j* j* A WOMAN IN CANADA SOME PRESS OPINIONS " One of the most entertaining and individual books of Western Travel ever written." Dally Mail. " She makes it clear once more that the Dominion is the land for the man who will work and the woman who can work. ... It loses nothing by the fact that it is informal and chatty. It is the impressionist travel book of a shrewd, kindly observer, and for that reason it is worth reading by the old folk at home who have heard of Canada and never seen it, and by the young folk of Canada who have heard of England and never seen it. It is light reading, too." Daily Chronicle. " A helpful, hopeful book." The Globe. " If women are courageous and enthusiastic there is much to encourage them in Mrs. Cran's book." Glasgow Herald. " We seem to have waited a long, long time for this book . . . the patriotic Canadians will be as glad as we are to hear what a keen and kindly and absolutely honest observer thinks of it all. She has seen not only Canada, but also * Canady,' not only the luxurious and well-ordered life of the larger cities, but also the laborious and discomfortable existence of the vast countryside which stretches to no horizon, out of sight of the high-shouldered elevators that are the Gods of the North-West. And what she sees she describes with merciless accuracy, and with the easy, lucid style that always has a real personality behind it. There is much talk to-day of Western Canada as a field for the labours of England's superfluous women more especially the educated class and her book will tell them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Morning Post. LONDON: W. J. HAM-SMITH, 6 JOHN STREET, ADELPHI j . A WOMAN IN CANADA * j* SOME PRESS OPINIONS (continued) " A record of impressions which is exceedingly vigorous in style, lively and varied in substance, and quite evidently fair and straightforward." Scotsman. " Vivid and lifelike. Mrs. Cran has seen, felt and observed sanely as well as clearly." Morning Leader. " At once a volume of very personal and vivacious impressions de voyage, and an independent report upon social and economic conditions in that country, especially as they aifect women. . . . She is enthusiastic and almost lyrical about the beauty and heart-winning power Oi that young land and its great promise, but has much to say about the right and wrong kind of settler. The book deserves to be widely read, and is eminently readable." Manchester Guardian. " Stimulating. It should be widely read. We com- mend it for careful perusal." The Queen. " Imagine, then, a clever, cultivated, sympathetic woman with Canada as her Regent Street, and all the Provinces as her shop windows, and you can see what sort of a time you are likely to spend with Mrs. Cran. A day with a woman farmer at Caledonia Springs, another day with the scientific insect hunters at the Ottawa Experimental Farms, a week of fruit and corncakes, and maple syrup and bears and sentiment in Quebec, a tale of fishing with Joe Eskimo at Jackfish in Ontario, and then a wonderful succession of studies in homelife on the Canadian Prairies. Nothing in the literature that deals with Canada contains more fas- cinating reading than the 60 pages of the two chapters entitled ' The Prairies ' and ' Prairie Studies.' Here we are shewn in a way that we can understand the life of isolation that can still be made happy, the life of self-denial that will surely end in comfort, the opportunities in the remote West for women of refinement, even more than for women of the so-called working classes." Standard Of Empire. LONDON : W. J. HAM-SMITH, 6 JOHN STREET, ADELPHI A WOMAN IN CANADA BBHB 1 A WOMAN IN CANADA BY MRS. GEORGE CRAN WITH THIRTY-ONE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS LONDON W. J. HAM-SMITH 1911 REPRINTED 1911 Copyright All Rights Reserved CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I FOREWORD 9 II A WOMAN FARMER AND AN EXPERIMENTAL FARM 25 III IN QUEBEC ........ 52 IV FISHING ON STEEL RIVER . , . . . "J 2 V THE PRAIRIES 92 VI PRAIRIE STUDIES Il6 VII POULTRY FARMING AND MARKET GARDENING . 153 VIII THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS AND BRITISH COLUMBIA . 179 IX EASTWARD BOUND 208 X THE ART OF CANADA ...... 223' XI THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT . . . 247 XII AU REVOIR , 267 M203898 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR . . Frontispiece A LAND OF MOUNTAIN AND LAKE . Fating page 2O AN OLD QUEBEC STREET 21 THE SETTLED EAST I OTTAWA . . 34 THE WOMAN FARMER .... 35 MY HOSTESS AT CALEDONIA SPRINGS . 40 CALEDONIA SPRINGS HOTEL . . . 4! EXPERIMENTAL FARM AT BRANDON . 52 A TINY LOG CABIN .... 53 CATTLE BY THE POND AT CALEDONIA SPRINGS 58 OTTO THE GUIDE AT LEANCHOIL 59 " A BIG FELLOW " .... 