Life in the Backwoods

The clouds of the preceding night, instead of dissolving into snow, brought on a rapid thaw. A thaw in the middle of winter is the most disagreeable change that can be imagined....

Reader! have you ever heard of a place situated in the forest-depths of this far western wilderness, called Dummer? Ten years ago it might not inaptly have been termed “The _las...

Before I dismiss for ever the troubles and sorrows of 1836, I would fain introduce to the notice of my readers some of the odd characters with whom we became acquainted during t...

The early part of the winter of 1837, a year never to be forgotten in the annals of Canadian history, was very severe. During the month of February, the thermometer often ranged...

THE long-protracted harvest was at length brought to a close. Moodie had procured another ox from Dummer, by giving a note at six months' date for the payment; and he and John E...

'Tis well for us poor denizens of earth That God conceals the future from our gaze; Or Hope, the blessed watcher on Life's tower, Would fold her wings, and on the dreary waste C...

Never did eager British children look for the first violets and primroses of spring with more impatience than my baby boys and girls watched, day after day, for the first snow-f...

The summer of '35 was very wet; a circumstance so unusual on Canada that I have seen no season like it during my sojourn in the country. Our wheat crop promised to be both excel...

A logging-bee followed the burning of the fallow, as a matter of course. In the bush, where hands are few, and labour commands an enormous rate of wages, these gatherings are co...

During my illness, a kind neighbour, who had not only frequently come to see me, but had brought me many nourishing things, made by her own fair hands, took a great fancy to my...

first few years, he subsisted entirely by hunting, fishing, and raising what potatoes and wheat he required for his own family, on the most fertile spots he could find on his ba...

The 19th of April came, and our little harvest was all safely housed. Business called Moodie away for a few days to Cobourg; Jenny had gone to Dummer, to visit her friends, and...

It is not my intention to give a regular history of our residence in the bush, but merely to present to my readers such events as may serve to illustrate a life in the woods.

My husband had long promised me a trip to Stony Lake, and in the summer of 1835, before the harvest commenced, he gave Mr. Y----, who kept the mill at the rapids below Clear Lak...

of the regiment for the poor lady and her children, which amounted to forty dollars. Emilia lost no time in making a full report to her friends at P----; and before a week passe...