Toronto—Collingwood—Georgian Bay—The Sault St. Mary—Navigation of the Great Lakes—Manitoulin Islands—Lake Huron—Arrival at the Sault.
Arriving safely at Toronto I was welcomed by my son Sandford, who accompanies me on my journey. For the first time I am presented to a still younger descendant, who confers upon me a new claim to family respect, and whom I meet with much pleasure.
It was the civic holiday in Toronto. It has been a custom on this Continent, in the large cities and more important towns, for one day in the year to be set apart, when, by common consent, business ceases. All sorts of excursions are organized by railway and steamboat companies, and to crown the whole with additional dignity, the purport of the day is officially declared by proclamation by His Worship the Mayor. Every possible auxiliary is called in aid to give effect to the occasion. In the city there are various performances at the theatres, morning and evening. The neighbouring small towns contribute their sympathizing crowds. There are cricket matches, lacrosse matches, with other meetings of every character of pleasurable association. There is the best of good eating and drinking for all who require it and are willing to pay for it. This Toronto holiday was in no way wanting in the general characteristics which such a day brings with it. Crowds of good-looking, good-humoured, holiday-dressed personages filled the streets, and there was a gaiety of manner and an atmosphere of amusement in the main thoroughfares which even the indifferent spectators could with difficulty resist.
If Montreal may be said to be the admitted commercial capital of Canada, Toronto is battling hard to dispute its supremacy. The capital of Ontario, it is what Montreal is not. It is a political centre of great activity, where much is originated to influence both Dominion and local politics. It justly claims, too, a higher tone of intellectual life. On the whole, it may be said that there is a more assured type of culture and urban refinement by the shores of Lake Ontario than on the Island of Montreal. The city contains two Universities: one, Toronto University, without religious test, supported by the Province; the second, Trinity, supported by the Church of England. Besides which there are a Presbyterian College and Theological Halls of other denominations. The Canadian Institute also has a reputation. It numbers among its members some of the leading minds of the country, and for many years it has been distinguished as a centre for the exchange of thought on scientific and literary topics; it has greatly aided the collection of information respecting the economic resources of the Dominion and in the determination of problems which have a direct influence upon its future. There has been always a marked polish of manner, blended with a sympathy with intellectual power, which has distinguished Toronto society. The leading members of the professions have, as a rule, obtained greater social recognition, and generally the horizon of education is much more extended than in the larger eastern city.
The surrounding country is of little interest beyond what is artificially obtained, but the large sheltered sheet of water in front of the city, locally designated “the Bay,” and protected from the lake by a long sandy island about a mile from the shore, will always give it value as a harbour, and afford excellent boating water for the members of the Yacht Club. The more distant environs are particularly striking. In four hours, steamboats take you to Niagara. On excursion days they are crowded with passengers. Niagara is one of those sights which the more you behold the more you are astonished. I have met those who have expressed disappointment at their first view of the Falls. It is difficult to explain how this feeling is entertained, except by some previous extravagant misconception of their extent and appearance. Their character and beauty have deservedly included them in the wonders of the world. Necessarily they have become a show place, and to some extent one experiences the unpleasant influences which the tourist has to contend with at such resorts. The locality is the scene of many a small extortion into which the unwary occasionally stumble. There cannot be a doubt that the Falls of Niagara, with the scenery above and below them, and the masses of rushing water in all its various aspects and circumstances, present a sight to dwarf into insignificance everything of the kind generally beheld. At all seasons of the year they attract crowds of visitors to the neighbourhood, and scarcely any one visiting the Continent fails to look upon them.
I spent a pleasant day at Collingwood with my dear old mother, 83 years of age, looking fresh and hearty, without one physical ache or pain; at the same time her mind retains its marked natural acuteness.
At four in the afternoon on Tuesday, the 14th August, with my son, I went on board the steamer “Campana” in the best of spirits. She is a staunch iron vessel, built in England and registered in London. There was an unusual crowd of passengers, but I had telegraphed and secured state-rooms, as the cabins are called, so I had not to content myself with a mattrass on the floor, the fate of many. The water was perfectly smooth. As the steamer left the dock the outline of the town of Collingwood, with the blue mountains in the background, appeared to me more picturesque than ever. What a change has taken place at this spot in the last thirty years, since the day when my men cut the first trees on the first examination of the ground on which this important town now stands. It was then in a state of nature with the primeval forest to the water’s edge. It is to-day a scene of busy active life, with wharves, streets, churches, schools and many a pleasant residence. The ground on which the dry dock is constructed I recollect as the spot where I have watched for deer when I had seen their foot tracks fresh on the sand beach. Where are the men who were busy at their work in those days? Who remain of the directors, engineers, contractors, and what the newspapers called “influential personages,” who, on a bright winter morning in 1851 gathered near the shore and on the ice, breaking a bottle of wine, named the future City of Collingwood. The familiar features of Sheriff Smith, Judge Orton, Captain Hancock, Messrs. Isaac Gilmour, Geo. H. Cheney, Angus Morrison, John McWatt, De Grassey and Stephens are yet kindly remembered by many, and especially by myself. There were others present whom I do not so well recollect. How many of these voices are mute, which then joined in the cheers given as the heralds of our good wishes! Few of the actors in that scene remain but myself.