68 PREPARING LUNCH . . . . 69 FISHING : " LANDED ".... 84 BRINGING HOME THE MOOSE HEAD . 85 SKINNING HEAD OF MOOSE . . . 96 THE PRAIRIE ,, 97 GRAIN ELEVATORS 114 WOMEN ARE SCARCE IN THE NORTH-WEST 115 NEAR LEANCHOIL 134 INTERIOR OF A LOG CABIN 135 WHERE REAL SPORT MAY BE HAD . 152 MOOSE 153 THE FRINGE OF THE WILD ...,, 184 OUR CAMP ON MALIGNE LAKE . . 185 " MR. MUGGINS " 2O6 OUR DINNER-TABLE . 207 MOUNT ROBSON 234 THE PACIFIC PROVINCE .... 235 PINES IN HIGH WATER : KAMLOOPS LAKE, BRITISH COLUMBIA .... 266 THE LONE SONG 267 viii A WOMAN IN CANADA CHAPTER I FOREWORD LET me beg any one who does not like " IV to avoid this book. It is full of them. The first time I went to Canada I spent the days of preparation for departure in being very sorry for myself. I could not think why I had said I would go. There was no need for it. I wasn't going to settle there, or invest money. I was only going on a visit with friends, and as the date of sailing grew near they noticed my depression. "Was I home- sick?" "No, not yet." "Was I a bad sailor?" " No, not specially." " What was the matter, then ? " Under pressure of questioning the trouble burst forth. Canada was an ugly, cold, icebergy place ; it had miles of flat wheat; it had no flowers; it was ugly, and I hated ugliness. Would they understand if I was morose during my visit, and believe that I loved them and only hated the country ? Such a way as they teased me ! 9 A WOMAN IN CANADA ' Yes ! they would understand indeed they would. And if I wanted flowers very badly they would take me to a marsh on a moor where purple flags grew, and frogs crooned at night." Goodness knows what idea I had of the country- no literature I had ever read had forced an impres- sion of beauty into my brain; it talked of so many bushels to the acre, so many acres to the farm, so many feet of snow to this month, so many days of drought to this, and so on. One book left a vivid picture of the hardships of homesteading, another told of the political value of the country, but none that I had ever seen talked intimately of the scenery or of the days' happenings other than commercially. I knew what grew there because I had seen the Coronation Arch. Hiawatha hung in the memory only as a jargon of interminable names cleverly arranged in trochaics. Lamentable, horrible, unin- telligent as it sounds, there is the fact of my ignor- ance. It has one advantage which I make haste to point out. I have at any rate viewed Canada through my own eyes, no one else's. And I venture to believe that it would strike hundreds of my fellow- Britons as it did me, especially, perhaps, women Britons. I believe that the average Englishman keeps a 10 FOREWORD small but warm corner of his heart for the word "colonies." Pride of possession counts for nearly all the warmth in that corner. When he looks there he finds a few vague notions lying loose, just any- how, all warm, all prized in a careless, happy way; but none of them loved in laborious detail. The vague notions spell vague things to him. India generally spells, I think, " Elephants a-pilin 5 teak," and whisky-pegs ; Africa, diamonds and " Kaffirs " ; Australia, sheep and cricket ; Canada, wheat and dis- comfort. It sounds foolish and almost impossible, but I believe that for the average Briton that is a fairly accurate description of what the Colonies amount to. The word " Canada " brings to his brain pictures of Liverpool receiving vast cargoes of wheat and distributing them over the country at a lower price than the home farmer demands. It also arouses dim visions of privations endured most impatiently by sundry of his friends who have gone out to Canada to settle, and hurried back incontinently because the young country did not contain all the comforts of the old. The name of Canada is to average Englishmen an empty word as a nation we do not realize her beauty, her power, or her proud resentment of our ignorance of both. If the average Englishman regards Canada as a II A WOMAN IN CANADA vast plain of alternate snow and wheat, or else as a speculative habitation for spare capital, never as a beautiful, spacious home, the bulk of Canadians, in their turn, regard England as a high-spirited ward is liable to regard a wealthy guardian of cranky temper a guardian whose powers of control must terminate with the ward's maturity, and who will probably be dearly loved from the perspective of release ; but who, meanwhile, is to be endured, and considerably grumbled at. The traveller from these islands to the big Dominion is apt to start out with the erroneous idea that his nationality will give him prestige over there, will excuse, perhaps idealize, any eccentricity on his part, and any ignorance of his destination. This apprehension is inevitably subject to many shocks, and his pride of race is violently thrust back upon him during his sojourn in Canada. The Canadian, generally speaking, regards the Eng- lishman with little of his own regard for himself, and does not share his pride in the little island home whence he comes. The man who is proud of the past is unlikely to find much in common with the man who is proud of the future. " See what we have done," cries the Englishman, and "See what we are going to do," cries the Canadian ! 