X Ontario, Once “Canada West”
We come now to Ontario, in extent the second, but in certain respects the first, of the Canadian provinces. Not so large as Quebec, it yet comprises an area three times that of the British Isles, with a little to spare. To be more exact, the figures are 407,262 square miles, having recently been increased immensely by the addition of the new district of Patricia, to the north of its former limits; and now the outline of Ontario upon the map bears a rude resemblance to a great hump-backed whale. At present it is only the tail of the monster that has much population, and it is that portion of Ontario—the peninsula outlined by the Ottawa River, the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes—with which the brief, interesting history of the portion of the Empire that began its existence as “Upper Canada” one hundred and twenty years since, has most to do.
Canadians, like their American cousins, are sometimes accused of worshipping mere bigness. This may or may not be true; but bigness is a factor of the situation in the Dominion from which one cannot get away. There is, I suppose, something fascinating to the imagination of the average mortal in the thought of leagues upon leagues of little-known, scarcely-explored wilderness, awaiting the coming of men, to be turned to unguessed uses in the service of humanity (sometimes unfortunately represented mainly by millionaires and the “big interests”).
Enough at least is known of these vast spaces to render it practically certain that, when their day comes, they will prove to be of much value to man. Obstructions in the waterways of the early “voyageurs” now stand for “power” and progress. Trees, once regarded as little better than noxious weeds, now furnish the paper for this news-reading generation. Rocks that cost the railway companies vast expense and toil in blasting have proved mines of precious metals. The chill waters of Hudson Bay may yet furnish the tables of half a continent with fish; and lands, supposed to be too far north for any useful growth, are so bathed in sunshine during the long days of the brief northern summer that roots and grains are forced to swift perfection, and the harvest seems to tread on the heels of the sowing. What will the next few decades show even in Ontario? Who can say? But bigness means difficulty and toil and struggle, as well as opportunity; and what every province of Canada needs is a people not only numerous enough, but big enough to make something of themselves and of the country.
Upon the whole, Upper Canada began well with the stock of sturdy Loyalists who had dared in the “Thirteen Colonies” to try to stem the tide of revolution, and were cast out by their native land in very fear of their strength and their constancy. Then came settlers from the Motherlands—English, Scotch and Irish (the latter arriving by the thousand during the first half of the nineteenth century at different times of sore distress in the Emerald Isle)—and though amongst these were wastrels and ne’er-do-wells and weaklings, the majority were men and women strong enough and true enough to “make good” in the terrible fight with the wilderness.
Nor was it only in that struggle to cut out their little homesteads from nature’s stern forests that they had to toil, but also at the shaping of a nation in the love and practice of liberty and in the fear of God. As to the latter, many little old churches, dotted through the land, bear witness to the zeal of the missionaries and the people of early days; and as to the former, the free schools through all the country, the colleges, the universities, the public libraries, the political system—with its merits and defects—are in large measure the result of the efforts of earlier generations.
Strange as it may appear, the most northern part of this vast province is no farther north than the central part of Scotland, and its most southerly point (the most southerly of the whole Dominion) is in about the latitude of Rome. It has no high mountains, though there is great diversity of surface, and the climate of the southerly and westerly portions of the peninsula of old Ontario is distinctly milder than that of Quebec or the prairie provinces. Of course there is great variety of temperature in different parts of this vast region. The lowlying districts bordering on the Great Lakes have, as might be expected, a more humid climate than places more inland and of greater altitude, but the winter of Ottawa resembles that of Montreal, and of course the cold is severe in the far north. It is, however, a fact that Canadians staying during the winter in England appear to feel the cold there more than English people do in the settled parts of Canada. Often, indeed, newly-arrived English people think that the dwellings of Canadians are kept too hot during the winter months; and perhaps they are. The practice of keeping the houses warm has some advantages, however. A somewhat severe “snap” of cold weather rarely works the havoc with the water-pipes in Canada that so frequently occurs during exceptionally cold weather in England; and people are able to use every room of their well-warmed habitations in a fashion which is of great advantage when the said houses are pretty fully occupied.
