Through The Muskoka Bush To Jerusalem

A TRIP THROUGH THE MUSKOKA BUSH TO JERUSALEM

THE PEACOCKS HAD A BEAUTIFUL PLACE TO LIVE BUT IT COULD BE FORBIDDING AT THE SAME TIME

     There was a huge window in the kitchen of the former Stripp family cottage, in Windermere. It didn't look out over the lake, but instead, to the back woodlot, where the entrance lane ended at the old woodpile. There was a back porch and of course it had a light. I never stayed one night in the cottage, in all the many times when we visited, when I felt comfortable walking in front of the window, even when the porch light was on. It had nothing whatsoever to do with ghosts or hobgoblins that might be lurking outside in the vast darkness of late evening. It was just a feeling about the nature of a Muskoka night, and this place above the lake, and the large window, as a sort of looking glass, on everything we did in the kitchen. Suzanne felt the same way. But these feelings weren't akin to a haunted house. In this case, we were being haunted from the outside-in!
     In the early part of this new century, I did some editing work for a local fiction writer, who touched on this "fear of nature" aspect, akin to living rurally. It was the thin thread of analogy, that weaved through the entire book, and it took me three tries at the text, to figure it all out. It gave me some, let's just say, food for thought. It wasn't the first time I'd been faced with this probability, but because I had been so smitten by the lakeland, to that point, the very thought of it being a feared environment, was as far from my thoughts, as me living and thriving in the city. Let me explain.
     In his circa 1870's Settler's Guidebook, for emigrants to the Free Land and Homesteads district of Muskoka, our first regional writer / historian, Thomas McMurray, wrote an editorial piece, about two young pioneers, who had become lost in the woods, on their own 100 acres (or at least this is what is presumed), looking for a cow that had broken free of its pen. They became disoriented in the deep forest, and it wasn't until neighbors checked in on the family, two or three days later, it was discovered they had disappeared. It certainly wasn't uncommon for this to happen to new settlers.
     The story is dark, if McMurray could be accused of such a thing, (as he was quite religious in his beliefs), and it was revealed the settlers had been in dire mental state, and the husband had offered to sever flesh from his legs, in order that his wife could eat, and survive the period being lost in the woods. They were soon found by the search party of neighbor farmers, but not before fear had overtaken the couple, who believed they were as good as dead, and would be eaten by the wolves. The environment, in this case, and its enclosure on them, as darkness arrived, was as if they had been hunted down by some mythical creature, preparing to devour them. It was not an isolated incident, or was it a fear that was rare, in those homestead days, when isolation was a great weight on the human spirit. This, in the contemporary sense, in my colleague's novel, was pretty much the same. The beautiful lakeland becoming the unexpected villain. The rural clime creating an adverse sensory perception of the surroundings. Ghosts where there were not ghosts. Just nature!  
     In the late 1970's, a friend who was also interested in local heritage, told me about a rather mysterious pioneer-era ruins, of what had clearly been a working homestead, from at least as far back as the 1880's. I wasn't as intrigued by this alone, because there were hundreds of similarly abandoned farmsteads dotting the landscape throughout Muskoka.
      What really intrigued me, was the name of the family encampment. My friend told me that it had been known, during the family's residency, by their choosing, "Jerusalem," and it had its own "Hill of Judea." What made it somewhat more compelling, was the fact it was the second time I had heard the reference, once from my girlfriend Gail's father, Gord Smith (former owner of Algor Cottages), who had been brought up, at a farmstead in the hamlet of Falkenburg. One night, playing cards at the Smith house, Gord began to reminisce about the old Peacock property, situated several miles off the High Falls Road, that you could also drive to, down a narrow, tree-crowded connecting country lane, from the main Falkenburg Road, that was named "Jerusalem." He knew I was interested in such heritage curiosities, which is why he brought it up in the first place. He said that he often travelled into the property, and had, on occasion, enjoyed social occasions with the Peacock family. Thomas Peacock had been the founder of the homestead, but I'm not sure who Gord was meeting with, in terms of family, at the old homestead. His trips out there, probably happened during the 1930's and 1940's. He was able to draw me a rough map, which corresponded to a formal published map, my friend had acquired, showing the former buildings that had been registered as being on the acreage. We vowed to take a hike back there in the spring of that year.