12 FOREWORD Excellent prides, both of them ; in the vital energy which impels the latter, one is prone to overlook the element of uncertainty it contains. " Your country is worn out ! " said a young On- tarian to me. ' Your roads have hedges, and are kept like park-walks; every hill is labelled * Caution ' ; every turning has a sign-post to tell which way to go. Your very roads nurse and pamper the intelligence out of a man. Why, I'd soon learn to rely on signs instead of the sun for my direction if I lived there; and I'd forget to shoot if I had your country ; every acre of bush has a * trespass- board ' in it instead of something for the pot. Your country is worn out." The narrowness of outlook displayed in these remarks will be derided by the superficial reader; but there is, in fact, reason in the view taken by so many Canadians. We are in danger of becoming a nation of cities, an urban race unfitted to wrestle with the wild. Only they judge us as already unfit who are, as yet, only becoming unfit. The population of Canada, a little less than that of London alone, is drawn from many sources; its prairies are tilled by Italians, Germans, Swedes, Danes, Galicians, Doukobours and Americans, be- sides the French and English. In British Columbia 13 A WOMAN IN CANADA Asiatic labour swarms; the costly, excellent "boy" is at once the heartburn and the godsend of the Pacific province; he is felt to be a menace and a necessity, and is regarded with the oddest mixture of distrust and gratitude. That same uncertainty of attitude, in a modified degree, obtains towards the French element in Canada, and towards the power- ful and yearly growing contingent from the States. The general idea over here is that Canada is peopled with Britons, with a certain admixture of old French blood; that the two get on capitally, and unite in adoring England and everything English. Never was such folly. Canada welcomes to her shores every man of every race who will work her soil and obey her laws; she draws her people from every nation, and the English settler has not proved him- self the best man. The Italians and Galicians show infinitely greater adaptability, greater industry, greater patience. A certain proportion of Canada's English settlers has, unfortunately, been drawn from the wastrels of our upper classes, and a large propor- tion from the poor. As yet the average decent, hardworking, intelligent middle-class Englishman has not made his mark on public opinion. Oddly enough and this is a fact the Englishwoman in Canada is everywhere welcomed and valued. In the FOREWORD North-West, where wives are scarce, a work of Empire awaits the woman of breed and endurance who will settle on the prairie homesteads and rear their children in the best traditions of Britain. Canada can do with citizens who put honour before wealth; and Britain greatly needs, if she only knew it, a loyal leaven in her greatest colony. Will I ever forget my first sight of that lovely country? All the elfin beauty of dusk was there to glamour the hour; there was a smell of land warm and piney on the breeze ; after days of brine sprayed bitterly to the nostrils there was delight in it; all the happy langour of green growing things, all the fruit- ful essences of earth soothed the senses in that breeze blowing from the land. We crowded up on deck to lean over the waters. Overhead the moon swung between tiny clouds like a censer sometimes dimmed by its own smoke ; away on our left stretched the great St. Lawrence. On the right a long patch of indigo broke the sky-line ; in the heart of that line sparkled Rimouski. After leaving the mails we steamed away up the vast moonlit river, passing between the sentinel spires that fringe her banks to the city of spires, perched on their historic heights, the many-towered fairy city which broke upon our vision in the unearthly dawnlight a sight to be re- 15 A WOMAN IN CANADA membered for all days, poignant with mystery, with charm. Here I was, ushered into the " ugly icebergy place " through the portals of a mighty sunlit river; transfigured with emotion as we swept past the country