Peeps at Many Lands: Canada

Dey don't mak' no monee, but dat isn't funny,
For it's not easy get everything, you must know,"

as Drummond the habitant poet quaintly says.

Most of the schools in Canada are public, which means just the opposite to what it means to the English boy who knows Rugby, Eton, or Harrow; they are like English Board-schools, free to all, and attended by both boys and girls. Then there are high schools, where students may be prepared for college, and there are private schools, corresponding to the English public schools; of these the oldest and most noted is Upper Canada College, which is like the Eton of Canada. There are Universities in all the provinces, and Toronto and McGill University in Montreal are as large as the great Universities at home.

The English boy or girl coming to Canada will find the money quite different from what he has been accustomed to; it is measured in dollars, and a dollar is about equal to four shillings. There are 100 cents in a dollar, and there is a copper coin for 1 cent, value one halfpenny, usually called a "copper," and silver coins for 5, 10, 25, and 50 cents; but for large sums bank-notes in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10 dollars and more are used. As the decimal system is used, it is really simpler than pounds, shillings, and pence, and one soon becomes accustomed to it, though for some time one fears that one is paying too much, especially as prices for small articles are often higher in Canada.

CHAPTER IV

WINTER SPORTS

As soon as the ground is covered with snow, and the snow gets hard enough, every boy and girl in Canada fetches out his or her flexible flyer, bob-sleigh, or other form of child's sleigh, and dragging it to the top of an incline, sets it off gliding to the bottom.

The flexible flyer is a small sleigh that will not carry more than one big child or two very small ones. The rider lies stretched out on the sleigh, flat on his stomach, with his legs sticking out behind. A bob-sleigh is larger – often made, in fact, by fastening a piece of board across two sleighs running one behind the other. The riders on this go down in a sitting attitude, with their legs sticking out on each side of them, while one of them steers with his feet. And jolly fun it is to see them flying down like an express train, laughing and shouting, with red, rosy cheeks and bright, sparkling eyes. What matters an occasional spill in the snow? That only adds to the fun, and makes the game all the merrier.

While the children enjoy this "coasting," as they call it, the young men strap on their snowshoes and race across fields and fences, leaping or rolling over the latter, until they arrive at some appointed inn, where they partake of a good meal, with plenty of singing of rousing, lusty choruses and other kinds of jollification. Then on they strap their snowshoes again, and, with many a whoop and shout, stretch out in Indian file on their homeward journey. If there is no moon they carry torches, and the ruddy, flickering light adds picturesqueness to the long belted blankets or tunics and tasselled tuques of the snowshoe runners.

"A pretty picture it is as the snowshoers turn down into a gully, some slipping, some recovering from a threatened upset by a feat of balancing, and then, still in Indian file, getting over the fence, every man in his own peculiar way. Some take it at a leap, others climb it cautiously; some roll over sideways in a lump, pitching feet and snowshoes before them. Some are too slowly careful, and, catching a shoe on the top rail, measure their full length in the snow. There is no stopping here, for we are far from road and railroad, out in the open country, with several miles of field before us, and twenty fences in the way. Most of the farmers, with fellow-feeling, have left a few rails down, so that there is no obstruction. But a tramp is as tame without a tumble as without a fence, so here goes for your five feet ten! Never was there charger could take a high fence like a snowshoer! As an old song of the Montreal Snowshoers' Club runs:

"Men may talk of steam and railroads,
But too well our comrades know
We can beat the fastest engines
In a night tramp on the snow.
They may puff, sir, they may blow, sir,
They may whistle, they may scream —
Gently dipping, lightly tipping,
Snowshoes leave behind the steam!"

It is the dry snow, the bracing air, and the clear skies of the Canadian winter season that, combined with the exercise, produce this great exhilaration of spirits, and set up an equally great – appetite.

Ladies take part in this sport as well as men. Indeed, they also share in the tobogganing and the ice-hockey; in the former along with their brothers and friends, and in the latter in separate clubs.

But the favourite winter sport is ice-hockey. The game is carried on under cover in large halls, the floor of which can be artificially flooded and frozen. In this way a smooth, level expanse of ice is secured, a thing that can be seldom got out of doors owing to the great quantity of snow that lies on the ground. The game is played pretty much as hockey is on grass; the ball or disc the players chase is called a "puck," and they make it skim along the ice with hockey-sticks of the usual shape.