In a typical summer there is much sunshine and a good deal of hot weather; and then Canadians live much out of doors. Those of the dwellers in the cities who can afford to do so, often move early in the warm months to cottages beside some of the numerous lakes, and remain there throughout the summer. These cottages are generally more like wooden tents than houses, admitting the fresh air very freely. The country people also live much out of doors, but both men and women on the farms are too busy to take holidays during the hot season.
Besides her two boundary rivers, the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence, Ontario, which is a well-watered province, has many another fine stream; but perhaps the most striking of its natural features are its lakes, large and small. Passing up the St. Lawrence and skirting the provincial boundaries with one’s face turned towards the west, one comes first to Lake Ontario; then turning south along the Niagara River (perhaps its famous “Falls” are what most untravelled Britons would think of first of any place in Canada), one reaches Lake Erie, passes north through the St. Clair lake and river to Lake Huron, and from that by the wonderful locks at Sault Ste. Marie into Lake Superior, from the head of which inland sea it is only a few hours’ journey to Winnipeg. The interesting part of this imaginary voyage is that by the help of a few short canals it may be taken in reality. So every year millions of bushels of grain come from the wheat fields of the West to Montreal; and in a short time, thanks to improvements now under way, ocean-going steamers from Liverpool will be able to make an uninterrupted journey to Fort William, which is by rail almost a thousand miles from Montreal.
But if Ontario touched on none of the “Five Great Lakes” instead of upon four, which lie between her territories and those of the United States, she would still be a land of lakes, in right of Lake Simcoe and the Muskoka lakes, Lake Nipissing, Lake Abitibi, huge Lake Nipigon, the thousand-isled Lake of the Woods, and hundreds of others. Many of these contain great quantities of fish, though, so far as the “Great Lakes” are concerned, the “fish stories” of the pioneers read now like idle tales; but still the commercial fisheries of the province bring in over $2,333,000 (£480,000), and give employment to several thousand men. In 1909 the catches of trout and white fish were the most important.
Nevertheless, in this province the fisheries are a very small industry compared to mining, lumbering, manufactures and agriculture. Some twenty thousand men find employment in mines. The mineral taking first rank in Ontario as a revenue-producer is silver, of which the production in 1911 amounted to nearly $16,000,000 (£3,280,000). Pig iron, natural gas, nickel and copper came next on the list.
The discovery of the rich silver deposits at Long’s Lake, now Cobalt, was made by contractors engaged in building the Timiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway. About a month later—so the story goes—a blacksmith, La Rose, flung his hammer at an impudent fox. The missile struck a rock and made a bright metallic streak, which led to another great find. Not quite at once was the public persuaded of the value of these discoveries; then there was a mad rush to prospect for silver; and a town sprang up, looking, it is said, as if its makeshift houses had been “built between darkness and dawn.” An Indian is credited with the finding of gold-bearing quartz on the shores of Larder lake.
Years earlier, in 1884, the vast deposits of nickel a few miles west of Sudbury were cut into by the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, but there the mineral which first attracted attention was copper. This was sent to be smelted in New Jersey, and it was only when experts detected the presence of nickel in the slag that the true value of the Sudbury mines was recognized.
The forests of Ontario are of vast importance, and promise to remain so. It is satisfactory to add that the state owns the forests, to a large extent, in Ontario (as in Quebec), and the expenses of the provincial government are met by the revenues from the Crown lands and the Dominion subsidy without the need of laying a cent of taxation upon the people. Of course, whether they realize it or not, the indirect taxes, which are collected by the Dominion government, come out of their pockets, and there are municipal taxes, the weight of which varies very much in different municipalities, being naturally much heavier in the cities than in the country.
