Anon. (1836) 'The Emigrant from England to P. E. Island’. The Royal Gazette. 22 November 1836, p. 4.

The following extract comes from a satirical essay that appeared in November 1836 in the Royal Gazette in the guise of a letter to the editor. lhave extracted only the forest-related material and just enough of the rest to put the whole into context. it is a kind of moral tale, an ’emigrant’s progress’, involving several fictional characters, the leading one, an English emigrant who arrives on the island bearing various naive conceptions derived from the guidebooks for emigrants — John MacGregor’s British North America is mentioned in particular. in a dramatised fictional form it tells of the gradual stripping away of the emigrant’s illusions concerning pioneer life on the island. Despite its deliberate exaggeration, it contains interesting comments on the use of wood on the island, including the fact that, despite the abundance of timber, wood useful for building purposes was not always easy to come by.

The beautiful scenery.

Clearing activities.

A log house.

Timber quality poor.

Timber not easily obtained.

Winter activities in the woods.

Bears taking cattle.

There have been several pamphlets written and distributed, and one or two histories of this Island, with different motives. At the head of these is McGregor's British America, which is very lavish in its praise of our Island.

Our high spirited Englishman ['who has followed the course pointed out by the false guide'] sallies out of the town he. Charlottetown] with his gun on a fine morning in June. When he has advanced a few miles his attention is drawn to the scenery around; the birch, beach and maple are now in leaf, of a beautiful light green; the distant landscape is agreeably diversified with land and water, along the shores of which the forest is broken with houses and cleared fields, spotted in some places with cattle and sheep. He is pleased with the scene, He starts on his road and on his way has a nearer view of the cattle, which are staunted and lean, the sheep are ragged and poor, and the hogs mere skeletons.

Next day our Emigrant is directed to Squire Clod’s by some people whom he first took for Indians or Negroes, they were so black and ragged, but who proved to be new beginners, piling and burning the wood to plant potatoes amongst the stumps and roots. The Squire's house was framed of timber with logs set upright side by side, to fill up the frame, caulked with moss between the logs, a partition of boards to form the house in two apartments, and partly weather boarded outside. Mr. Clod remarked, ”you will think it strange to see people dwelling in a house several years before it is finished; but this is the second house that l have had to build within this fourteen years, and the second set of barns and stables. Our timber here lasts but a short time. We are always building, and kept so poor to make up the rent, that we are not able to finish our buildings until they are half decayed, when it is time to build again — and we have to do all the building ourselves, a bit at a time, when we can spare it from the crops and the cattle.” "But you have the timber very convenient, Mr. Clod," observed the Emigrant, "and the winter to prepare it in and erect your buildings." "That is the only time we have for that purpose,” answered the Squire, “but there is very little of the timber you have seen would answer for building — some of it would not last any time, and others so rough and knotty, it would break all our tools to work it; we have to go across the swamps for suitable timber, and it is late in the winter before they freeze over to carry cattle ; at other times when the snow is deep early in the winter, we cannot break a road at all, and the timber must lie for another season". I should be glad to learn your course of labour throughout the year,” said the Emigrant. "Well,” says the Squire, ”We collect our hay from the marshes after the New Year; get out firewood, fencing and building timber; Then [in July] we strengthen the fences, as the cattle are now strong and driven out of the woods by the flies. Our cattle dying or drowned in the swamps, and torn with the bears — I have lost a seventh yearly upon an average."

To make short, our Emigrant took one hundred acres of the forest, on lease He has no time to look at and admire the beauties of the landscape. The short summer requires the greatest exertions to plant, sow, and gather in the crop, and to provide fodder for his cattle through a long and severe winter.

PHILANTHROPIST, Mount Calvary, Nov. 3 1836.

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