of Evangeline, Sunshine of Saint Eulalie, realizing for the first time the beauty and truth of the descriptions read so lightly in far-off school-days. Why do people skip descriptions in books? One can travel the world over, in an arm-chair, and know the aspect of every land, if one only would read with patience in the printed page. So, rebuked, enlight- ened, did I come to Canada. For evermore her name will spell to me a picture of mountain and valley, of lake and river, of fruitful orchards and quaint young townships ; it will bring to my nostrils the smell of her, which is the smell of pine and cedar. My ears will strain to hear again the noon- song of the crickets and vesper of the frogs. That is the picture of Canada as I know her now, as all know her who love that rich and splendid land of promise, which only awaits for the " open sesame " of honest and ungrudging labour to pour her wealth into the world. That first visit, which taught me so much, was confined to Quebec and Ontario, the big eastern provinces which contain four of the seven great citie c 16 FOREWORD in the whole Colony. Guess, then, the prospect unfolded in a second visit which was to take me across to the Pacific coast, over the famed prairies, through the Rocky Mountains and British Columbia. I should see the lonely prairie farms, should see the world's wheat brought to harvest; should touch the fringe of the wild, and learn from the lips of pioneers the hardships and rewards of their courage. Here, in this little book, I propose to set forth a picture of Canada as I saw her; I, raw from the Mother Country, with nothing to hope for, nothing to gain, no one to profit, nothing to make out of a good report and nothing to fear from ill report. Perhaps I should say something here of the terms of my second journey. Seeing that the Canadian Government sent me across the country it might seem that I was bound to speak well of it, but as a matter of fact I do not feel handicapped by any such idea. The Dominion Government paid my travelling expenses, the Canadian Pacific and Canadian Northern Railways gave me every assistance ; but beyond these courtesies I went unpaid, and acted heartily on the final word of advice from official sources : " Speak the truth, we can stand it." I wonder if it sounds too noble to say that without such a free hand I should not have B I7 A WOMAN IN CANADA gone. It is true, however. It would have been too tiresome. A certain proportion of the matter here set forth has already appeared in article form in the Bystander, the Daily Chronicle, the Lady, the Crown, the Standard of Empire and Madame. My acknowledgments are due to the editors of these papers for their courtesy in permitting me to adapt what was necessary. I have in nowise endeavoured to write a travel book nasty dowdy things they are, full of fact and figures, written by people with tidy minds, and packed with information and help for every emerg- ency that can possibly arise in the career of the least accomplished traveller, and bursting with answers to every question that could possibly be asked by the most intelligent ones. This is only a series of snap- shots, offered with ragged edges unglazed, un- mounted, unframed, rapid, disconnected reproduc- tions of this picture and of that which burned into the memory in the six and a half months which is all I have ever spent in Canada. If I had spent six and a half years in the country, if I had worked and played, grieved and rejoiced, loved and hated on its soil among its people, then, perhaps, I might make some effort at presenting a coherent substantial book of reference and analysis; but such an effort now 18 FOREWORD would be an impertinence, and one which I respect Canada too much to offer. There is a heresy buried in that confession, a social heresy, a bad principle, a dangerous theory ; one that would set sincerity before polish, and do civilization a lot of damage; but it is not my business to point it out. What I realize is that, having travelled over one of our great Colonies, along a track that has been trodden scores of times before by people who can write much better than I can, I am attempting to write of it again; Heaven help me. Strange the fascination that land possesses ! I am not in the least peculiar in owning to it, countless men and women have told me the same thing, and a fact which is well known to all students of immi- gration over there is that ninety per cent, of the new settlers who put in a year or two, fail and leave in disgust, come back. They can't help it any more than I can now help the painful desire which catches me by the throat as August draws near, to pace again the deck of the out-going steamer impatient