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Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada
In 1836, Anna Jameson sailed from London, England, to join her husband in Upper Canada, where he was serving as attorney general. Shaking off the mud of Muddy York with mild disdain, young Mrs. Jameson swiftly sallied forth to discover the New World for herself.
The best known of all nineteenth century Canadian travel books, Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada is Jameson’s wonderfully entertaining account of her adventures, ranging from gleeful observations about the pretensions of high society in the colonies to a “wild expedition” she took by canoe into Indian country.
Jameson’s keen eye, intrepid spirit, irreverent sense of humour and staunch feminist perspective make this journal an invaluable record of life in pre-Confederation Canada.
The best known of all nineteenth century Canadian travel books, Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada is Jameson’s wonderfully entertaining account of her adventures, ranging from gleeful observations about the pretensions of high society in the colonies to a “wild expedition” she took by canoe into Indian country.
Jameson’s keen eye, intrepid spirit, irreverent sense of humour and staunch feminist perspective make this journal an invaluable record of life in pre-Confederation Canada.
176 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1838
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About the author
Anna Brownell Jameson
126 books7 followersAnna Brownell Jameson was an Anglo-Irish writer. She was born in Dublin. Her father, Denis Brownell Murphy (died 1842), was a miniature and enamel painter. He moved to England in 1798 with his family, and eventually settled at Hanwell, London.
The first work that displayed her powers of original thought was her Characteristics of Women (1832). These analyses of William Shakespeare's heroines are remarkable for their delicacy of critical insight and fineness of literary touch. They are the result of a penetrating but essentially feminine mind, applied to the study of individuals of its own sex, detecting characteristics and defining differences not perceived by the ordinary critic and entirely overlooked by the general reader. (Wikipedia)
The first work that displayed her powers of original thought was her Characteristics of Women (1832). These analyses of William Shakespeare's heroines are remarkable for their delicacy of critical insight and fineness of literary touch. They are the result of a penetrating but essentially feminine mind, applied to the study of individuals of its own sex, detecting characteristics and defining differences not perceived by the ordinary critic and entirely overlooked by the general reader. (Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 22, 2023
The greatest Canadiana book you’ve never heard of. This book is a selection of excerpts from Jameson’s journals where she outlines her arrival in the sleepy town of Toronto in 1836, and then her subsequent journey around the southern half of Ontario. Her prose is absolutely wonderful, and she makes early 19th century Canada come to life in a way I’ve never quite felt with other books from this period.
She reveals a Toronto that feels somewhat familiar, mentioning landmarks and streets that are still recognizable today, but that are mostly alien. She describes strange cultural practices, such as the gentlemen of the city paying visits to every respectable woman in the town on New Years day, to the overall feel of a harsh, yet sleepy, backwater town trying to make a living on the frontier of the British Empire.
Her experience journeying around Ontario was also particularly enlightening. Gems of local history that are completely forgotten today. She describes a small trip to Niagara Falls, of which she found mostly disappointing, to a larger journey she undertook looping west along the coast of Lake Eerie, up north into Lake Huron and Georgian Bay until reaching Manitoulin Island, all the way to looping through Lake Simcoe and back into Toronto. Many portions of her journeys I’d been to personally, but that also opened my eyes to so many interesting facts about the places I’ve seen.
For example, the fact that Clifton Hill, the gaudy attraction filled strip in Niagara Falls, is named so after the Clifton House, a hotel that stood all by its lonesome by the Falls that opened in 1835, which is now a lightly forested park where tourist gather to take a respite from the heat.
The fact that along the coast of Lake Eerie, stood a fort run by Thomas Talbot, who ruled a “kingdom” of a sorts of 50,000 people over 650,000 acres of land. He ruled almost the entire southwestern portion of the province, under a despotic hand, but managed to build an extensive road network that we still use portions of today. By the time Jameson visited him in 1836, he was already reminiscing of a past glory of his lands gone by. A whole era of Canadian history come and gone by the time we reach it, and is almost completely forgotten today (his main residence Malahide was demolished in 1997).
The fact that Manitoulin Island was the central meeting ground for a gift exchange that occurred between the British Government and all of the indigenous First Nations of Ontario that fought in the War of 1812. Jameson describing the mass arrival of different bands and their subsequent celebrations.
The fact that by the time she canoed through Georgian Bay near what is now Christian Island, her travel mates mention that you can still see the ruins of a much older Jesuit Cathedral that’s been abandoned for centuries.