The hockey matches between rival cities are affairs of the greatest interest to the inhabitants. A large number of deeply interested sympathizers always accompany the team that goes to play away from home – in fact, the enthusiasm and excitement reach quite as high a pitch as they do in England over a successful team of local football players. The great trophy of Canadian ice-hockey is the Stanley Cup, which was first competed for in 1893, and has been competed for every year since, except in 1898. The winning teams have generally been furnished by Montreal or Winnipeg, though sometimes the winners have come from Toronto, Ottawa, and other cities. Two games are played, and all the goals obtained by the one club are added together and put against the total number of goals gained by the other club. The holders of the cup keep it until they are defeated, and they have to play whenever challenged. Since 1906 the cup has been held by the Montreal Wanderers.

A Canadian, Mr. W. George Beers, in describing Canada as a winter resort, thus writes: "The Province of Quebec must bear the palm of transforming winter into a national season of healthy enjoyment, and Montreal is the metropolis of the Snow King. You can have delightful days and weeks in Toronto, where ice-boating is brought to perfection, and the splendid bay is alive with the skaters and the winter sailors; or in curling or skating rink, or with a snowshoe club when they meet in Queen's Park for a tramp to Carleton, you may get a good company, and, at any rate, thorough pleasure. Kingston has its grand bay, its glorious toboggan slides on Fort Henry, its magnificent scope for sham fights on the ice, its skating, curling, snowshoeing, and its splendid roads. Halifax has its pleasant society, its lively winter brimful of everything the season in Canada is famed for. Quebec, ever glorious, kissing the skies up at its old citadel, is just the same rare old city, with its delightful mixture of ancient and modern, French and English; its vivacious ponies and its happy-go-lucky cariole drivers; its rinks and its rollicking; its songs and its superstitions; its toboggan hill at Montmorenci, which Nature has erected every year since the Falls first rolled over the cliffs; its hills and hollows and its historic surroundings; its agreeable French-English society, the most charming brotherhood that ever shook hands over the past.

"The first snowfall in Canada is an intoxicant. Boys go snow mad. Montreal has a temporary insanity. The houses are prepared for the visit of King North Wind, and the Canadians are the only people in the world who know how to keep warm outdoors as well as indoors. The streets are gay with life and laughter, and everybody seems determined to make the most of the great carnival. Business goes to the dogs. There is a mighty march of tourists and townspeople crunching over the crisp snow, and a constant jingle of sleigh-bells. If you go to any of the toboggan slides you will witness a sight that thrills the onlooker as well as the tobogganist. The natural hills were formerly the only resort, but someone introduced the Russian idea of erecting a high wooden structure, up one side of which you drag your toboggan, and down the other side of which you fly like a rocket. These artificial slides are the more popular, as they are easier of ascent, and can be made so as to avoid cahots, or bumps. The hills are lit by torches stuck in the snow on each side of the track, and huge bonfires are kept burning, around which gather picturesque groups. Perhaps of all sports of the carnival this is the most generally enjoyed by visitors. Some of the slides are very steep, and look dangerous, and the sensation of rushing down the hill on the thin strip of basswood is one never to be forgotten."

"How did you like it?" asked a Canadian girl of an American visitor, whom she had steered down the steepest slide.

"Oh, I wouldn't have missed it for a hundred dollars!"

"You'll try it again, won't you?"

"Not for a thousand dollars."

Perhaps to some whose breath seems to be whisked from their bodies this is the first reflection, but the fondness grows by practice.

Another famous winter sport is the national Scottish pastime of curling, and even when transplanted to the colder climate of Canada, the power which this sport possesses of firing sedate temperaments, and heating them to the ebullition-point of enthusiasm, suffers not one whit of diminution. Your Canadian devotee of the "roaring game" of "stane" and "tee" waxes every bit as excited over it as his Scottish associate.

A French habitant having witnessed a game at Quebec for the first time in his life, thus described it: "I saw to-day a gang of Scotchmen throwing on the ice large iron balls shaped like bombshells, after which they yelled, 'Soop! soop!' laughing like fools; and I really think they were fools."

