Читать книгу Peeps at Many Lands: Canada - J. T. Bealby - Страница 4

As soon as the ground is covered with snow, and the snow gets hard enough, every boy and girl in Canada fetches out his or her flexible flyer, bob-sleigh, or other form of child's sleigh, and dragging it to the top of an incline, sets it off gliding to the bottom.

The flexible flyer is a small sleigh that will not carry more than one big child or two very small ones. The rider lies stretched out on the sleigh, flat on his stomach, with his legs sticking out behind. A bob-sleigh is larger – often made, in fact, by fastening a piece of board across two sleighs running one behind the other. The riders on this go down in a sitting attitude, with their legs sticking out on each side of them, while one of them steers with his feet. And jolly fun it is to see them flying down like an express train, laughing and shouting, with red, rosy cheeks and bright, sparkling eyes. What matters an occasional spill in the snow? That only adds to the fun, and makes the game all the merrier.

While the children enjoy this "coasting," as they call it, the young men strap on their snowshoes and race across fields and fences, leaping or rolling over the latter, until they arrive at some appointed inn, where they partake of a good meal, with plenty of singing of rousing, lusty choruses and other kinds of jollification. Then on they strap their snowshoes again, and, with many a whoop and shout, stretch out in Indian file on their homeward journey. If there is no moon they carry torches, and the ruddy, flickering light adds picturesqueness to the long belted blankets or tunics and tasselled tuques of the snowshoe runners.

"A pretty picture it is as the snowshoers turn down into a gully, some slipping, some recovering from a threatened upset by a feat of balancing, and then, still in Indian file, getting over the fence, every man in his own peculiar way. Some take it at a leap, others climb it cautiously; some roll over sideways in a lump, pitching feet and snowshoes before them. Some are too slowly careful, and, catching a shoe on the top rail, measure their full length in the snow. There is no stopping here, for we are far from road and railroad, out in the open country, with several miles of field before us, and twenty fences in the way. Most of the farmers, with fellow-feeling, have left a few rails down, so that there is no obstruction. But a tramp is as tame without a tumble as without a fence, so here goes for your five feet ten! Never was there charger could take a high fence like a snowshoer! As an old song of the Montreal Snowshoers' Club runs:

It is the dry snow, the bracing air, and the clear skies of the Canadian winter season that, combined with the exercise, produce this great exhilaration of spirits, and set up an equally great – appetite.

Ladies take part in this sport as well as men. Indeed, they also share in the tobogganing and the ice-hockey; in the former along with their brothers and friends, and in the latter in separate clubs.

But the favourite winter sport is ice-hockey. The game is carried on under cover in large halls, the floor of which can be artificially flooded and frozen. In this way a smooth, level expanse of ice is secured, a thing that can be seldom got out of doors owing to the great quantity of snow that lies on the ground. The game is played pretty much as hockey is on grass; the ball or disc the players chase is called a "puck," and they make it skim along the ice with hockey-sticks of the usual shape.

The hockey matches between rival cities are affairs of the greatest interest to the inhabitants. A large number of deeply interested sympathizers always accompany the team that goes to play away from home – in fact, the enthusiasm and excitement reach quite as high a pitch as they do in England over a successful team of local football players. The great trophy of Canadian ice-hockey is the Stanley Cup, which was first competed for in 1893, and has been competed for every year since, except in 1898. The winning teams have generally been furnished by Montreal or Winnipeg, though sometimes the winners have come from Toronto, Ottawa, and other cities. Two games are played, and all the goals obtained by the one club are added together and put against the total number of goals gained by the other club. The holders of the cup keep it until they are defeated, and they have to play whenever challenged. Since 1906 the cup has been held by the Montreal Wanderers.