to de- vour time, while the Marconi machine coughs out messages to unseen vessels, spluttering blue sparks the while; impatient to see the wild maidenhair again upon the mountains, the little wild orchids coloured like copper in firelight, to hear the frogs 132 19 A WOMAN IN CANADA chant evensong, and crickets wake the day. I can neither stay nor ignore reconstruction of the journey, and I long to pass Belle Isle in a drenching fog with a tireless syren to breast the gulf, and sail proudly like a queen-swan to Rimouski in the sunset ; I long to feel the screws shiver as we set forth again for Quebec, leaving Rimouski an indigo line throbbing with firefly lights; I long once more to come to Quebec in the dawn and at that moment always in my longing I begin to be glad, like a lover who has come to his own. High poised against clear skies I see once more the Camelot of Canada Quebec of the heights and spires, grey, quaint, beautiful Quebec, hung up between heaven and earth over her spark- ling river ; I rattle over her stony streets in a caleche ; I see the big grasshoppers, like butterflies, among the chicory flowers beside the city ramparts ; I stand in reverence before a hero's monument upon the plains of Abraham, and in wonder before the view at the Chateau Frontenac. In all the loved, scented beauty of rose-time in England I feel a reiteration of that longing to be in Canada again; I want to linger in Ottawa, the garden-city; to see Winnipeg again lying flat on the prairie, with the sky-line an amher belt about her loins at sunset; to watch the green snakes gliding in and out among the grass 20 0) 3 co _i < An Old Quebec Street FOREWORD tufts; to see the log-fences and lonely wooden shacks. It is the toll exacted from all who have once been to Canada, unexpected but inevitable this strange attachment. A curious feeling, not a sentimental impulse, but a queer tugging at the heart-strings which has its origin in emotion of some sort. I am no musician, and so cannot describe in the terms of the perfect Wagnerite what I mean when I speak of the " ache " of music I mean that feeling of suspense which catches you when a melo- dious phrase is heard, and you know another must follow, similar, yet not the same, a sort of answer or completion of what went before ; and the " ache " of music is that sensation of suspense, of waiting, of desire which holds the ear and heart unsatisfied till the completing phrase occurs. Any musician read- ing this will smile because I describe a common enough occurrence in melody without knowing its technical term. But lovers of music, unlearned like myself, will understand what I mean when I say that Canada appeals to me like the first phrase in a melody; it leaves one charmed, unsatisfied, desiring more. I was asked on my second journey to regard the country from a woman's standpoint as much as pos- sible ; to study the lives of the Englishwomen settled A WOMAN IN CANADA there; to form my own opinion as to their happiness, their usefulness, their success or failure as settlers and wives of settlers; to discover if possible in what ways they could make money for themselves without having to wait for menfolk to bring them or send for them. For the Dominion Government is aware that England is overcrowded with women, and that her own prairie lands are crying for them by the thou- sand. Canada wants women of breed and endur- ance, educated, middle-class gentlewomen, and these are not the women to come out on the off-chance of getting married. They may be induced to come to the country if they can farm or work in some way to secure their absolute independence. They want, every nice woman wants, to be free to undertake marriage as a matter of choice, not of necessity. I feel persuaded that if the daughters of professional men in Great Britain could feel that there were pos- sibilities of money-making in the Colonies for them, as well as for men, they would go out and prosper. They would not choose to compete in Great Britain, where the fight is severe; and once they settled in the North-West I believe that a large number would ultimately throw in their lot with the bachelor farmers of the prairie and British Columbia. Every woman who goes out to Canada makes it easier for the other 22 FOREWORD women there. I would not recommend any one to go to the cities, they are overcrowded already; the eastern provinces, too, are fairly settled, but there is room for hundreds on the prairies, in Manitoba, that is to say, and Saskatchewan and Alberta, as also there is in British Columbia, the great province where climatic conditions are so different from those of the rest of Canada as to make it seem another kingdom ! Like Gaul, Canada