All of these facts are interesting in isolation, but they spoke to me in a much broader sense: when I think about history, the 20th century feels like it still has texture and detail that I can understand. Whereas most history before that, feels incredibly removed and flat. I might know of major events that happened, say the War of 1812 or the US Civil War, but it doesn’t feel real in my head. This is one of the first books that made this period feel truly real to me. A place in time that is, just as our lives are today, an outspring of a long history of events before it. A place in time where every decade has its own texture and detail. It’s a hard thing to place, but this book moved me in a very particular way.
P.S. I need to go to the Toronto Reference Library and leaf through her total collected journals (17 volumes in total!).
She reveals a Toronto that feels somewhat familiar, mentioning landmarks and streets that are still recognizable today, but that are mostly alien. She describes strange cultural practices, such as the gentlemen of the city paying visits to every respectable woman in the town on New Years day, to the overall feel of a harsh, yet sleepy, backwater town trying to make a living on the frontier of the British Empire.
Her experience journeying around Ontario was also particularly enlightening. Gems of local history that are completely forgotten today. She describes a small trip to Niagara Falls, of which she found mostly disappointing, to a larger journey she undertook looping west along the coast of Lake Eerie, up north into Lake Huron and Georgian Bay until reaching Manitoulin Island, all the way to looping through Lake Simcoe and back into Toronto. Many portions of her journeys I’d been to personally, but that also opened my eyes to so many interesting facts about the places I’ve seen.
For example, the fact that Clifton Hill, the gaudy attraction filled strip in Niagara Falls, is named so after the Clifton House, a hotel that stood all by its lonesome by the Falls that opened in 1835, which is now a lightly forested park where tourist gather to take a respite from the heat.
The fact that along the coast of Lake Eerie, stood a fort run by Thomas Talbot, who ruled a “kingdom” of a sorts of 50,000 people over 650,000 acres of land. He ruled almost the entire southwestern portion of the province, under a despotic hand, but managed to build an extensive road network that we still use portions of today. By the time Jameson visited him in 1836, he was already reminiscing of a past glory of his lands gone by. A whole era of Canadian history come and gone by the time we reach it, and is almost completely forgotten today (his main residence Malahide was demolished in 1997).
The fact that Manitoulin Island was the central meeting ground for a gift exchange that occurred between the British Government and all of the indigenous First Nations of Ontario that fought in the War of 1812. Jameson describing the mass arrival of different bands and their subsequent celebrations.
The fact that by the time she canoed through Georgian Bay near what is now Christian Island, her travel mates mention that you can still see the ruins of a much older Jesuit Cathedral that’s been abandoned for centuries.
All of these facts are interesting in isolation, but they spoke to me in a much broader sense: when I think about history, the 20th century feels like it still has texture and detail that I can understand. Whereas most history before that, feels incredibly removed and flat. I might know of major events that happened, say the War of 1812 or the US Civil War, but it doesn’t feel real in my head. This is one of the first books that made this period feel truly real to me. A place in time that is, just as our lives are today, an outspring of a long history of events before it. A place in time where every decade has its own texture and detail. It’s a hard thing to place, but this book moved me in a very particular way.
P.S. I need to go to the Toronto Reference Library and leaf through her total collected journals (17 volumes in total!).
January 12, 2019
It's really unbelievable, what this woman did, traveling among strangers through the wilds of Ontario in 1837. Yet she writes about it as if it's a trip to the market.
December 20, 2016
Anna Brownell Jameson visited Canada in 1836-37, two years after York incorporated as the City of Toronto. For the first part of her journal, Winter Studies, she was a virtual hostage kept indoors by the cold winter weather, taking only one trip by sleigh to Niagara Falls which she described as disappointing (she changes her tune when she revisits it in the summer). This part does not provide the detail for readers trying to imagine what Toronto looked like, although, Anna does comment rather astutely on the politics and social issues the small city faced. What this section does provide, is insight into what occupied the thoughts of a well-travelled, educated 19th century British woman, which when contrasted with the primitive setting she finds herself is rather amazing. Prior to this visit Anna Brownell Jameson had spent time in continental Europe keeping company with culturally influential people of that era. While stuck indoors, she did a lot of reading and is expansive in her commentary and opinions about composers, painters, actors, politicians, and playwrights; she herself was a well-known feminist author. For example, she discusses Dr. Johann Eckermann who wrote “Conversations with Goethe”, Friedrich Schiller a German philosopher and playwright, James Boswell, biographer of Samuel Johnson a British moralist to name only a few.
On local issues, she writes about the state of drunkenness in the colony and the lack of any social activities; the war of 1812 in which no one won; the conversion of indigenous to Catholicism; the lack of society and women of marrying age; the lack of education verses the opportunity that nature and owning land affords; and the state of the roads!
