The Halcyon in Canada. 547 



produce, but no market nearer than Quebec, two hundred and fifty 

 miles distant by water, with a hard, tedious land journey besides. 

 In winter, the settlement can have little or no communication with 

 the outside world. 



'To relieve this isolated colony and encourage further develop- 

 ment of the St John region, the Canadian Government is building 

 a wagon-road through the wilderness from Quebec directly to the 

 lake, thus economizing half the distance, as the road when com- 

 pleted will form with the old route, the Saguenay or St. Lawrence, 

 one side of an equilateral triangle. A railroad was projected a few 

 years ago over nearly the same ground, and the contract to build 

 it given to an enterprising Yankee, who pocketed a part of the 

 money and has never been heard of since. The road runs for one 

 hundred miles through an unbroken wilderness, and opens up scores 

 of streams and lakes abounding with trout, into which, until the 

 road-makers fished them, no white man had ever cast a hook. 



It was a good prospect, and we resolved to commit ourselves 

 to the St. John road. The services of a young fellow, whom by 

 reason of his impracticable French name we called Joe, was secured, 

 and after a delay of twenty-four hours we were packed upon a 

 Canadian buckboard, with hard-tack in one bag and oats in another, 

 and the journey began. It was Sunday, and we held up our heads 

 more confidently when we got beyond the throng of well-dressed 

 church-goers. For ten miles, we had a good stone road and rattled 

 along it at a lively pace. In about half that distance we came to 

 a large brick church, where we began to see the rural population, 

 or habitans. They came mostly in two-wheeled vehicles, some of 

 th<- carts quite fancy, in which the young fellows rode complacently 

 beside their girls. The two-wheeler predominates in Canada and 

 is of all styles and sizes. After we left the stone road, we began 

 to encounter the hills that are preliminary to the mountains. The 

 farms looked like the wilder and poorer parts of Maine or New 

 Hampshire. While Joe was getting a supply of hay of a farmer to 

 take into the woods for his horse, I walked through a field in quest 

 of wild strawberries. The season for them was past, it being the 

 20th of July, and I found barely enough to make me think that 

 the strawberry here is far less pungent and high-flavored than 

 with us. 