is divided into three parts there are the settled eastern provinces, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; then the great tract of prairie land divided into the three prov- inces aforementioned, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, where the flat soil is a deep black loam, a quick fertile vegetable mould, where the wheat grows and the ranches are; where the track of buffalo may still be seen, where the eye may roam for days of travelling without finding a tree or bush. Then there is the third part of Canada, British Columbia, which begins in the Rocky Mountains and stretches down to the Pacific seas, where the cedars grow to immense proportions, where all growth is lush and rank, where snows give place to a rainy season, where the rivers are full of salmon and the forests full of deer. I was picking strawberries in the open in one of the valleys of British Columbia 23 A WOMAN IN CANADA last autumn, and three days later the train I was in was snowed up in the Maple Creek blizzard such differences of climate are to be found in that vast continent we call Canada. I think that elementary division of the country is helpful in trying to picture it to oneself. First the east settled, civilized, almost blase; then the middle wild, flat, fertile, full of potential riches, and even that is settling so quickly that its great curse, the curse of loneliness, is passing away; and last the west beautiful, luxuriant, largely unex- ploited, heavily timbered, with gold in all its rivers and fruit orchards in its valleys. The climate of Canada is magnificent, extremer in heat and cold than England, but dry and bracing. The conditions are primitive, and of every one but the capitalist manual labour is demanded as the first necessity of life. CHAPTER II A WOMAN FARMER AND AN EXPERIMENTAL FARM WE have sailed the stately river. Here are Montreal, the Customs, the drunken telegraph posts, the hum of welcome, the bustle of landing. I make straight for the great Canadian Pacific Rail- way building to learn directions, and am struck with the happy atmosphere that there prevails. One Mr. Stitt studies my letters and myself, then makes it his business to present the staff. I learn from one man of the picturesqueness of the Indians, their legends, their history, he is such an enthusiast in his study that I long for nothing so much as to go and live among them, learn them, write of them; but he is whisked away, and there passes before my marvellous eyes, a succession of enthusi- asts as interesting. The voice of wisdom speaks from Mr. Hayter Reid, the hotel enthusiast, tell- ing me in chosen phrases of the wonders of life in the mountains, so that I burn to go there with- out any more delay and spend the rest of life fish- 25 A WOMAN IN CANADA ing in the lakes, hunting, trapping, riding. Then a wheat enthusiast quarrels with them both about the superiority of wheat growing as a pastime to Indian lore and hotel life; as he talks I hear the rustle of grain in the sun with the wind among it, I yearn utterly to stand upon the prairies and lose myself in wheat. Then comes George Ham, " The only George Ham in the world," and he is witty and warm, and silent and cold, all in ten seconds or so. I understand, now I am among these men, why the Canadian Pacific Railway is the great, successful power it is. It is managed by picked souls, happy, genial, brilliant souls. Seeing it is yet early morning and I am a stranger in the land, I ask them what I can see in the after- noon. The Indian enthusiast wants me to go to Caughnawaga, the Indian village, but the others advise me to take a " round " ticket to Lachine and shoot the rapids on the St. Lawrence. With the rustle of the Atlantic and throb of engines still in my ears I feel I am a little weary of water and make demur. I ask if it is dangerous, and the enthusiasts smile one and all. "There had never been an accident and they had been shot thousands of times." So I wander away to the Grand Trunk station and take my " round " ticket. I crowd into 26 A WOMAN FARMER the train with the multitude and am carried at last into the open; it is good to feel the city behind me and the hedgeless country all around. A large pro- portion of the crowd gets off at Lachine, a heavy thunderstorm comes on, and we wait on the wharf herded uncomfortably under a tiny shelter. Pre- sently the fat old Empress rolls up ; she is a white boat with a curious engine which carries two exalted iron arms in her middle; when the engine works these arms wave up and down in a fashion that excites in me an inexplicable pity; they look so futile, so unintelligent, and so deplorably patient- like a very tired woman rocking a child that