Elizabeth Simcoe, Niagara Falls, Ontario, July 30, 1792
(December 20, 2019) I started reading this because it was short, and it felt like “a good thing to do,ˮ to read up on the early organization of Upper Canada, kind of a duty read, but hopefully quick and dirty.And then I took forever to get into it .... mostly because I knew I would always be able to renew it at the library... as with The History of Gardens, nobody was going to be putting such a run on Mrs. Simcoeʼs Diary that I would have trouble keeping it (but people did request it once or twice over the past year and a half... no one ever requested The History of Gardens for the two and a half years I had it).
But then I finally did read a long stretch of it... and I realized that Simcoe was journeying down the same path that I have driven every six months for the past almost 40 years... it struck me first that I had a lot in common with her experience when she was in Quebec City in midwinter and was gobsmacked by how warm people kept their houses and ballrooms... she was always commenting on being too warm indoors in the middle of sub-zero weather... and I thought, guess what, 225 years later Quebeckers are still keeping their homes superhot in the winter, way hotter than we ever did in Ontario (and my parents were very fond of being warm).
But then the Simcoes proceeded down the St. Lawrence and it was like a tick-off of all the geographical points I have come to feel like old friends after going by them 160 times... the ile of Montreal... Mrs. Simcoe rode out to “La Chineˮ one day to see the rapids but her only comment was “the roads were very badˮ... then the Simcoes travelled down the St. Lawrence... they passed Gananoque, Cornwall, Kingston, all the usual suspects one by one, stayed in York (Toronto) for a while, then made it down to Niagara, my old stomping grounds, where Mrs. S. refers to many landmarks I recognize... and they lived in Navy Hall, which I remember well... and they would go up to visit Queenston, Fort Erie and Chippewa, just like we do 200 years later... and at the end there is also a lot of description of the area I live in now, which to them was “the head of the lake,ˮ and where Cootes Paradise was already named and didnʼt seem to Mrs. S. to be as swampy as usual marshes.
Anyway, it was so interesting to get Mrs. S.ʼs impressions of all these places so long ago... and to think of how they were travelling and living in the wilderness here... and to think George Washington was alive and causing trouble in the States, and Marie Antoinette was executed while they were here... It was all a bit disorienting... when I learned Canadian history it was presented in total isolation... it felt like Canada was separate and very young, and the rest of the world was very old... and that is partially true but Canada obviously has some history too.
Even more striking than the foreshadowing of my own life and geography was Mrs. S.ʼs fortitude... she came over here in a wooden boat in the fucking 1790s to begin with, then when they got here, the Simcoes lived in tents and huts basically... often sitting around outside under “a bowerˮ in the middle of winter. They had tons of servants and a battalion at their service, but it was still a very primitive way of living and they just bore it. Very few complaints of hardship.
They brought with them only two of their children, the two youngest, and then Mrs. S. had another one while she was here! That daughter survived only a year and a half or so, but the shortness of her life doesnʼt appear to have been related to primitive conditions.
I really have to admire Mrs. S.... what she went through, and the talents she had... amazing.... 225 years ago!
And so many things so completely unfamiliar in the way people lived back then.