Spring finally arrives and in part 2, Summer Rambles, Anna journals her adventurous trip from Toronto, to Niagara Falls, then Buffalo, back to Hamilton, Brantford, Paris, Woodstock, Ingersol, London, St. Thomas, Port Talbot, Chatham, Detroit, and Windsor (then called Sandwich). Then finally to her main destination: Mackinaw Island, then Sault Ste. Marie, Manitoulin Island and back to Toronto via Penetanguishene and Coldwater/ Orillia.
Aside from Buffalo and the Sault, these towns were in their infancy – no roads, a few buildings, mostly native teepees and lots of mosquitoes. She travelled by water on steam boat and canoe; hiring les Canadiens to paddle. She scrupulously captures the natural beauty and remoteness of the land. She befriends the natives and writes at length about how unfairly they are treated. She did not accept the ill-informed narratives that were in place even then. Consider what she wrote: “I believe it is a prevalent notion, that the Indians of the north-west never cultivated grain to any extent until under the influence of the whites. This apparently is a mistake. When General Wayne in 1794 destroyed the settlements of the Wyandots and Miamis along the Miami River and on the south shores of Lake Erie, he wrote thus in his official dispatch: The very extensive and cultivated fields and gardens show the work of many hands…nor have I ever beheld such immense fields of corn in any part of America, from Canada to Florida. All this fair scene was devastated and laid waste! And we complain that the Indians make no advance in civilisation!”
One last quote from this book to give you a sense of Anne Brownell Jameson’s expressive writing style, one that struck me as she put into words what I’ve often been unable to adequately express: “Many things do puzzle me in this strange world of ours – many things in which the new world and the old world are equally incomprehensible. I cannot understand why an evil everywhere acknowledged and felt is not remedied somewhere, or discussed by some one, with a view to a remedy; but no, it is like putting one’s hand into the fire, only to touch upon it; it is the universal bruise, the putrefying sore, on which you must not lay a finger, or your patient (that is society) cries out and resists, and like a sick baby, scratches and kicks its physician.”
On local issues, she writes about the state of drunkenness in the colony and the lack of any social activities; the war of 1812 in which no one won; the conversion of indigenous to Catholicism; the lack of society and women of marrying age; the lack of education verses the opportunity that nature and owning land affords; and the state of the roads!
Spring finally arrives and in part 2, Summer Rambles, Anna journals her adventurous trip from Toronto, to Niagara Falls, then Buffalo, back to Hamilton, Brantford, Paris, Woodstock, Ingersol, London, St. Thomas, Port Talbot, Chatham, Detroit, and Windsor (then called Sandwich). Then finally to her main destination: Mackinaw Island, then Sault Ste. Marie, Manitoulin Island and back to Toronto via Penetanguishene and Coldwater/ Orillia.
Aside from Buffalo and the Sault, these towns were in their infancy – no roads, a few buildings, mostly native teepees and lots of mosquitoes. She travelled by water on steam boat and canoe; hiring les Canadiens to paddle. She scrupulously captures the natural beauty and remoteness of the land. She befriends the natives and writes at length about how unfairly they are treated. She did not accept the ill-informed narratives that were in place even then. Consider what she wrote: “I believe it is a prevalent notion, that the Indians of the north-west never cultivated grain to any extent until under the influence of the whites. This apparently is a mistake. When General Wayne in 1794 destroyed the settlements of the Wyandots and Miamis along the Miami River and on the south shores of Lake Erie, he wrote thus in his official dispatch: The very extensive and cultivated fields and gardens show the work of many hands…nor have I ever beheld such immense fields of corn in any part of America, from Canada to Florida. All this fair scene was devastated and laid waste! And we complain that the Indians make no advance in civilisation!”
One last quote from this book to give you a sense of Anne Brownell Jameson’s expressive writing style, one that struck me as she put into words what I’ve often been unable to adequately express: “Many things do puzzle me in this strange world of ours – many things in which the new world and the old world are equally incomprehensible. I cannot understand why an evil everywhere acknowledged and felt is not remedied somewhere, or discussed by some one, with a view to a remedy; but no, it is like putting one’s hand into the fire, only to touch upon it; it is the universal bruise, the putrefying sore, on which you must not lay a finger, or your patient (that is society) cries out and resists, and like a sick baby, scratches and kicks its physician.”
June 23, 2012
My dad introduced me to this book when I was a teenager, and it has become my favourite memoir of Canadian pioneer life. Anna Jamieson takes me right into her life. Like walking into a backwoods Jane Austen.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews