Westward with the Prince of WalesNewton, W. Douglas (Wilfrid Douglas)
History
Westward with the Prince of Wales
Newton, W. Douglas (Wilfrid Douglas)
Canada -- Description and travel; Windsor, Edward, Duke of, 1894-1972
The Prince did not go over to the American side, but America came to
him. The white number-plates of New York State seemed to be everywhere
on automobiles, even outnumbering the yellow of Ontario. One had the
impression that every American motor-owner within gasolene radius had
decided that he would take his Sunday spin to Niagara Falls, and on to
the Canadian side of the Falls to boot.
American cars were coming over the bridges all day, and American owners
waited cheerfully along the route to get a glimpse of "The Boy," as the
American papers called the Prince. They joined themselves to the very
friendly crowd of Canadians who gathered everywhere along the route,
and their cheering, mingling with Canadian cheering, showed that
friendliness is not an affair that frontiers can manipulate.
As a matter of fact, the frontier at Niagara is the most imaginary of
lines. Now that the war is over there is no difficulty in getting to
either side. And there is no change in atmosphere either. People and
conditions are much the same, only on the American side our dollars
cost us more.
II
Western Ontario is, in the main, the most British part of Canada. Its
towns have British names, and the streets of the towns have British
names, while their atmosphere and design are almost of the Home
Counties. The countryside (if one overlooks the absence of
hedges--though rows of upturned tree-roots with plants growing among
them sometimes have the look of hedges) is the suave, domesticated
countryside of England. England is in the very air. And at the first
of these curiously English towns the Prince became an Indian chief.
Brantford, though it reminds one of a comely British country town,
preferably one with a Church influence in it, is really the capital of
the Six Nation Indians. It actually owes its name to Joseph Brant, the
Mohawk chief, who, having fought his Indians on the side of the
British--as the braves of the fierce and powerful Six Nations had
always fought on the side of the British--in the War of Independence,
marched his tribes from their old camping-grounds in the Mohawk Valley
to this place, so that they could remain under British rule.
The Indians of the Six Nations still live in and about Brantford, for,
though they have ceded away their lands to settlers, they are among the
few of the aboriginal races that have thrived and not decayed under
civilization. The Prince's visit to Brantford on Monday, October 20th,
was nearly all a visit to the Mohawks, the leaders of the ancient
Indian federation of six tribes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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