But to return to the forests. Including about one hundred thousand square miles of woodlands in the new district of Patricia, which is only partially explored, the total forest area of Ontario is estimated at 202,000 square miles. Of this about twenty thousand square miles is under licence, and in 1912 the revenue from the forests amounted to considerably over $2,000,000 (£410,000), whilst the revenue so collected since Confederation amounts to about $44,000,000 (£9,040,000). This has been derived from ground rents, timber dues, transfer fees, and bonuses (that is, sums offered over and above the fixed charges for the right to cut timber). In 1911 the value of the timber cut in Ontario was nearly equal to that of the “cut” in all the rest of the Dominion.
An Act passed in 1898 empowered the government to set apart “Forest Reserves, to be owned in perpetuity by the Crown and operated for timber crops,” and Ontario has now six forest reserves, which with Algonquin and Rondeau parks—chiefly intended for the preservation of game—amount in all to 20,000 square miles. The great northern forests consist largely of spruce, and there are half a dozen pulp and paper mills in operation in places easily accessible to these forests. Wood-pulp, by the way, is used in making car-wheels, coffins, pails, roofing materials and a long list of other articles. Ontario has still considerable forests of white and red pines, the trees, which were at one time counted by the lumbermen the only ones of value, being easily floated down to the sea, and being in great demand for masts and other uses. In Southern Ontario there used to be quantities of black walnut and other trees which would now be prized for making furniture, but in the days of the pioneers, owing to lack of transport facilities, vast piles of such woods were heaped together and burned.
In manufacturing, Ontario is the premier province, for though its capital comes in this respect second to Montreal, six Ontario cities are included amongst the first fourteen manufacturing centres of the Dominion. These are Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, London, Brantford, and Berlin; and in addition there are many smaller industrial centres. The industrial establishments (taken at random) include lumber and flour mills, agricultural implement works, shipbuilding yards, iron and steel plants, foundries, railway shops, distilleries, canning factories, cheese factories, creameries, carriage and motor car works. A long list of others might be added, and these various industries offer a variety of opportunity to skilled workmen.
But after all, Ontario is still chiefly an agricultural country; and the value of her field crops is “more than that of any other two provinces.” In fact, the value of her whole agricultural products was estimated in 1911 at three hundred million dollars (about £60,000,000).
The province has a great variety of soils and climates, and its older parts are a region of “mixed farming”; where dairying, the raising of live stock; the growing of wheat, oats, and other grain; fruit culture, tobacco-growing, poultry-raising and bee-keeping are successfully carried on. Dairying, according to an official statement, “is the largest industry in the country”; and three-fourths of the dairy product of the whole Dominion is produced in Ontario.
The province produces also three-fourths of the fruit grown in Canada—chiefly in its southern counties bordering on the Great Lakes—and is almost equally famous for its apples and its peaches, its berries and its grapes. Hundreds of thousands of acres in Southern Ontario are planted with fruit trees and small fruit bushes; and immense areas of land equally suitable for fruit-culture remain to be planted—in the Niagara district, along the shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario, and in other districts.
From the point of view of opportunity for newcomers, the interesting feature of the situation is not what has been, but what may be done. The fact is, even in the older portions of the province, only the fringe of possible productivity has been touched, and here in Ontario we are still in the region where the country districts have suffered in the last few decades by the exodus of the young—at first largely to the United States, later to the West and to the cities. The result is that there are plenty of good farms for sale at prices ranging from $25 (£5) to $100 (£20) the acre—the latter price including the cost of buildings—and a list of these can be obtained from the “Director of Colonization” at Toronto.
The prices, by the way, of apple and peach orchards and of vineyards in good bearing go up far beyond the prices of ordinary farm lands. As much as from $400 (£80) to $1,200 (£240) an acre is asked in the Niagara district for peach orchards, according to age, while apple orchards may fetch from $300 (£60) to $500 (£100) an acre. Even unplanted lands good for fruit culture range high—$400 (£80) the acre being asked for land especially suitable for peach-growing.
