Читать книгу Forest, Lake and Prairie. Twenty Years of Frontier Life in Western Canada—1842-62 онлайн

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During this time my guardians made a trip to the Nottawasaga country, and I went along. Our mode of transport was an open boat, and we coasted around Cape Rich and down the bay past Meaford and Thornbury. I remember one night we camped on the beach where the town of Collingwood now stands. There was nothing then but a "cedar swamp," as near as I can recollect. Finally we came to the mouth of the Nottawasaga River, where we left our boat, and made a walking trip across country to Sunnidale; and while to-day the whole journey is really very short by rail or steamboat, then, to my boyish mind, the distance was great and the enterprise something heroic.

Those deep bays, those long points, those great sand-hills, how big then, and long, this all seemed to me; and yet, how all this has dwindled down with the larger experience of life.

While at Sunnidale, I spent some of my time fishing for "chubb" in a small mill-pond, and one day, to my great surprise, caught a most wonderful fish or animal, I could not tell which. It finally turned out to be a "mud-turtle." How to carry it home puzzled me. However, eventually I succeeded in bringing the strange thing to the house. Somebody told me to put it down and stand on its back, and it was so strong and I so little that it could move with my weight.