Book 28, Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada (1838) - Anna Brownell Jameson
From the back cover:
“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.”

Other useful links:
the Wikipedia entry for Anna Brownell Jameson
The Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online article on Anna Brownell Jameson and Winter Studies and Summer Rambles
a map of Upper Canada in 1836, the year Anna Brownell Jameson took her journey

My thoughts:
I’ve only just started this one, but one interesting thing is that Jameson’s husband is such a prominent figure in I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land, which I’ve just read.

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This book took a very long time to read but in fact I did finish it back in May(!) It’s now November!

The format of this book is very unusual—perhaps unique. In 1836 Jameson travelled to Toronto just before winter set in, and of course in the days before central heating, there wasn’t much to do in the long Canadian winter, but hunker down and read. The first part of her book is like, well, like a book blog, detailing her reading and her thoughts about Goethe (whom she had personally met). I enjoyed the intermittent descriptions of her life in Toronto (& would have loved for her to give us more), but I’m afraid I couldn’t fully appreciate her literary analysis because I haven’t read anything by any of the authors she mentioned.

After the long cabin fever, Jameson was ready to go out & explore, and the second half of the book is a travel memoir. Despite advice to stay in what passed for civilisation (she was deeply homesick for the cultured salons of Europe), she decided to embark by herself on a remarkable trip into what was then the deep interior of the country. First, she journeyed down through the settled areas along Lake Erie’s northern shore and then by bateau and canoe north, traversing Lake Huron to Michilimackinack and Manatoulin islands (where she attended the annual gathering of First Nations of the area), and then south through Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe, and finally travelling overland down Yonge Street back to Toronto. She describes the people (settlers & First Nations) in great detail, tells anecdotes, relates First Nations folk tales, discusses the Chippewa (i.e. Ojibwa) language & customs, and depicts her experience of the landscape with a wonderfully observant eye.

I absolutely loved this book. What a treasure Anna Brownell Jameson has left us! As long as it was, I wished it would go on for another 300 pages.

From the publisher:
“This epic story is the first entirely original biography of a fugitive slave couple since the 19th century.

I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land is the fascinating and absorbing story of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn, two fugitive slaves from Kentucky who made a daring daylight escape from slavery in 1831. Smardz Frost has written an epic account of this couple’s extraordinary life and their struggle for freedom – the choices they made, the dangers they faced, and the courage they had to forge ahead and create new lives for themselves. It is both a devastating portrait of the conditions – and the politics – of slavery and an inspiring account of two intrepid fugitive slaves whose flight to freedom changed US and Canadian history.”

Other useful links:
site for I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land

My thoughts:

I was walking away from the computer here at the library the other day when I happened to see this Challenge book on the New Books shelf. I thought it would be a good choice as a palette cleanser after Not Wanted on the Voyage and The Subtle Knife. I thought it would be putdownable and so I’d be able to read just bits and pieces while I get my move completed. Yes on the first, no on the second. It was gripping and I read it all in about a day and a half.

This is a fantastic book! I recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in American or Canadian history.

In 1985, there was an archaeological dig under a school playground in the heart of Toronto. This had been the home of two fugitive slaves, a married couple, who had escaped from Kentucky, were the catalysts for the first “race riot” in Detroit, had settled in Toronto protected by the government of Upper Canada from several attempts at extradition, who had started the first cab company in Toronto (his colours, red & yellow, are still the colours of the TTC — the municipal transit commission), and became involved in Abolition efforts and helped other refugees from slavery to settle in western Ontario.

This book is a geneology and biography of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn, a description of Kentucky, Detroit, western Ontario, and Toronto of the nineteenth century, a history of slavery and the abolitionist movement in the U.S. and Canada, a spotlight on U.S./Canada relations of the time, and a history of York/Toronto and the Black community there.

The author did almost 20 years of research to piece together all of the details scattered among newspapers, censuses, court documents, geneological and property records.

Great book (and well deserving of the GG award)!