There are many districts of Ontario where capable British farmers with some little capital would have every prospect of doing well, for markets for all produce are good. Conditions of life in the settled farming districts of this province are usually found pleasant by those who like a country life, and many things are working together to render these even better than they were a few years ago. I will, however, return to this matter a little later.
One of the great difficulties that Ontario farmers have to contend with is that of obtaining sufficiency of help in the busy seasons. The best remedy for this is to so manage the farm—by keeping a considerable number of live stock—that help can profitably be employed all the year round, and to have houses in which married men can live with their families.
This brings us naturally to the other side of the question—whether or not a good experienced farm man can get work. The wages given to a married man range from $250 (£50) to $350 (£70) the year, to which are added (as a rule) a rent-free cottage, and some extras such as milk and firewood. Often both the wife and children (as they grow out of early childhood) can also earn something. The wages for unmarried men of eighteen years of age and upwards, according to experience, or lack of it, range from $10 (£2) to $25 (£5) the month—in a few cases to $35 (£7)—with board, lodging and washing free. Board and lodging usually means living with the farmer’s family, and there is no question that a man of good physique, good intelligence, real willingness to work and some thrift can soon attain a position of independence. As one newcomer to an Ontario farm expressed it, here “the boss hunts for a man, not the man for a job.”
It is often wise for a newcomer to work for a while for someone else and to gain experience before attempting to acquire a farm for himself; but it must not be forgotten that, besides the numerous farms in well-settled districts that may be bought at prices which are often little more than yearly rents asked for land in England, there are Crown lands in Ontario, some of which are offered for sale at the nominal price of 50 cents (2s.) the acre—payable in four instalments with interest—and some which are given away free. But there are conditions attached to the sale or granting of Crown lands. In the first place, these lands can be acquired only by a male settler over eighteen, or the mother of a family who has residing with her at least one child under eighteen. The settler must live for three years on the homestead, and within this time must clear and cultivate about 10 per cent. of the land, and build a small habitable house. The size of the grant or farm lot is generally one hundred and sixty acres; and in the case of free grants there is usually a provision that an adjoining eighty to one hundred acres may be purchased at 50 cents per acre. Often, but not invariably, the Crown lands are sold subject to timber licences or to a reservation of minerals.
The public lands for sale are situated chiefly in Nipissing, Timiskaming, Sudbury, Algoma, and Rainy River districts; and those offered as free grants are in the districts of Nipissing, Timiskaming, Algoma, Kenora, Rainy River, and in the tract of land “lying between the Ottawa river and the Georgian bay, and comprising the northerly portions of the counties of Renfrew, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington, Hastings, Peterborough, Victoria and Simcoe; and the districts of Muskoka and Parry Sound.”
Across Northern Ontario stretches the great fertile (so-called) “Clay Belt” of sixteen million acres, discovered during the surveys for the making of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway; and this is within easy reach of the more settled parts of the province, viâ the town of North Bay, which is served by the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Grand Trunk, and the provincial government line, the Timiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway. The latter strikes in a north-westerly direction, two hundred and fifty miles, to Cochrane, where it joins the Grand Trunk Pacific, passing on the way through the Cobalt mining region. Altogether, Ontario has more than ten thousand miles of steam and electric railways, and this mileage is increasing very fast.
The Clay Belt is well wooded, but is not very difficult to clear, and the pioneers there, unlike their predecessors in old Ontario, find a ready sale for their wood. One man, after paying for the cutting of the timber on the sixteen acres of his purchase from government of one hundred and sixty acres, which he was bound to clear to obtain his title, sold the wood at a profit of $550 (£110), and this left him a balance of $90 (£18) after the cost of “stumping” and ploughing the land, which, as he put it, will “clear itself ready for crop.” The timber is not always so valuable as this, but usually some money may be made from it. A couple of years later this same man stated that he had made a profit on his farm of nearly $1,200 (£240).
