Winter studies and summer rambles in Canada : selections

Anna Brownell Jameson came to Upper Canada in the mid-1830s to join her husband in what was then known as York. Far from being the centre of the universe, York (Toronto) was a muddy, drab provincial town several years behind the Old World in fashion and literature, and an insular sort of place with not much to recommend it. Jameson, with a zest for adventure, explored the country by winter and by summer, from a steamship to Niagara to a canoe ride through the Sault Rapids, to a visit to Manitoulin Island and Penetanguishene.

This book is an interesting look at the land that became known as Canada. Jameson is no snob, willing to spend the night sleeping on boulders and interested in the language and customs of the Indigenous people. For show more someone of her time period, she is fairly enlightened on this subject, pointing out the hypocrisy in the settler population about civilization versus savagery, and going out of her way to meet and speak with Indigenous people. It’s still an uncomfortable read for a 21st-century reader in that regard, though.

With regard to the places Jameson visits, I was particularly excited to see my hometown get name-checked, and when she visited the area where my boyfriend’s family is from, I had to mentally fit in where she would have been. Same with her trip to Sault Ste. Marie, because we were just there last year.

The book contains a few maps, which are handy, and a fair number of footnotes, some of which are less handy than others. I also found it hard to appreciate the appropriateness of some of the epigraphs, because a few were in German and not translated or alluded to in the chapters that they introduced.

Overall I liked this pretty well. Maybe more than it deserves, because of mentioning my hometown :) show less