The direct course of the “Campana” was along the coast of Georgian Bay, skirting Craigleith and Thornbury. We touch at the bustling town of Meaford, where our well-filled passenger list receives additions, certainly by no means desirable. But the new-comers crowd on board, and the steamer moves off to round Cape Rich, to enter the bay of Owen Sound. It was one of those pleasant, moonlight, calm evenings so enjoyable in Canada. There was not a ripple on the water. The air was cool and pleasant, the moon three-quarters full, and its reflection seemed to dance over the whole surface of the bay. The steamer is of iron, and we move onward with little noise and without vibration. We enter the narrow harbour at Owen Sound, a town surrounded by low hills, through the gorges of which the River Sydenham penetrates, passing over some falls of great beauty a mile from the town. As we are moving up to the wharf we hear the arrival of the train from Toronto, with more passengers for the boat. The latter have come on board, the vessel has started, when all at once the cry is heard, “A man overboard!” He is soon rescued, but he has lost his hat, and the air of suffering with which he regards this misfortune would lead us almost to think that he held life of little account that it had been preserved at this serious cost. Such an event is by no means uncommon on these lakes. Generally it happens that some one is late for the steamer. Passengers have often to drive long distances; nevertheless they loiter to chat over an evening dram, and lose their time in gossip, or they fail to recollect the length of the distance they have to pass over. Be that as it may, punctuality seems to have been imperfectly learned in these latitudes. It is remembered that the steamer itself is often late, and there is ever present the good natured friend to suggest that “there is no hurry.” At last the moment comes. The dawdler is made aware that there is no time to spare. The steamer’s last whistle has sounded. There is a rush to get on board, under unfavourable circumstances, and sometimes the experiment is dearly paid for. It is not always the hat that is lost. Sometimes it is the fate of the unhappy wearer never again to require one.
We have recovered from this adventure. We are starting, and have actually left the wharf, but suddenly the signal is given to stop the engine, and the voice of the captain is heard shrieking out, “Sam! there is a letter left at the office by two young ladies.” Sam takes no short time to find the letter, but at last we get under way, and our captain is benignity itself. Our next landing place is Sault St. Mary, which we will not reach for thirty hours. The arrangements for the steamer leaving Collingwood to touch at Owen Sound cannot be accounted for by any doctrine of necessity. It would appear as if the owners were anxious to act with perfect impartiality to the two railway companies, which, if they cannot be called opposition lines, have few interests in common. The Northern line runs to Collingwood; the Toronto, Grey & Bruce to Owen Sound; both from Toronto. As a rule, passengers by the steamer are for the North-West. Generally Port Arthur, on Lake Superior, is their destination. But we lost some twelve hours coasting around from Collingwood, and I could not see with one single advantage. This profitless waste of time will in all probability cease when the boats of the Canadian Pacific run between Port Arthur and Algoma, on the north shore of Lake Huron, connecting at that point with the railways now under construction. The new route will give to eastern passengers what they never yet possessed: a direct connection with Lake Superior without loss of time. From Toronto, passengers will probably continue to be carried for some time as at present.
Having passed three succeeding nights on the railway train on my journey from Halifax, I willingly sought my berth. The breakfast hour is seven, but I had had some experience of the preceding evening’s supper. Appetite must possess to many a somewhat tyrannical mastery, if we are to judge by the demonstrative determination to obtain seats at a steamboat table. With us there were four relays of supper, and it was an effort to find a seat at any one of them. Who has not noticed, under such circumstances, the rows of men and women who place themselves, with suppressed impatience, behind the seats, standing in the most prosaic of attitudes, in expectation for the word that the meal is ready. I was myself content to take my place at the fourth table, so that I could eat what I required with deliberation. With this experience, I was in no hurry to rise, so it was about nine o’clock when I entered the long saloon. There were a few stragglers like myself present, probably influenced by the same philosophy, who were seated here and there at a table on which lay the scattered remains of the fourth breakfast. On these lake boats the attendants are called “waiters,” not “stewards,” as on ocean steamers, and if there be a difference of nomenclature, there is certainly no identity of manner. The steward of the ocean steamer is the most benignant, courtly, kindly, considerate person in the world, and, as a rule, his virtues in this respect are sufficiently appreciated. On this boat I addressed one of the waiters, I thought politely enough, and gave my orders. I was met by the rugged reply, in the hardest of tones, “Ye cannot have hot breakfasts if ye lie in bed.” The man’s axiom was certainly borne out by fact. There was no breakfast, in the sense of the word, and what there remained was not hot. But the coffee was exceptionally good, and with a crust of bread I thought that I might have fared worse. Possibly the owners of the new steamers to be placed on the lakes next summer will introduce some improvement in the stewards’ department, which the ordinary traveller, they may be assured, will duly appreciate.
We were passing through the chain of islands extending from Tobermory to the Great Manitoulin. The water is perfectly smooth. The passengers are lounging, smoking, or basking on deck. Others, proud of their prowess, are relating their adventures and experiences, enlivened with many an anecdote, to the amusement of knots of hearers. As we were running through these waters they were so beautifully smooth and the air so fresh and pleasant that my mind went back to the Adriatic as you see it near Venice, or to the western coast of Italy from Civita Vecchia to Genoa. What you miss is the deep, ultra-marine blue of the Mediterranean. Although above you to-day there is a sky not less cloudless, bright and blue than we see in Southern Europe, the hue of the water is a deep slate colour, but in no way wanting in transparency. We have a horizon only broken by the islands behind us and the Great Manitoulin, dimly lying to our right. Like the Mediterranean, this great inland sea does not always exhibit the glassy surface it presents to-day. As in the Bay of Naples, the waters of which all pictures depict in the brightest blue, the gale can sometimes produce an angry, turbid sea, so on Lake Huron, especially in the late autumn, we have many a storm, often to create the roughest of weather. Some thirty years ago, while crossing in a Mackinaw boat, those were not the days of steamers with four relays of meals, I was caught in a nor’-wester, and driven to take refuge to the windward of one of the smallest of the islands we are leaving behind us. We reached the shore before sundown by the most strenuous exertions. All of us in the boat were exhausted, and we slept soundly on the gravel beach until the following day. The island was but a few acres in extent, but we could not venture to leave it. To have done so would have been certain death, for the water rolled in on the exposed beach in giant, swelling breakers. All the subsistence the whole crew had for three days was a solitary rabbit, which we managed to snare, and a few biscuits we had in our pockets.
It seems as if the whole study of the hour on board the steamer is to provide food for the passengers. It brings to recollection the prosperous hotel manager, who related with great zest how many hundreds he had been feeding in the last few days. It certainly required some genius to feed the numerous passengers of the “Campana,” with such limited accommodations. At noon dinner is provided. There are eighty seats, and four times that number of people to fill them. But dinner, like everything else, has its end. The passengers again form in knots upon the deck: the lounger, the smoker and the man who delights in euchre, the latter more within the scope of lake travel than the more classic whist, are all seen at their occupation, and the raconteur, with a fresh audience, is more than usually loquacious.
The moon is a day nearer the full; and when the sun sets, it does so gloriously and more brightly than last night. We arrive at a landing place and are moored to a wharf where we have to wait till morning. The Neebish Rapids lie before us. They have been improved for the purpose of navigation, but they are not yet lighted, and it is extremely hazardous to attempt to run them in the dark. Until a few years ago, when they were deepened and widened, they were positively dangerous. Eleven propeller blades were picked up by the divers during their operations. By daylight the Rapids can now be safely enough ascended, but it is not simply the Neebish Rapids which are unnavigable without daylight. An artificial channel through Lake George, made some years ago by the United States authorities, follows a circular course, and it is not possible to pass through it after dark without extraordinary precaution. It is true that it can be effected by sending two boats with lights following the course of the buoys on each side one by one, but all this was a labour our captain had no instructions to undertake, so we remained at the wharf. Had we not experienced the incident of the man overboard, and the forgotten letter of the two damsels at Owen Sound, we might have arrived in time to have ascended by daylight.
The next morning the boat left her moorings at dawn. It is a pleasant sail through Lake George and the St. Mary’s River, with its Indian settlements and the quiet locality known as Garden River. We had passed all these places when I awoke. We were then moving through the canal constructed on the Michigan side to overcome the Sault St. Mary. At the “Sault” there are, on either side, the Canadian and United States town bearing its name. Neither of them has much pretension, and neither of them is deficient in picturesqueness. The United States town, on the south side, is not without a certain commercial activity, and contains some barracks, in which generally there are two or three companies of the United States regular army.
The Sault is celebrated for its white-fish, and the passer-by will frequently observe a number of Indian canoes at the foot of the rapids, paddling about, with a man in the stern to seize the fish by a hand net. The white fish is held to be a great delicacy. They appear on the table first about Kingston, and are caught in all the lakes, but the opinion seems to be that the further north you go the better they are, those on Lake Superior being considered the best. We run out of the canal, and continue through the stretch of the River St. Mary above the Sault. There is little to attract the eye until we reach the lofty heights standing as portals to Lake Superior, the last and largest of the great sheets of water tributary to the St. Lawrence.