will not sleep, or a soldier heliographing to some one that cannot see. I am not sure if all the crowd is able to get on at Lachine, there is a great rush and I am swept on the front of it; I find myself tumbling over a small boy and his crushed cries make me angry, I don't want to hurt him and the people behind make me. I try to lift him but cannot stoop, it is an eager crowd and the gangway is narrow. Presently he is squeezed through the railing and falls into the water. It must be much more com- fortable for him than under my feet. I am swept on deck and begin to breathe again, the boy is fished out at once and greatly coddled and petted, he 27 A WOMAN IN CANADA deserves it, poor little person, and we set out for the rapids. The Empress has come from Ottawa, and is fairly well loaded with luggage and pas- sengers. All of us, who can, crowd into the bows to see the great feat accomplished, despite the rain, which makes an ineffable freshness in the air after a hot, close day. It is evening; I entertain lively hopes of seeing a brilliant river sunset as soon as the rain ceases. Sitting on a little wooden chair in the crowd I study the ugly blouse and untidy belt in front of me, congratulating myself that neither can block out my view of the sky, although they can, and do, any hope of seeing the rapids. A man next me begins to talk loftily of " Colonials " ; he is an Englishman, I regret to say, with bulgy blue eyes and a waxed moustache and shiny red cheeks; he says he is over on a patriotic mission. I hope he is lying. That is the type of man who spoils Eng- land for Canadians. I get up and squeeze over to the other side, where a rough-looking Ontarian with kind eyes gives me his chair, telling me to climb up on it and " look there. 35 I climb, and look. All across the wide St. Lawrence from far green bank to far green bank boils and fumes a line of breakers. It seems incredible that any boat can pass across these rocks and currents in safety. The man holds 28 A WOMAN FARMER my arm to steady me, the motion of the boat is growing rapid, everybody is craning to see, we are just above the rapids. Mighty forces are dragging for our lives this way and that, here a whirlpool, there an angry scurry of waves rolling backward as I have seen them roll at Niagara in a flux of currents. I look up at the wheels, two men are steering, there are two wheels ; the men are looking fixedly ahead, a great concentration of attention in pose and glance. An old lady near me hides her face, saying, " Oh, who is at the helium ? " The man who had given me his chair grips my arm tighter we curve this way and that, intricately steered, and then we sweep terribly, resistlessly, over the fall into the maelstrom below. As we go I hear a crack. ... I look up, the front wheel is flapping helplessly, the men are looking frightened. Another man rushes forward, he pulls the engine bell quickly, turns to the wheel, tries it and then all of them rush away. . They have left the bridge something is wrong. I look at the rough man, he still has my arm, his face is dead white ; he says, " I have four children on board." The boat is moving horribly. Once she hits something and slides away on a current. I see we are in a hollow and ask, " Why is the river scooped out like this ? " The man answers, " We 29 A WOMAN IN CANADA are in the rapids, the rocks make it hollow." I see two sailors come from below and run like monkeys up an iron ladder; they disappear to the back of the boat. I hear shouts, people begin to realize, they rush to the sides and look over. ... I look at the boats, there are not nearly enough, besides they wouldn't be any use, there are not enough life-belts to go round that crowd. They have reversed the engines to hold up against the current, the patient arms work up and down. Presently the man who is giving the engine orders smiles palely down upon us and signals again to the engines. We begin to move forward, he has four men working the helm from the back, and he gives them the direction with his hand from the bridge. So, very slowly, we come to Montreal. In the middle of the rapids, the steer- ing gear had broken. For a while we have been in deadly peril, now it is over I know it has been very interesting. I read a description of the Indian reserve Caugh- nawaga in the Daily Ex-press, by Mr. Hambleton, afterwards, and it was so picturesque that I linger to quote part of it A jumbled, scattered collection of houses of wood and stone, a near neighbourhood of semi- 30 A WOMAN FARMER wild, semi-cultivated land, a people with the dull, dead features of a nation without an ideal and without a future, a village in which past and present clash in strange, eerie silence