Settlement

by Ann Birch

The untold story of scandal and political intrigue in early Toronto. Anna Jameson arrives in the tiny settlement of Toronto in November, 1836. She has come at the request of her estranged husband, but she intends to gather material for a new book, which will eventually be published in England years later. At first, Anna finds herself in an alien world. She has little in common with Toronto women whose interests centre on gossip and their families, but as she begins to move into adventures like sleigh-riding and helping to fight a major fire, she enters a new life. And she also meets man-about-town Sam Jarvis. But Jarvis has a loving wife, a pile of debts and a violent past. The story is told from both their points of view. She travels alone into the wilderness, becomes the first white woman to descend the Sault rapids in a canoe and discovers the joy of freedom. On Manitoulin Island, she and Sam Jarvis meet again. During a long canoe trip down Lake Huron, they wrestle with the conflicts in their relationship and arrive at a settlement.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Canada

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

An award-winning educator, Ann Birch was an associate professor in the teacher-training programs at York University and the University of Toronto. She was Head of English in several Toronto high schools, and author of the best-selling text, Essay Writing Made Easy. She holds a post-graduate degree in CanLit and is currently a fiction writer and editor. Her first novel, Settlement, was published in 2010.

Reviews

[Sylvia Mcconnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-reading Settlement, I find it is a very accessible novel about the early history of Toronto, a period I have been researching recently for a book of my own. It presents the notable establishment people of Toronto at the time and pinpoints their complicated relationships with the Indigenous peoples of the area. As one finds in most eras of history, it was time when there was much progressive thought fermenting in the background as the conservative establishment held sway.

Here is a recent comment from a friend of a friend, the author Marlene Macke, who recently read Settlement:

I don't know why it took me so long finally to sit down and read Settlement by Ann Birch. I LOVED it. This is the way to make history come alive! ... Apart from the story line of the "white" people living in Toronto, I was especially taken by the weaving in and out of the lives and experience of the Indians: how most people denigrated them, called them savages and got them hooked on drink. But some people appreciated Indians for themselves, recognized they had a culture, and gave them respect. I know this to be true to this day, although, alas still too few of us see it that way.

It's not easy taking a bunch of researched facts and background from correspondence and the historical record and turning them into readable novels. But Ann could join the ranks of several brilliant women writers who do just that now for the various ages of English and European history. ...

[Jane Mulkewich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical fiction focusing on Anna Jameson and Samuel Jarvis, two people who have left their name (literally) on Toronto as street-names. This book will lure me to go back and take another look at Anna Jameson's 1838 memoir, and other writing of the time. Looking forward to a zoom event with the author later this month.

[Bran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very rarely do I find a book that makes me sad to see it finish... this is one of them. What a wonderful story full of people you wish you had known.

[Carol Mcdermott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommending one of the best new novels I had the pleasure of reading in 2010

Settlement was published in 2010 by Rendez Vous Press, an imprint of Napoleon & Company, Toronto, Canada, now part of Dundurn Press. This is a first novel by author Ann Birch. Ann spent six years researching the historical background of her story, which is based on the real life visit of Anna Jameson to Toronto in 1836. Anna’s husband was Attorney-General in the new province but she had not accompanied him to his post. His ambition to rise to the position of Chancellor led him to request that she finally take up residence with him and put her charms to work towards assisting him to the coveted and lucrative position. Local gossip about their odd marriage relationship was an obstacle to his goal and she too had her reasons for agreeing to play the role of a supportive wife.

Anna brings her lively curiosity and perspective from the cultivated European society she was a part of as she meets both her social equals and ordinary people. Like real-life Anna, she has a journalist’s instincts and an aptitude for drawing people out and she will publish her observations just as Anna did. There was at that time a growing appetite in Europe for tales of life in the pioneer colonies of North America. The two famous sisters of the Canadian wilderness, Catharine Parr Traill (The Backwoods of Canada, 1836) and Susanna Moodie (Roughing It in the Bush, 1852) gratefully fed this appetite in order to literally feed their own families.

Our impressions of the social and political elite of the Toronto-based colony are formed by Anna and by the other major protagonist, Sam Jarvis. The two are attracted to each other from their first meeting, and their relationship deepens throughout the novel as the central narrative theme. But for many readers, the colourful characters may be the heart of the story. There are wickedly amusing portraits of the variously flawed people that made up Toronto “society”. Governor of Upper Canada, Sir Francis Bond Head, is an insufferable bore and clearly unfit for the post he holds, but of course he is flattered and courted by all who need his approval to advance. Other real-life characters, including Willliam Lyon Mackenzie and Laura Secord appear, in the novel. The aboriginal population, referred to by the Governor as “savages”, are revealed in a very sympathetic light, chiefly through Sam’s friendship with Jacob Snake, son of the Snake Island Chief.

For readers whose tastes embrace both a well structured plot and insights into the historical roots of our present day Ontario, this is a book to read and own.

