Life in the Clearings versus the BushMoodie, Susanna
History
Life in the Clearings versus the Bush
Moodie, Susanna
Frontier and pioneer life -- Ontario; Moodie, Susannah, 1803-1885; Ontario -- Description and travel
In a riding party, some place is selected in the country, and those
who are invited meet at a fixed hour on the appointed ground. The
Oakhill pond, near the village of Rawdon, and about sixteen miles from
Belleville, is a very favourite spot, and is one of singular beauty.
This Oakhill pond is a small, clear, and very deep lake, on the summit
of a high hill. It is about two miles in circumference, and being
almost circular, must nearly be as broad as it is long. The waters are
intensely blue, the back-ground is filled up with groves of dark pine,
while the woods in front are composed of the dwarf oaks and firs,
which are generally found on these table lands, interspersed with low
bushes--the sandy soil abounding with every Canadian variety of wild
fruits and flowers.
There is an excellent plank road all the way from Belleville to Rawdon.
The Oakhills lie a little to the left, and you approach them by a very
steep ascent, from the summit of which you obtain as fine a prospect
as I have seen in this part of Canada. A vast country lies stretched
beneath your feet, and you look down upon an immense forest, whose
tree-tops, moved by the wind, cause it to undulate like a green ocean.
From this spot you may trace the four windings of the bay, to its
junction with the blue waters of the Ontario. The last time I gazed from
the top of this hill a thunder-storm was frowning over the woods, and
the dense black clouds gave an awful grandeur to the noble picture.
The village of Rawdon lies on the other side of this table land, quite
in a valley. A bright, brisk little stream runs through it, and turns
several large mills. It is a very pretty rural place, and is fast rising
towards the dignity of a town. When we first came to Belleville, the
spot on which Rawdon now stands belonged principally, if not altogether,
to an enterprising Orkney man, Edward Fidlar, Esq., to whose energy and
industry it mainly owes its existence. Mr. Fidlar might truly be termed
the father of the village. A witty friend suggested, that instead of
Rawdon, it ought more properly to be called "Fidlar's Green."
There is a clean country inn just at the foot of the long hill leading
to the Oakhill pond, kept by a respectable widow-woman of the name of
Fairman. If the pic-nic party does not wish to be troubled with carrying
baskets of provisions so far, they send word to Mrs. Fairman the day
previous, to prepare dinner for so many guests. This she always does in
the best possible country style, at the moderate charge of half-a-dollar
per head.
A dinner in the country in Canada, taken at the house of some
substantial yeoman, is a very different affair from a dinner in the
town. The table literally groans with good cheer; and you cannot offer a
greater affront to your hostess, than to eat sparingly of the dainties
set before you.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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