At the Edge of the Forest

Between 1776 and 1840, the non-Indigenous population of British North America increased from under 100,000 to over 1 million. Many newcomers settled in the new colony of Upper Canada, now Ontario. Settlers arriving there found dense forest. The task of clearing and planting the land — and making a home — was daunting.

The settler family’s first tasks were to clear some land and build a log house. The land would eventually produce wheat — Upper Canada’s main export — and other produce. In the meantime, the family needed money to survive the first winter. The forest itself filled the gap. Burning hardwoods for potash and taking on seasonal work in the lumber industry provided extra income.

Clearing the Land

Listen to settler Edward Allen Talbot’s account of homesteading in the 1820s.

“We continued encamped in the woods from the 26th of October, until the 1st of December. During this period, we laid the foundation of a house, forty-six feet long, and twenty-one feet wide; one half of which we finished first, for the accommodation of the family, who moved into it on the 2nd of December, – five months and nineteen days after our embarkation for America. During the thirty-five days which we spent in the woods previous to the arrival of the family, our only lodging was a miserable wig-wam… Our only bed, all that time, composed of a few withered leaves, while “a log contrived a double debt to pay / By night a pillow, and a seat by day.” … But the hope of independence is sufficient to sustain the mind under privations still greater than these… While indulging in such joyful and ecstatic visions, the wooden pillow of a new and industrious settler becomes softer than bolsters of down, and his solitary blanket feels more comfortable than sheets of Holland.”

Edward Allen Talbot, Five Years’ Residence in the Canadas, v. 1 (London, 1824), 118-119.

Settling Southwold

Southwold, on Lake Erie’s north shore, was a typical Upper Canadian township. Settlers transformed it from a forested, Indigenous homeland into an agricultural, colonial landscape.

In 1790, Indigenous chiefs at Fort Detroit signed a treaty that gave much of southwestern Upper Canada to Britain. Surveyors divided the land, including Southwold, into townships. The government granted part of the township to Colonel Thomas Talbot, who encouraged settlement.

Southwold Today

Southwold is still a vibrant community today. Although railways, in the late 1800s, and heavy industry, in the 1900s, have left their mark, the legacy of early settlement is still visible. Agriculture remains the economic mainstay. The township’s main roads, Fingal Line and Highway 3, follow the east and north branches of the old Talbot Road. Descendants of colonial settlers still live in the township and surrounding region, not far from the lands their ancestors cleared and farmed.