Part Six The Pioneer's Cookery Skills

PART SIX


The Pioneer's Cookery Skills And The Provisions Found In The Wild

     "During the years when the children were small we didn't have many things we needed of the essentials of life, such as sugar - this was were unable to get except the maple sugar we made in the spring - but this was not suitable for preserving fruit - wild fruit which grew in abundance. Raspberries grew around the edge of the new clearings and blueberries sprung up on the hills where the fire had spread from the burning of the fallows, that had run over killing the trees; or the low bush cranberries that grown on the bog on the west end of the Little or Giles Lake and on Roxborough's bog."
     The passage above was published in Bert Shea's 1970's book, "History of the Sheas and the Paths of Adventure," taken from observations made by Suzanne's great-great grandmother, Mary Shea, but best known in the family chronicle as "Granny Shea." As I've noted previously, Suzanne's side of the family arrived in Muskoka as homesteaders, in and around 1862, making them amongst the earliest settlers in this part of Ontario. Her uncle Bert Shea wrote two books documenting those early years of hardship, trying to farm the thin, rocky soil, of the rolling landscape of the present Watt Township, in the neighborhood of Three Mile Lake, nestled into what today is the Township of Muskoka Lakes. The homestead site was situated in the hamlet of Ufford, a name borrowed from a community in England.
     There is an excellent family history given by Grandma Shea in Chapter Five of Bert Shea's book, that profiles the hardships of living in the wilds and the difficulty of isolation, poor roads, and great distances to centres where grain could be milled, and provisions for sustenance purchased.
     "The raspberries came in haying time and I picked berries and put them on racks to dry. We could keep them, when dried, for winter when I would soak them and then stew them with sugar if we had money to buy it." For interest's sake, a well known play, depicting earlier rural times, was penned by a Huntsville writer, based on some of the stories of the Shea family history, including the wedding of Suzanne's grandfather and grandmother's wedding. The title of the play itself was a line written by Granny Shea, reading, "The Raspberries Came in Haying Time."
     "The cranberries came in late September or October after the farm crops were harvested and I would go with William (Shea) to pick them. Some places in the marsh where they grew along the lakeshore on the edge of the marsh, we would pick out of the canoe and if  you weren't careful when reaching for nice big berries, the canoe could upset and you would lose your berries. This didn't happen to us as William was good in a canoe and I soon learned from him. Then when we went out on the marsh on foot you had to keep moving when picking so you wouldn't sink to your knees while standing in the bog. We often picked two big cotton bags of the cranberries and carried them home. They would keep in the dry upstairs in the log house like little apples all winter and were ready to be stewed any time after the middle of November."
     The pioneer lady wrote, "Sometimes we would go over to Roxborough's bog on lot 18, Con. 7 and pick, and there were places in this bog you could sink out of sight but it grew the most beautiful cranberries you would ever see anywhere. But when he decided to drain the bog and dug deep ditches through the high-land surrounding it, the springs that fed it drained the surface, and then he continued by extending the drains through the marsh. The cranberries died out and the little pine and tamarack and spruce came up and covered the whole bog and then after a few years we would go over and cut a long slender young tamarac for a fishing pole - almost everyone had a fishing pole from  Roxborough's swamp; but we missed the good cranberries."
     Mrs. Shea adds to her story, writing, "One day an old man came around taking orders for apple trees and William bought some trees - not many - one was a crabapple called the General Grant and a Duchess of Oldenburg. How we prized these trees and when they came out in blossom in the spring, we were so delighted to have such beautiful trees just in front of the old log house and to smell the odour of the apple blossoms. After a few days, we watched the branches closely and by the formations where the blossoms had been, there was the evidence that the bees that had been so busy among the blossoms, gathering honey, had done a perfect job of pollination. With keen interest, throughout the summer, we watched the development of our first apples and by early autumn, and the time of ripening of the wild plums over in the grove, our apple trees were, as they had been in the spring, with their blossoms, a sight to see - laden with rosy cheeked apples and the prize of ours possessions. This was something new to the children - they had never tasted an apple before, as well as to watch them grown.
     "As well as eating from our hands all that we wanted, I peeled and cut each apple in eights, removing the core, and spread the pieces on racks to dry. This process took a few days to complete. When each lot was dried, they were taken f rom the rack or the beams and put in a clean-white cotton bag. Day after day this process went on till the whole of the apple crop of the Duchess of Oldenburg were safely prepared for winter cooking, with the other dried fruits and cranberries. This was the way we did, the years before there were glass jars for preserving, or crocks, for keeping the prepared fruit, or money to buy jars or crocks or sugar in sufficient quantities.
     "In those days everyone depended on their own resources - if the seasons were good, especially free from frost, we got along and were happy - but there came bad years when frost cut the first blossoms or the wheat was a failure,' and then she hesitated. I watched her in thought as she smoothed her white apron with her wrinkled hands. She went on, 'There were times when we didn't just know how things were going to go. We couldn't get enough flour. William and I would do without to save the bread for the little ones. Fed on good bread and milk they came along alright. We both did the best we could. William was a good man, he always thought of his family first. He was not only a good worker but he could plan, was a good hunter and trapper and fisherman and altogether it helped us along. Mr. McLeod on Con. 2, made good herring nets - they cost very little more than the price of the good linen thread that made the meshes and the main or top and bottom cords - he made the floaters from the cedar or pine with his jack knife - but he had to by the lead for the sinkers. These nets would last for years. Pa would set it down in the Bay just off Norway Point, we alled it Norway Point because there stood a beautiful Norway Pine on the centre of it, the only Norway Pine on Three Mile lake."
     She commented further that, "Pa, as well as spending a little time hunting in the fall, did some trapping too. He could catch the beaver and this gave us money for taxes and winter clothes, and for Christmas. Bracebridge was growing along these years. The fur buyers had set up shops in the village - they, having contacts in the old country, among the manufacturers who had markets for the finished furs in the British Isles and in Europe. Canada, being a British Colony, enjoyed a preference in the fur market over the great Russian competitors."
     After returning from selling furs in Bracebridge Pa would bring treats home for the Christmas celebration, particularly for the children. She recalls, "Little eyes would be heavy with sleep ere the squeak of Pa's footsteps on the frosty path that betrayed his coming and the click of the latch announced his arrival. With ice on his whiskers he entered the cozy kitchen and wearily laid his precious burden down on the cabin floor. The fire in the stove burned merrily, the steam from the spout of the Black Iron Teakettle furnished moisture to coat the frosty window panes. The odor of freshly brewed tea and fresh fried pork and vegetables in abundant measure, fresh from the stove to the table, bespoke satisfaction and comfort to a hungry man. After supper, Pa would take the little ones on his knee and tell them about his trip to the village of Bracebridge and about all the things in the stores and then it wold be again time for bed."
     Please join us again tomorrow, on this facebook page, for the conclusion of our short series on the folk history of recipes and cookbooks.