There is also a chance for the settler to earn ready money by working on the roads which the government is making through the country, whilst the demands of the railway construction camps for farm produce insures a good market. It is only right to add, however, that the beginner has to face inevitable hardships, and though a strong, capable man may not only succeed, but enjoy the life, there are other men who might do well under different conditions, but prove failures as pioneers. At certain times of the year, black flies and mosquitoes are very troublesome, but this is a condition which will improve as the country becomes more settled.
In the study of ethnology, people are accustomed to speak of the stone age, the bronze age, and so forth; and in the study of social conditions in this province one might use the dwellings of the people as a criterion. But, while thousands of families are still in the “log-cabin” age, with all the concomitant disadvantages of roughness and loneliness, more have passed into the age of “frame houses”—which may be models of neatness and comfort, and are often the scenes of pleasant sociabilities—a smaller number are in the brick age—typical of urban conveniences and (ofttimes) conventionalities; and a very few have arrived even at the dignity of the “stone age,” which from this point of view stands for wealth and luxury.
The population of Ontario is chiefly of British origin. Within the province are two capital cities—Ottawa, seat of the Dominion government, and Toronto, of the Provincial government. The local House has but one chamber, elected, it is commonly said, “by the people,” but actually by the adult males of the population.
There is no state church, but all the leading denominations, and many smaller ones, are represented. The University of Toronto (which has more than four thousand undergraduates) is non-sectarian, but there are a number of other universities and colleges connected with the several churches. The education of children is free, and their attendance at school compulsory. The school system begins with the kindergarten, and leads up through the public school and the high school to the university. There are unsectarian public schools and Roman Catholic “separate” schools.
Amongst other valuable educational agencies in the province there were in 1912 four hundred and seventeen public and two hundred and forty-two travelling libraries, which reach many a remote village and lumber camp, and three hundred and seventy-five agricultural and eighty horticultural societies. In this connection it may be mentioned that the Ontario Agricultural College and Experimental Farm at Guelph enrolled, in 1911, no less than 1,500 students, whilst the Farmers’ Institutes and Women’s Institutes number their members by thousands. There are, of course, numerous associations and societies in the cities and towns for the furtherance of objects of a religious, philanthropic, or educational character, but the comparatively recent increase of associations of farmers and farmers’ wives and daughters is especially interesting, because the enriching and development of rural social life touches a problem of national importance. These associations may prove of much advantage to the newcomer willing to profit by them.
According to the last census, considerably over half the population of Ontario is urban, but in the settled districts at least such recent innovations as rural telephones and mail deliveries are making the country life easier and more attractive. Men, accustomed to farm labour in the “Old Country,” seem to be astonished at the number of labour-saving machines employed on the farms, and, in some localities, farmers share in the advantages of the “Hydro-Electric Power,” developed from Niagara under the management of a government commission.
But, after all, it is not only material good things for which the emigrant seeks when he leaves his home-land. I have said something of the schools already, I might have said more of the churches which everywhere—in the crowded cities, in the quiet country, and in the lonely wilderness, sometimes nobly, sometimes feebly—are doing work for the growing nation which only they can do. I might tell of the vigorous, and upon the whole, successful, struggle which men and women are making in the cause of temperance—in Ontario and in other provinces—and of other efforts, needed even in this new land of opportunities, to prevent the exploiting of helpless children and young girls by greedy money-makers, to stamp out tuberculosis, to guard infant life, to cleanse the land of evils, physical and spiritual.
Ontario—and the Dominion—is, indeed, a land of endeavour as well as of opportunity, but the people are not too busy to find time to be helpful, and amongst the abiding impressions left from the years spent by the writer as an inexperienced worker on an Ontario farm, is that of the kindness and friendliness of neighbours, some of whom remembered similar experiences. And the hard work of the life was lightened by the loveliness of a beautiful country, and by no little pleasant sociability.