Nor is the summer without its delight. All who can, make the Red Indian their model, and turn back to the aboriginal life. Summer homes or camps in the forest are built on the islands which dot the many inland lakes, and the long days are spent in canoeing, sailing, bathing, and fishing, while at night bonfires are built on the shores, all gather round, and to the twang of the banjo or guitar old college choruses are sung or stories are told. Moonlight in Muskoka is a fairyland memory to those who have known it, and to these lakes alone resort 20,000 summer visitors from Canada or their neighbours from the South.

Others choose canoeing trips, after the manner of the old "Coureurs de bois." With Indian guides, weeks are spent in following the chains of rivers and lakes, linked by portages (carrying-spaces), where all turn to and "tote" canoe and stores across. At night, after a supper of fish just pulled out of the lake and cooked on the camp-fire, the sleep in a tent on a bed of spruce boughs is a glorious treat to the city man or maid.

In the cities games of all sorts are played. Everywhere baseball, the national game of the United States, is to be seen, and lacrosse, the national game of Canada, adopted from the Indians, is a great favourite; cricket, tennis, polo, golf, and bowls, all known games, are played with the greatest fervour. In track athletics and in aquatic sports, Canadians have been seen to good advantage in many English contests.

CHAPTER V

FIFTY BELOW ZERO

So long as there is no wind the cold in Canada is, on the whole, not disagreeable. The air is, as a rule, so dry and still that the cold is exhilarating rather than painful. Even when the thermometer drops as low as 50° or 55° below zero – that is to say, when there is as much as 80° to 90° of frost in all – a man will be able to take his coat off and keep himself warm at an active occupation such as wood-cutting. Very often, in fact, you only know that it is freezing as hard as it actually is by hearing the crisp crunch, crunch of the snow under your own feet, or under the hoofs of your horses. When properly dressed, with moccasins and thick woollen stockings on your feet and legs, thick warm underclothing, and a heavy "mackinaw," or frieze jacket, worn over a jersey, mitts —i. e., gloves without fingers – and a tuque, or a fur cap pulled well down over your ears, you can generally defy the cold, and so long as you are active you will not feel it anything like so much as you would expect.

But when the wind blows it is altogether different, and the cold finds its way in all round you, even through the thickest clothing. Indeed, when the temperature is very low, and it begins to snow hard, it is dangerous to be out of doors. The violent snowstorms which sometimes come on at such times are known as "blizzards," and they are greatly dreaded. The air grows black, the snow turns into frozen particles of ice, with sharp cutting edges, and the wind drives them with the speed of shotcorns discharged from a gun. It is impossible to hold up your head against them; they would very soon cut your cheeks into ribbons. How terrible a thing a blizzard is in the north-west of Canada will be shown by the following story, which is quite true:

In a certain part of the prairie a blizzard began to blow. The farmer who was living there knew from the "feel" of the atmosphere and the colour of the sky what was coming, and he hastened to prepare for it. He put down a large supply of hay before each of his horses and each of his cows, and made all weatherproof and safe in and about the stable, for a blizzard often lasts two or three days or longer. Then he carried into the house as much firewood as he could before the storm burst, and when at last it did come he was prepared for it. For two days and two nights it blew a fierce ice hurricane, and during all that time the storm never slackened or abated for one single instant. But at the end of that time the farmer thought the blizzard was not so fierce as it had been; so, taking his cap off the nail on the wall, he tied it under his chin, and, pulling on his big boots, prepared to go out to the stable to see how his horses and cows were getting on, and whether they had eaten up all their hay. Just as he had his hand on the latch of the door his little girl came suddenly into the kitchen, and, stretching out her arms, cried: "Daddy, me go. Me want to go. Daddy, take Lucy!"

The farmer hesitated. But it was only ten yards or so across to the stable, and the little one had been shut in so long, a change would do her good. He glanced at his wife to see if she agreed. "Fetch mammy's shawl, then," answered Lucy's father. Little Lucy ran gleefully to fetch the shawl, and both her father and mother wrapped her carefully up in it, so that when the farmer picked her up in his arms to carry her out she looked more like a bundle of dark red clothing than like a living little girl.