A Canadian, Mr. W. George Beers, in describing Canada as a winter resort, thus writes: "The Province of Quebec must bear the palm of transforming winter into a national season of healthy enjoyment, and Montreal is the metropolis of the Snow King. You can have delightful days and weeks in Toronto, where ice-boating is brought to perfection, and the splendid bay is alive with the skaters and the winter sailors; or in curling or skating rink, or with a snowshoe club when they meet in Queen's Park for a tramp to Carleton, you may get a good company, and, at any rate, thorough pleasure. Kingston has its grand bay, its glorious toboggan slides on Fort Henry, its magnificent scope for sham fights on the ice, its skating, curling, snowshoeing, and its splendid roads. Halifax has its pleasant society, its lively winter brimful of everything the season in Canada is famed for. Quebec, ever glorious, kissing the skies up at its old citadel, is just the same rare old city, with its delightful mixture of ancient and modern, French and English; its vivacious ponies and its happy-go-lucky cariole drivers; its rinks and its rollicking; its songs and its superstitions; its toboggan hill at Montmorenci, which Nature has erected every year since the Falls first rolled over the cliffs; its hills and hollows and its historic surroundings; its agreeable French-English society, the most charming brotherhood that ever shook hands over the past.

"The first snowfall in Canada is an intoxicant. Boys go snow mad. Montreal has a temporary insanity. The houses are prepared for the visit of King North Wind, and the Canadians are the only people in the world who know how to keep warm outdoors as well as indoors. The streets are gay with life and laughter, and everybody seems determined to make the most of the great carnival. Business goes to the dogs. There is a mighty march of tourists and townspeople crunching over the crisp snow, and a constant jingle of sleigh-bells. If you go to any of the toboggan slides you will witness a sight that thrills the onlooker as well as the tobogganist. The natural hills were formerly the only resort, but someone introduced the Russian idea of erecting a high wooden structure, up one side of which you drag your toboggan, and down the other side of which you fly like a rocket. These artificial slides are the more popular, as they are easier of ascent, and can be made so as to avoid cahots, or bumps. The hills are lit by torches stuck in the snow on each side of the track, and huge bonfires are kept burning, around which gather picturesque groups. Perhaps of all sports of the carnival this is the most generally enjoyed by visitors. Some of the slides are very steep, and look dangerous, and the sensation of rushing down the hill on the thin strip of basswood is one never to be forgotten."

"How did you like it?" asked a Canadian girl of an American visitor, whom she had steered down the steepest slide.

"Oh, I wouldn't have missed it for a hundred dollars!"

"You'll try it again, won't you?"

"Not for a thousand dollars."

Perhaps to some whose breath seems to be whisked from their bodies this is the first reflection, but the fondness grows by practice.

Another famous winter sport is the national Scottish pastime of curling, and even when transplanted to the colder climate of Canada, the power which this sport possesses of firing sedate temperaments, and heating them to the ebullition-point of enthusiasm, suffers not one whit of diminution. Your Canadian devotee of the "roaring game" of "stane" and "tee" waxes every bit as excited over it as his Scottish associate.

A French habitant having witnessed a game at Quebec for the first time in his life, thus described it: "I saw to-day a gang of Scotchmen throwing on the ice large iron balls shaped like bombshells, after which they yelled, 'Soop! soop!' laughing like fools; and I really think they were fools."

Nor is the summer without its delight. All who can, make the Red Indian their model, and turn back to the aboriginal life. Summer homes or camps in the forest are built on the islands which dot the many inland lakes, and the long days are spent in canoeing, sailing, bathing, and fishing, while at night bonfires are built on the shores, all gather round, and to the twang of the banjo or guitar old college choruses are sung or stories are told. Moonlight in Muskoka is a fairyland memory to those who have known it, and to these lakes alone resort 20,000 summer visitors from Canada or their neighbours from the South.

Others choose canoeing trips, after the manner of the old "Coureurs de bois." With Indian guides, weeks are spent in following the chains of rivers and lakes, linked by portages (carrying-spaces), where all turn to and "tote" canoe and stores across. At night, after a supper of fish just pulled out of the lake and cooked on the camp-fire, the sleep in a tent on a bed of spruce boughs is a glorious treat to the city man or maid.

In the cities games of all sorts are played. Everywhere baseball, the national game of the United States, is to be seen, and lacrosse, the national game of Canada, adopted from the Indians, is a great favourite; cricket, tennis, polo, golf, and bowls, all known games, are played with the greatest fervour. In track athletics and in aquatic sports, Canadians have been seen to good advantage in many English contests.