Carol McDermott

[Carolyn Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

On a blustery November day in 1836, an elegant woman arrived at the Toronto dock. Anna Jameson, a renowned artist and author and member of the European intelligentsia had come at the behest of her estranged husband, Robert, to serve as his hostess and entree into Toronto society as he jockeyed for a high legal post in Upper Canada. He needed her, but not enough to meet her boat. Not only that, the accommodation he provided was dreary, cold and unwelcoming. A lesser woman would have returned to her home on the next boat or at least succumbed to the vapours. Instead, she stayed, became part of the social scene, travelled through Upper Canada's backwoods and wrote Winter Studies and Summer Rambles, her memoir that has never been out of print.

Ann Birch has drawn on this memoir as well as on Jameson's many pen-and-ink sketches and watercolours for her novel, Settlement. Where Jameson described what she saw, Birch writes about what she might have felt. She uses what might have been a throw-away line in the memoir to posit a romance between Jameson and Sam Jarvis, the scion of a prominent Toronto family. As she follows Jameson on her travels, Birch notes things that might have been commonplace to Jameson but are unusual today. How did women keep themselves occupied and amused? What games did they play? What did they wear to keep warm while sleigh-riding on Lake Ontario? What did they eat? How did they cope with mosquito bites that left their faces raw and swollen?

Birch has portrayed Toronto and Upper Canada as vibrant communities with strong social scenes and cultures. Birch's impeccable research and vivid writing makes Settlement a much-needed portrayal of this often neglected period

[Kristine Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

How interesting to read about Sam Jarvis in a sympathetic voice. He's not been treated kindly in the historical records. A lot of research went into this book. I thought the author did a good job of weaving snippets of Toronto's most known historical moments into the story. These events include the Jarvis/Ridout duel, the destruction of Mackenzie's newspaper office, and Laura Secord's warning to the British of an American advance.

Some reviewers did not like Anna's modern, feminist attitude and speech, but we know that many independent women chaffed at the social restrictions placed on them and I have no doubt that some of them would have been quite outspoken. Remember, Anna was in Toronto in 1836. Just over 10 years, in 1848, the first women's convention in the US was held just over the border in Seneca Falls. It is not hard to imagine that the discourse about women's rights would have been very much part of some conversations in Toronto at that time.

Since I have not read Anna Jameson's Winter Studies and Summer Rambles, I guess I'll move that onto my summers reading list. It will be fun to keep Ann Birch's romantic possibility in the back of my mind.

[Chantale · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book follows the time period in 1836-1837 when Anna Brownwell Jameson lived and traveled in Canada. Anna wrote 'Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada' based on her time in Canada. It was later republished as 'Sketches in Canada, and rambles among the red men' (available through Project Gutenberg). 'Settlement' is well written and an interesting historical read. The details of the people, clothing and places are very vivid.

I enjoyed the extra reading after the book ended to cross-reference facts. I researched more about Anna herself, as well as Colonel James Fitzgibbon, Samuel Jarvis, and Laura Secord. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography was helpful for learning more about Anna.

It is enjoyable reading a book set in an area where you know of or have been to the places the author talks about.

Birch mentions cougars and rattlesnakes in the wilds in Canada and the U.S. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced in March 2011 that the Eastern Cougar is now extinct. The Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake is still around.

[Jennifer Jarman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book as it was the Big Read 2014 of the Orillia Public Library. Presumably it was chosen for its southern Ontario content, and the mention of the Atherley Narrows fish weirs and reserve. I enjoyed reading a book with characters from the 1830s. Sam Jarvis (Jarvis Street, Toronto) and Anna Jameson (Jameson Avenue, Toronto) are two of these. I puzzled over both the gender politics and the race relations politics of the book. They are meant to be mildly progressive but remain within very conventional boundaries. Reading this has made me interested to read Anna Jameson's original 'Winter Studies and Summer Rambles', Austin Seton Thompson's 'Jarvis Street' which Birch tells us has an outline of Sam's stint as Superintendant of Indian Affairs, and also Grace Lee Nute's book 'The Voyageur'. These are mentioned in the Author's Note as some of the sources that Birch used. Joseph Boyden fans will probably not like this book.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

This should have been better, and probably would have been better as a non-fiction. By trying to spice up the story, the author has produced a glorified Harlequin Romance with a bit of history tucked inside. I was curious about the actual people in the story, so checked out some facts. The heroine was a homely woman in her 40s when the story actually took place, and hardly the irresistable charmer that she seems in the book. If the author had instead told the real story of how this woman decided to see for herself the aboriginal settlements of northern Ontario that would have been a good enough story. Instead we have a tarted-up story with a heroine who has been idealized beyond belief.

[Cmw · Rating 2 out of 5]

NOB & OLD book clubs April 2012 - interesting story, well researched, amateur writing.