     While there has been some discrepancy about the precise location, and whether we had actually visited "Jerusalem One," or "Jerusalem Two," on that initial mission of discovery, I am satisfied we were in the right location to start with. It seems Thomas Peacock had relocated his homestead, and both places had dramatic topography, such that there was, in each environs, a steep embankment he referenced as the Hill of Judea. I had confirmation from one of the surviving members of the Peacock family, who told me I had been in the right location on that first exploratory visit.
     I can't really explain the sense of claustrophobia I experienced, when I first witnessed the valley Thomas Peacock had selected as his Muskoka homestead, in the late 1800's. The still-standing log cabin, minus its window glass, and the ruins of outbuildings, on the western slope, was bordered by substantial hillsides encircling the cleared property, and one towering rock face to the east. On the top of this rock, which most likely was the Hill of Judea, as named by Thomas Peacock, there was a large rustic cross, made of thick branches, which had a substantial lean to it, but appeared a more contemporary installation. At least that was my opinion.
     It was a landscape that didn't give much appearance of being Muskoka in nature, because of the narrow, deep valley, and the huge rock cliffside. It gave an ominous appearance, with long, dark, finger like shadows, on the hillside where the cabin was situated. It appeared this way, obviously because of the the time of day we visited, and the position of the spring sun. But I can tell you this! It wouldn't have mattered how much light was cast-down on this unique acreage, of Muskoka landscape. It was forbidding times ten. I have no corresponding journal entries from the family back then, to compare notes, but I have to wonder what the Peacock family felt about the four seasons, anchored in this narrow envelope of rough farmstead land, between these oppressive looking hillsides. I can only imagine how it appeared in the dark afternoons of late November. I wonder how cheerful a dusting of snow could have made it appear, and if ever it could have been described by a visitor, like me, as picturesque; with woodsmoke curling from the chimney up to the level of the rock cliff, where presumably a a similar cross would have been positioned.
     The point I'm trying to make here, outside of the fact the Peacock family members were rugged and resilient pioneers, is that there were other similarly adverse landscapes in the Muskoka district, one being areas of the Icelandic settlement of Hekkla (near the Village of Rosseau), which with its rock outcroppings, hills, and thick forests, must have been an unsettling vision, when they first arrived in the 1870's, anxious to get on with their new agricultural enterprises. Icelanders, you see, did not have to deal with massive stands of forest, in their homeland, and were not really prepared to be loggers in their first days in this new country. The homesteaders encountered situations, on the landscape, that probably frightened them dearly, as most of the emigrants were refugees from the urban centres of Europe; and didn't possess the skills to fell towering giants in white pine forests. Let alone, to become farmers on a landscape strewn with rock and tree clusters, swamp and flowing water. Many settlers pulled up stakes early in their homesteading days, and travelled to other more agriculturally suited areas of the province, and the country, including the Icelanders, many leaving for farmsteads in central Manitoba.
     When I write about folklore, and superstition, as it flourished in the wilds of Muskoka, during the pioneering era, I always start out descriptions, and forge philosophies about the period, by thinking back to the five or so times, I hiked back to Jerusalem, to study the landscape that appeared every day, for so many decades, to the Peacock family. I'm told they got along quite well, and survived on this property with their modest agricultural operation. But they had their religious faith and homesteader's grit, and made their stake in the District of Muskoka, profitable to their standard of desired living. Or at least this is what I presume by all that I know of the site and the family that dwelled there for so long. I fear I would not have made a good homesteader, especially if I had faced this particular situations, that to me, was just shy of being frightening. For me, the envelope of land, appeared more like a postcard scene from the foothills of Alberta, more so, than from Ontario. It doesn't mean it wasn't an inspirational setting, and one that I was pleased to find and experience, but I would make the mistake each time, of trying to put myself in the Peacock's cabin; thinking what it would be like to wake up every morning to such a scene. I felt it was extremely haunted, but not by the former humans who once thrived on this parcel of land. This was a site, to me, haunted by nature alone. I hated the threatening feeling I experienced. I felt from my own love of nature, that it was unwarranted; but as someone who suffers from claustrophobia, I assumed the deep envelope of topography, was the biggest influence on my psyche on those occasions. I adore the diverse topography of the Muskoka landscape, so it was out of character for me to feel this way. But regardless, it was a scene worth experiencing, and considering I can't interview Thomas Peacock, for his views on the matter, or find any journal entries to reference, I unfortunately have to own this memory, as adverse as I apparently made it, with emotional over-ride.