there you have Kahnawake " near the rapids " and shadows of men of the Five Nations. Caughnawaga (to use the modern spelling) is but a few miles up the river from Montreal, but it is a leap back through two hundred and fifty years of history without parallel, history which tells of the gradual tightening of the white man's grip, and the dominance of the white man's faith. . . . The jingling of civilizations is borne upon you with forceful persistence the moment you step ashore from the ferry. The main street of the village is broad, and the quality of its sur- face is fully equal to that of the average street in Montreal; but the resemblance ends there. A neat little hotel bids the visitor welcome, but the white stranger may not make his home in Caughnawaga. There are the same knots of playing, laughing children, yet the call of mother to child comes from one who passes down the street in silent aloofness from the present. A WOMAN IN CANADA As she goes by, the young squaw pulls her black shawl more closely round the shoulders, and from under the big straw hat dark eyes gleam with a glitter vaguely reminiscent of the camp-fire. . . . The Caughnawaga of to-day is not imposing, but the view from its shores is a delight painted with the bold, broad stroke of the master. It is such a scene as rivals, even if it does not excel, that from the " look-out 5 ' on Mount Royal. From the dim grey-blue of the moun- tains where Ottawa and St. Lawrence join their waters, eastward to the veil of smoke hang- ing over the city, the scene is one of softly- blending, ever-shifting colour, of restless indus- try and profound peace. Swiftly, relentlessly, the great river rushes onward past the Indian village, eager to bring countless machines into life ere its course be run to the sea. Westward, where the St. Law- rence broadens into Lake St. Louis, a horde of panting launches dance and leap through the waves; and there, where the waters catch the glow of the flaming sky, diamond and ruby flash in twinkling light the eternal presence of the past. It is the scene which the Indian sees 32 A WOMAN FARMER day by day from the reserve which is the white man's gift. He loves it all, but it is to him the water of Tantalus unattainable. It is the land over which he once held sway. When I got to the station the next day to start my westward journey, a little lonely, George Ham was there with a word to the conductor for my com- fort, and a hand-clasp so friendly and unexpected that it wakes a grateful glow to this day. I clamber into the car, and could wish our English travelling were as easy. The cars are lofty and spacious, each seat is a separate arm-chair by the window, which may be wheeled into any position, and is the essence of comfort. The cars roll swiftly and very smoothly; the windows are vast sheets of plate glass, offering an uninterrupted view of the passing country. The ventilating arrangements are perfect, only the Canadian idea of ventilation is heat before freshness, never freshness and warmth as well if you can get it, therefore the ventilating arrangements appeal to me as being of little avail. A handsome carpet runs the length of the car, which is a glorified edition of Pullman as we know him, and the only grief I find in the whole arrangement is the per- spective of tin bowls. One is placed by every chair, c 33 A WOMAN IN CANADA and some of the passengers make pestilential use of them. A boy passes to and fro at intervals with fruit, chocolate, or newspapers, and the porter is ready to bring tea at any moment and brush one's coat and boots before alighting. The train travels steadily, pulling up at a little station now and then with a deep contralto whistle. Near me a fellow- passenger tells the eternal story of England's cold- ness to her colony, Canada's patience and long- suffering ; I listen indifferent well. Here is passing the landscape I love : here is a belt of maples, there a patch of golden-rod glistening in the sun, when the train slackens I can hear the crickets sing. My happiness is too deep to be pierced by this aged grievance, I refuse to be plunged in thankless argu- ment. I watch the country whirl away from our wheels ; I watch it, and grow conscious of a certain hunger. Something is not there that I love, and I do not know what it is. We pass field after field of maize, buckwheat, oats and pasture. The maize, always called corn here, is infinitely graceful. Its leaves hang from tall stalks like satin streamers of green ribbon ; on top floats a plume of pale floss silk, tipped with brown. The buckwheat grows thick and short; it waves its tiny flowers in the wind, and sheds a perfume more fragrant and delicious than can be 34 (0 C3 LU