Life in the Clearings versus the Bush | Page 2

There are a thousand more advantageous ways in which a man of
property may invest his capital, than by burying himself and his family
in the woods. There never was a period in the history of the colony that
offered greater inducements to men of moderate means to emigrate to
Canada than the present. The many plank-roads and railways in the
course of construction in the province, while they afford high and
remunerative wages to the working classes, will amply repay the
speculator who embarks a portion of his means in purchasing shares in
them. And if he is bent upon becoming a Canadian farmer, numbers of
fine farms, in healthy and eligible situations, and in the vicinity of good
markets, are to be had on moderate terms, that would amply repay the
cultivator for the money and labour expended upon them.
There are thousands of independent proprietors of this class in
Canada--men who move in the best society, and whose names have a

political weight in the country. Why gentlemen from Britain should
obstinately crowd to the Backwoods, and prefer the coarse, hard life of
an axeman, to that of a respectable landed proprietor in a civilised part
of the country, has always been to me a matter of surprise; for a farm
under cultivation can always be purchased for less money than must
necessarily be expended upon clearing and raising buildings upon a
wild lot.
Many young men are attracted to the Backwoods by the facilities they
present for hunting and fishing. The wild, free life of the hunter, has for
an ardent and romantic temperament an inexpressible charm. But
hunting and fishing, however fascinating as a wholesome relaxation
from labour, will not win bread, or clothe a wife and shivering little
ones; and those who give themselves entirely up to such pursuits, soon
add to these profitless accomplishments the bush vices of smoking and
drinking, and quickly throw off those moral restraints upon which their
respectability and future welfare mainly depend.
The bush is the most demoralizing place to which an anxious and
prudent parent could send a young lad. Freed suddenly from all
parental control, and exposed to the contaminating influence of
broken-down gentlemen loafers, who hide their pride and poverty in the
woods, he joins in their low debauchery, and falsely imagines that, by
becoming a blackguard, he will be considered an excellent
backwoodsman.
How many fine young men have I seen beggared and ruined in the bush!
It is too much the custom in the woods for the idle settler, who will not
work, to live upon the new comer as long as he can give him good fare
and his horn of whisky. When these fail, farewell to your good-hearted,
roystering friends; they will leave you like a swarm of musquitoes,
while you fret over your festering wounds, and fly to suck the blood of
some new settler, who is fool enough to believe their offers of
friendship.
The dreadful vice of drunkenness, of which I shall have occasion to
speak hereafter, is nowhere displayed in more revolting colours, or
occurs more frequently, than in the bush; nor is it exhibited by the

lower classes in so shameless a manner as by the gentlemen settlers,
from whom a better example might be expected. It would not be
difficult to point out the causes which too often lead to these
melancholy results. Loss of property, incapacity for hard labour,
yielding the mind to low and degrading vices, which destroy
self-respect and paralyse honest exertion, and the annihilation of those
extravagant hopes that false statements, made by interested parties, had
led them to entertain of fortunes that might be realised in the woods:
these are a few among the many reasons that could be given for the
number of victims that yearly fill a drunkard's dishonourable grave.
At the period when the greatest portion of "Roughing it in the Bush"
was written, I was totally ignorant of life in Canada, as it existed in the
towns and villages. Thirteen years' residence in one of the most thriving
districts in the Upper Province has given me many opportunities of
becoming better acquainted with the manners and habits of her busy,
bustling population, than it was possible for me ever to obtain in the
green prison of the woods.
Since my residence in a settled part of the country, I have enjoyed as
much domestic peace and happiness as ever falls to the lot of poor
humanity. Canada has become almost as dear to me as my native land;
and the homesickness that constantly preyed upon me in the
Backwoods, has long ago yielded to the deepest and most heartfelt
interest in the rapidly increasing prosperity and greatness of the country
of my adoption,--the great foster-mother of that portion