country, separated him from his brother pioneer.

were shut out by the dense woods that 828

However, this isolation was an inducement to a high standard of hospitality to travellers and strangersm, as well as to a greater enjoyment of social interaction whenever the opportunity for communal activities arose, as in the ’chopping, piling, and stumping frolics’. In fact the passing of the pioneer period was looked upon by the anonymous writer in the Progress with considerable regret and nostalgia; for he believed that the amount of social interaction, as well as its quality, had declined in the post-pioneer period.83o Thus had the presence of the forest, and the communal struggle against it, influenced even the social behaviour of islanders of the time.

The forest as the source of the vole plagues — The forest was viewed as the source of the ”plagues of mice" (they were actually voles) that in the pioneer period periodically afflicted the early settlers without any warning.831 These outbreaks were potentially life-threatening, especially in the earliest years, since the whole crop of the year could be destroyed by them.832 The ’mice’ were perceived by most writers to arise in the forest, and some writers considered that with increasing settlement and the gradual removal of the forest

82" Anon. 1867.

529 Johnstone (1823) in his travels about the island was frequently given bed and board by complete strangers (see, e.g., pp, 23, 30, 33, 34, 73, 80, 101-02, and 105-06 — none extracted); and he noted generally: “There is one comfort in that country, if one has long and solitary walks sometimes in the woods, they are always sure of a hearty welcome to such cheer as the people have to give when they once find a house" (pp, 29-30, not extracted). Such pioneer hospitality was seemingly universal throughout North America, but as Boatright (1968) (p. 48) points out, it was not entirely altruistic in nature, since those who offered hospitality to strangers could also expect to receive it in return.

83° Anon. (1867) (not extracted) wrote: ”The change [in the social habits of the people of this country] is, we verily believe, not an improvement. People in those days were much more sociable than in these. There were fewer jealousies, bickerings and heart- burnings, and infinitely more enjoyment. There are too few social gatherings among the people in the rural districts — too little amusement — too little healthy excitement, People not knowing enough of each other, do not understand one another. it is, besides, our honest conviction, that not only would the amount of enjoyment be greater, but that the tone of the general morality would be raised if we could go back to the good old days.

531 See the section on the 'plague vole' in Appendix 2.

832 One account of the life-threatening nature of a vole outbreak is that of Patterson (1877) (pp. 94—95). The outbreak he describes led to the moving in 1776 of "about fifteen families“ from the settlement at Three Rivers to Pictou in Nova Scotia (they had arrived from Dumfriesshire in 1774).

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from the landscape, the incidence of such plagues would decline 833 — as is indeed what happened, the last being recorded about 1815. However, no one during the British period suggested forest clearance as a form of pest control, as had Jean- Pierre Roma during the French period.834

'AESTHETIC' ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE ISLAND'S FOREST AND TREES

Apart from the utilitarian and antagonistic attitudes towards the forest that were expressed by many persons, from the beginning of the British colonial period the island’s forests and its trees elicited what might be called 'aesthetic’ judgments and comments on the part of some recorders. By 'aesthetic’ I am referring to the impact that the forest made on the senses of the observer, in terms, for example, of its beauty or pleasantness. As John Lawson indicated in an anecdote, only a minority of island residents partook of such sensibilities, such persons being confined, at least in terms of having left a written record, to the leisured and educated class:

Most of the people in this, as in all new countries, have little or no idea of the pleasure to be derived from the contemplation of fine scenery. [At New London] l was pointing out to a young, and in his way, a very intelligent man, the beautiful, as it appeared to me, alternation of wood and water, forest and meadow, hill and valley, which are so conspicuous at every turn. What a splendid place! I exclaimed. It is not amiss, said my companion; but it would be much better if it were not for these confounded hills, and these cursed crooks in the river. To this view of the matter I could make no

reply.

The cause of this 'aesthetic deficiency’ among most pioneer islanders, as the anonymous letter- writer to the Royal Gazette in 1836 pointed out in his ’parable of the English Emigrant', was that island farmers and their families "[had] no time to look at and admire the beauties of the landscape”, preoccupied as they were with all of the heavy tasks of forest clearance, and of making a new farm out of the woods, as well as with all of the chores of the farming routine that followed: ”the short summer requires the greatest of exertions to plant, sow and gather in the crop, and to provide

833 For example, Roma 1750, Stewart 1806, Johnstone 1822.

“3“ See Sobey 2002, p. 18.