (born Strickland; 9 January 1802 – 29 August 1899) was an English-Canadian author and naturalist who wrote about life in Canada, mainly what is now Ontario (then the colony of Upper Canada).
Biography
In the 1830s, Canada covered an area considerably smaller than today. At the time, European settlers had not explored most of Upper Canada. Throughout her life, Traill wrote to generate income to support her family. She wrote 24 books covering topics ranging from her life as a settler in Ontario to natural history, especially botany. Traill is considered a pioneer of Canada’s natural history. Through her writing, she related the colonial experience and described the natural environment of Upper Canada for English readers. Traill is considered an amateur botanist because, at the time, women couldn’t hold professional, paid positions. Sister to fellow authors Agnes Strickland, Jane Margaret Strickland, Susanna Moodie, and Elisabeth Strickland, Traill was the first of her siblings to commence writing. She began writing children’s books in 1818 after her father’s death.
Traill’s first book, The Tell-Tale: an original collection of moral and amusing stories, appeared anonymously in 1818; she was only 16. Her early works, such as Disobedience, or Mind What Mama Says (1819) and “Happy Because Good”, were written for children and often dwell on the benefits of obedience to one’s parents. A prolific author until her marriage, she averaged one book per year. In 1832, she married Lieutenant Thomas Traill, a retired officer of the Napoleonic Wars and a friend of her sister’s husband, John Moodie, despite objections from her family (aside from Susanna). Soon after their marriage, they left for Upper Canada, settling near Peterborough, where her brother Samuel was a surveyor. Her sister, Mrs Susanna Moodie, emigrated soon afterwards. She described her new life in letters and journals and collected these into The Backwoods of Canada (1836), which remains an essential source of information about early Canada. She describes everyday life in the community, the relationship between Canadians, Americans, and Indigenous peoples, the climate, and local flora and fauna. More observations were included in a novel, Canadian Crusoes (1851). She also collected information concerning the skills necessary for a new settler, published in The Female Emigrant’s Guide (1854), later retitled The Canadian Settler’s Guide. She wrote “Pearls and Pebbles” and “Cot and Cradle Stories”. After suffering through the depression of 1836, her husband Thomas joined the militia in 1837 to fight against the Upper Canada Rebellion. In 1840, dissatisfied with life in “the backwoods,” the Traills and the Moodies moved to Belleville.
While Susanna was more concerned with the differences between rural and urban life, Catharine spent her years in Belleville writing about the natural environment. She often sketched the plant life of Upper Canada, publishing Canadian Wild Flowers (1868), Studies of Plant Life in Canada (1885), and “Rambles in the Canadian Forest”. She received a grant c. 1899 from the Royal Bounty Fund, supplemented by a subscription from her friends in Canada, headed by Sir Sandford Fleming. She died at her “Westove” residence in Lakefield, Ontario, on 28 August 1899. Her many albums of plant collections are housed in the National Herbarium of Canada at the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Catherine Parr Traill
