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| Susanna Moodie |
Susanna
Moodie is a classic Canadian writer, so it seemed only right that
I should read some of her work for the Canadian
Book Challenge – after all, my aim was to try and get as broad
a view as possible of Canadian literature, and this will take me back
to the 19th century. I wasn't sure where to start, but the
beginning seemed pretty good, which is why I plumped for Roughing
it in the Bush, which was the first book to be published after
she emigrated – she had previously written children's books, which
appeared in England.
Susanna,
her husband John and their baby daughter moved to the backwoods of
Ontario in 1832, and 'Roughing it in the Bush', published 20 years
later, describes the trials and tribulations of their early years.
Her account, based on the journals she kept, is interspersed with her
poetry (which I didn't like) and is a little strange, because it
could almost have been writen by two completely different people. She
gives lovely, lively sketches in plain, simple language, with warmth,
humour , compassion and, when things don't go well, a degree of
irritation. But alongside that are florid patches of purple prose,
filled with the kind of sentimentality that was popular with readers
at the time of publication, but always makes me cringe. The poetry is
similar in feel – and sense and meaning take second place to rigid
rhymes and rhythms.
Fortunately,
these overblown sections are in the minority, and the straight
forward tale of life in the bush is fascinating and very readable.
Initially Susanna was very homesick, but over the years she came to
think of herself as a Canadian, and she wrote this book to warn the
English upper and middle classes that while Canada was a land of
opportunity, it was not somewhere where fortunes could be made at the
drop of a hat. She used her own experiences to show that starting a
new life called for hard work, and that gullible, inexperienced
settlers could lose everything.
I
didn't know what to expect from this at all, but I enjoyed it (apart
from the poetry and the purple patches). Susanna comes across very
clearly – she seems to have been an optimist, determined to make
the best of any situation. She was surprisingly resourceful
considering how different her new life was to what she had known
before, and was willing to try her hand at anything. A devout
Christian, she had a keen sense of right and wrong, tried to live her
life according to her beliefs, and expected others to the same. She
was humorous and compassionate, loved the beauties of nature, and was
devoted to her family.
Moodie
writes about the landscape, the weather, her neighbours (who seemed
hell-bent on conning the newcomers) – and how she and her husband
scraped a living from the land. The Moodies were not poor, and
employed servants, but even so Susanna takes her share of household
tasks, and I could only sympathise with her first unsuccessful effort
at breadmaking, when she had to produce her own yeast from bran. And
she was equally inept the first time she washed her baby's clothes,
for the garments got no cleaner, but she removed the skin from her
hands!
Her
love of her family shines through. There's a wonderfully tender
scene of Susanna and her husband canoeing, with two daughters at the
bottom of the boat enchanted by the butterflies and demanding to pick
waterlilies.
Set
against moments like that are others which are far less peaceful. You can
feel Susanna's fear as she listens to wolves howling in the wood one
lonely night while her husband is away, and on another occasion she
is terrified when the 'fallow' is being burned off (which I assume is
burning the stubble), the fire gets out of hand, and only a sudden
change of weather saves them from disaster and tragedy.
Gradually
she learns how to survive in this new land, and the strange becomes
familiar. She deals with sickness, dwindling finances, running a farm,
creating a home with the few resources available, and providing meals
for the 32 drunken men who attended 'logging bees' on their land to
help fell wood.
While
the Moodies did make some good and trusted friends, they had little in
common with many of their neighbours, especially in the early days
and, according to Susanna, people were determined to con them. She
describes them as improvident Americans and Irish, uneducated,
uncultured, and discourteous – worse than 'savages' she says. But
her account of their behaviour and the way they 'borrowed' from her
is very funny, and her description of their appearance and character
is so detailed you feel you would know them if ever you met them –
and would walk away as quickly as you could!
On
the other hand, she had a lot of time for coloured people, and I get
the impression this was fairly unusual at the time. She upbraids a
woman who will not sit at table with a 'Black', and praises the
Indians for their 'honesty and love of truth', although she finds the
local tribes 'ugly' and 'not clever'. She tells us:
There
never was a people more sensible of kindness or more grateful for any
little act of benevolence exercised towards them. We met them with
confidence, our dealings with them were conducted with the strictest
integrity.
And she
recognised the effect settlers had on the native population, who were
now living in a reservation:
It
is a melancholy truth, and deeply to be lamented, that the vicinity
of European settlers has always produced a very demoralising effect
upon the Indians.
Eventually
the Moodies move on when Susanna's husband is appointed sheriff in
another district, and the book ends with a series of appendices on
Canada, outlining its geography, history, government and education,
and explaining what life was like in the province.
