Resilience of Family Immigrants

Posted by Susanna McLeod Mar 8, 2008

As I sit here in my home office, listening to the freezing rain batter against the window, my mind wanders to newly-uncovered family history. Imagine stepping off the grimy ship that has just crossed the churning ocean and sailed up the St. Lawrence River. Your foot springs onto the terrain of the New World in summer or fall. Canada was a strikingly beautiful, raw land. Trees and rocks and rivers were a pleasant change from the dusty, mucky streets of Europe, England and France. The air of this new territory smelled, well… fresh.

The temperatures may have been slowly cooling, but an extra wrap would do for warmth. Then winter arrives, with freezing ice pellets dashing against tender skin, coats that permitted vicious winds to bite through to the soul and footwear that soaked up the moisture from deep snow or puddles from rain. Woodstoves may have kept part of the single-room house warm, but the chill and dampness that blew in through the uninsulated walls settled into bedding and clothing. The good thing about the woodstove was that the kettle was always steaming with boiling hot water. But was there any tea left to enjoy? Was there any food to prepare?

A dear cousin of mine has been doing family research, finding that our ancestors came to the shores of Canada in the mid-1600s. How, I wonder, did these people not only survive the desperate hardships, but thrive to produce children that also survived and continued for generations? How did they find enough food, fight disease, or defend themselves from hungry animals or hostile attackers? How did they stay warm and dry, or was it impossible? Were these particular people helped by natives?

I can’t even imagine how they managed, but I’m certainly glad they did.