     The greatest misunderstanding we modernists possess, when thinking about the pioneer period (which honestly doesn't bother the collective conscience all that much these days) is what it took of emotional stability, beyond the inherent difficulties in the physical and economic sense. Just the toll of isolation on these early homesteaders, must have been damning at many times, when their crops failed, after being hit by late and early frosts, and very early winter storms, which could have mustered in mid October. Seeing as a majority of these emigrants, in these rough homestead circumstances, were from urban environments in Europe, before taking part in this Canadian odyssey, it's not hard to imagine the degree of emotional transition they would have experienced, waking up with scenes like that of Jerusalem, to face another day of physical hardship with low food provisions in store.
     Is it any wonder, they embraced their religious faith so heartily. Is it any wonder, their vulnerabilities, gave rise to old country superstitions and folk lore, not as a remedy, but as a sort of mindful preoccupation, about this enchanting place; that very well could have harboured malevolent mythical creatures, beyond what would have been a substantial bear population. Might there have been faeries messing with the crops, spooking the livestock, souring the milk on purpose, ogres and trolls hiding in the shadows, ready to pounce, ghosts and related hobgoblins, as popular old country writers like Charles Dickens had told in their many books, infiltrated by such references. Even by the time that modest grounds were being cultivated, for those few initial crops, Washington Irving had passed away, after a long and creative life, leaving us with stories such as "Rip Van Winkle," and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." When the Peacock children were trundled off to the one room school house, serving this area of the Macaulay Ward, there may have been a copy of "Rip Van Winkle," on the teacher's desk. So the students could have known about spirited-Dutchmen, bowling in heaven, and being responsible for a storm's thunder; or a headless horseman's late night ride, with a flaming pumpkin to throw at his victims. Unlike today, in this region, there is a lot less isolation to return to, for most residents of Muskoka.
     These author-composed fictions, of course, were understood in the classroom setting; but when the stories were mixed with folklore as it was known, especially with what superstitions and beliefs in the supernatural, arrived with them, when they emigrated to this fair part of the world they were entitled to have a smidgeon of doubt. This isn't to suggest they were thwarted as homesteaders, simply because of the interplay of reality and superstition. Religion helped them cope, and look forward to improved lifestyles. And there is ample evidence of this, from the founding of those first rural congregations, that initially crowded in humble quarters, worshipping at hearthside, in central pioneer cabins, and later farmhouses, before churches were constructed. These were non-denominational meetings for the most part, because there were few nearby options, to attend services suitable to one's faith and tradition, as practiced in their former home situations.
    In one case in the hamlet of Ufford, the floor of the meeting house fell-through, toppling the woodstove into the hole with prone members of the congregation. Fortunately no one was seriously burned, or injured by the fall into the hole. It did however, herald the effort to construct a more suitable church building, to handle the spiritual needs of the settlers.
     As much as I adore the characteristics and diversity of landforms, inherent to the Muskoka landscape, a passion by the way, felt since my first foray into the region, to a cottage on Bruce Lake, back in the summer of 1965, I still respect the fact that not everyone feels this way. The homesteaders can certainly be forgiven, for feeling the forbidding sensation I had, when I first visited the ruins of Jerusalem, in that valley below Thomas Peacock's Hill of Judea. Some of course, couldn't handle the oppressive feeling of the landscape, and its limited potential for profitable farms. These people moved on to greener pastures. Thomas Peacock and family remained. There must be sensitivity in this regard, because dealing with the hinterland in those days, of the late 1850's, to turn of the century, were full of hardship, privation, and isolation for hundreds of settlers, who without resources to move elsewhere, had no choice but to stick-it-out, and pray for a future prosperity; even if all that meant, was to have enough food, and money, and presumably a healthy, thriving family. Not all prayers were fulfilled to this satisfaction.
     Regional historians dwell only briefly on this period of settlement. Not because of disinterest, because obviously, these homesteaders and early investors in our region, gave us the foundation for much that we have achieved in the modern context. The fact that cultural history has only received minor recognition, does deny an important dimension to the appreciation of local history, much of the records and personal stories being long gone from our memories. Yet regardless of how long it has been ignored, does not diminish whatsoever, the wealth of history it comprised in Muskoka. Much of it, we can only generalize, and this is a pity.