The farmer was right; the blizzard was nothing like so fierce, and he easily found his way across to the stable. He fed his horses and his cows, and satisfied himself that they were all safe and comfortable again, and opened the stable-door to go back to the house. But – the house had disappeared; he was unable to see the smallest sign of it. The blizzard had come back again whilst he was in the stable, and it was now raging fiercer than ever.

However, he knew there was no help for it; get back to the house he must, otherwise his wife would be consumed with the keenest anxiety on his and Lucy's account, and she might perhaps be tempted to come out in search of him. Gathering the shawl, therefore, closer about his little Lucy, and pressing her tightly to him, he bent his head and plunged out into the furious hurricane of driving ice. After running for some seconds, he stopped to catch his breath, and judging he was near the kitchen-door, he stretched out his hand, feeling for the latch, or fastener. He could not find it. He swept his arm all round him as far as he was able to reach. No door anywhere. Then he knew that he had missed it. In the blinding, cutting snowstorm he had done what so often happens at such times and in such circumstances: he had failed to steer a straight course, and had gone beside the house.

Which way to turn? The farmer was in great perplexity. He did not know on which side of the house he was; in fact, he did not know where he was at all. He was just as likely to strike out into the open prairie and go away from home as he was to run against his own house-corner. However, he realized the danger of standing still: he might perish of cold, be frozen to death where he stood. Accordingly, throwing off the chill anxiety which was beginning to creep round his heart, he struck out again at a crouching half-run in the direction in which he fancied the house stood. Again he had to stop to recover his breath. He had not yet found the house. He was as far – or was he farther? – from safety as ever he was. A third time he tried, and a fourth, and still without success. He was beginning to despair of ever reaching his own door again, when a faint sound caught his ear. It was – yes, it must be – his dog barking indoors. Yet what a long way off it seemed! On the other hand, the farmer knew it could not really be a very great distance away, because it was barely five minutes since he had left the stable, and from the way in which he had run he was confident he could not have travelled very far, even supposing he had kept in one straight line all the time. The cold was intense; the very marrow in his bones seemed to shrivel under the icy blast. Clutching his precious burden tighter in his arms, he once more tried to find his own house-door. To his unspeakable joy the dog still continued to bark at intervals, and the farmer followed the direction of the sound. After the lapse of a minute or so, his feet struck against some hard object lying on the ground, which he recognized as a certain post that had fallen down, and in an instant he knew where he was. Then it was a matter of but a few seconds for him to fumble and feel his way along by the broken fence to the house-corner, and from the house-corner to the door was only a few steps more. At last, to his delight – a delight which no words can describe – his fingers clutched the latch, and he was safe.

But when the farmer handed over the red shawl to his wife, and the wife unwrapped it, to take out her beloved little one – oh, agony! Lucy was dead! frozen to death in her father's arms!

CHAPTER VI

LAW AND ORDER IN CANADA

In the older parts of the country, with the exception of the larger cities, crime is rare, justice is well administered, the ordinary forms of English law being followed; but the country has suffered in this respect from the fact that there have been criminals among the many emigrants arriving in recent years. One naturally expects that there will be lawlessness in the opening up of new countries, but certain wise laws have saved Canada from this evil. Many of the towns have passed laws prohibiting the sale of alcoholic liquors; it is illegal to sell liquor to Indians, as the Indian is dangerous when he gets "fire-water"; liquor may not be sold in any railway construction camp, or mining town, and the enforcement of this law has prevented much crime. The enforcement of the law is the duty of "licence inspectors," and they meet many queer adventures in the search for "blind pigs," as the places are called where liquor is illegally sold. At one place whisky was brought in, concealed in cans of coal-oil; at another, a shipment of Bibles on examination was found to be made of tin, and filled with the desired spirit. Another class of inspectors are the "game wardens," whose duty it is to see that the laws with regard to close seasons in fishing and hunting are observed. They travel about throughout the northland, and when they find evidence of law-breaking they seize nets, guns, game, fish, or furs, and see that large fines are imposed.

