Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the last Fifty Years: An AutobiographyThompson, Samuel
History
Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the last Fifty Years: An Autobiography
Thompson, Samuel
Frontier and pioneer life -- Ontario; Thompson, Samuel, 1810-1886; Toronto (Ont.) -- Biography; Toronto (Ont.) -- History
Before day-break breakfast was ready, and proved to be a more tempting
meal than the supper of the night before. There were fine dry potatoes,
roast wild pigeon, fried pork, cakes, butter, eggs, milk, "China tea,"
and chocolate--which last was a brown-coloured extract of cherry-tree
bark, sassafras root, and wild sarsaparilla, warmly recommended by our
host as "first-rate bitters." Declining this latter beverage, we made a
hearty meal.
It was now day-break. As we were new comers, Root offered to convoy us
"a piece of the way," a very serviceable act of kindness, for, in the
dim twilight we experienced at first no little difficulty in discerning
it. Pointing out some faint glimmerings of morning, which were showing
themselves more and more brightly over the tall tree-tops, our friend
remarked, "I guess that's where the sun's calc'lating to rise."
The day had advanced sufficiently to enable us to distinguish the road
with ease. Our tavern-keeper returned to his work, and in a few minutes
the forest echoed to the quick strokes of his lustily-wielded axe. We
found ourselves advancing along a wide avenue, unmarked as yet by the
track of wheels, and unimpeded by growing brush-wood. To the width of
sixty-six feet, all the trees had been cut down to a height of between
two and three feet, in a precisely straight course for miles, and burnt
or drawn into the woods; while along the centre, or winding from side to
side like the course of a drunken man, a waggon-track had been made by
grubbing up smaller and evading the larger stumps, or by throwing a
collection of small limbs and decayed wood into the deeper inequalities.
Here and there, a ravine would be rendered passable by placing across it
two long trunks of trees, often at a sharp angle, and crossing these
transversely with shorter logs; the whole covered with brush-wood and
earth, and dignified with the name of a "corduroy bridge."
At the Nottawasaga River, we found a log house recently erected, the
temporary residence of Wellesley Richey, Esq., an Irish gentleman, then
in charge of the new settlements thereabouts. Mr. Richey received us
very courteously, and handed us over to the charge of an experienced
guide, whose business it was to show lands to intending settlers--a very
necessary precaution indeed, as after a mile or two the road ceased
altogether.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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