But Canadian reputation for law and justice owes more to that famous organization of guardians of the peace, the North-West Mounted Police, than to any other cause. This body of men was organized in 1873 for the preservation of order in the great North-West, which was then populated by Indian tribes and half-breeds, with very few white men. At present the force consists of 750 men, posted at ten different divisions, officered by a commissioner and assistant-commissioner, and in each division a superintendent and two inspectors. The full-dress uniform of the corps is a scarlet tunic with yellow facings, blue cloth breeches with yellow stripes, white helmet, and cavalry boots and overcoat. On service, fur coats and moccasins are worn in winter, and khaki with cowboy hats in summer. Each constable looks after his own horse – a cayuse or broncho about the size of a polo pony, worth about £12, with his regimental number branded on him, and good to lope all day and pick up his living, hobbled near his master's camp. The armament of the force consists of a carbine (.45 – .75 Winchester) and a .44 Enfield revolver.

This is the force that guards the territory stretching from the Great Lakes to the Rockies, and from the forty-ninth parallel, the United States boundary, to the Arctic Ocean – half a continent; and so well have they done what seems an impossibility, that a man may walk from one end to the other unarmed and alone, and with greater security than he could in London from Piccadilly to the Bank. The influence of the corps depends on the fact that they are absolutely fair, and that, whatever the cost or difficulty, they never give up till they have landed their man.

When Piapot – restless, quarrelsome, drink-loving Piapot – and his swarthy, hawk-faced following of Crees and Saultaux, hundreds of them, spread the circles of their many smoke-tanned tepees near the construction line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, beyond Swift Current, there was inaugurated the preliminary of a massacre, an Indian War, the driving out of the railway hands, or whatever other fanciful form of entertainment the fertile brain of Piapot might devise.

The Evil One might have looked down with satisfaction upon the assembly; there were navvies of wonderful and elastic moral construction; bad Indians with insane alcoholic aspirations; subservient squaws; and the keystone of the whole arch of iniquity – whisky. The railway management sent a remonstrance to the Powers. The Lieutenant-Governor issued an order; and two policemen – two plain, red-coated, blue-trousered policemen – rode forth carrying Her Majesty's commands. Not a brigade, nor a regiment, nor a troop, not even a company. Even the officer bearing the written order was but a sergeant. That was the force that was to move this turbulent tribe from the good hunting-grounds they had struck to a secluded place many miles away. It was like turning a king off his throne. Piapot refused to move, and treated the bearer of the Paleface Mother's message as only a blackguard Indian can treat a man who is forced to listen to his insults without retaliating.

The sergeant calmly gave him fifteen minutes in which to commence striking camp. The result was fifteen minutes of abuse – nothing more. The young bucks rode their ponies at the police horses, and jostled the sergeant and his companion. They screamed defiance at him, and fired their guns under his charger's nose and close to his head, as they circled about in their pony spirit-war-dance. When the fifteen minutes were up, the sergeant threw his picket-line to the constable, dismounted, walked over to Chief Piapot's grotesquely painted tepee, and calmly knocked the key-pole out. The walls of the palace collapsed; the smoke-grimed roof swirled down like a drunken balloon about the ears of Piapot's harem. All the warriors rushed for their guns, but the sergeant continued methodically knocking key-poles out, and Piapot saw that the game was up. He had either got to kill the sergeant – stick his knife into the heart of the whole British nation by the murder of this unruffled soldier – or give in and move away. He chose the latter course, for Piapot had brains.

Again, after the killing of Custer, Sitting Bull became a more or less orderly tenant of Her Majesty the Queen. With 900 lodges he camped at Wood Mountain, just over the border from Montana. An arrow's flight from his tepees was the North-West Mounted Police post. One morning the police discovered six dead Saultaux Indians. They had been killed and scalped in the most approved Sioux fashion. Each tribe had a trademark of its own in the way of taking scalps; some are broad, some are long, some round, some elliptical, some more or less square. These six Indians had been scalped according to the Sioux design. Also a seventh Saultaux, a mere lad and still alive, had seen the thing done. The police buried the six dead warriors, and took the live one with them to the police post. Sitting Bull's reputation was not founded on his modesty, and with characteristic audacity he came, accompanied by four minor chiefs and a herd of "hoodlum" warriors, and made a demand for the seventh Saultaux – the boy.