The Beginning of the Pilgrimage

Yes John Muir lived in Ontario Canada for two years and in the summer of 1864 wandered for six months through our province.

This summer I am following his wanderings of that time. I am sauntering along his route to wander and ponder and put myself into the head of a young man who is now out on his own. This was mostly an unknown summer in the life of Muir because his diary of the time was lost in a fire when the Trout Hollow sawmill burned down in February of 1866. What I have discovered is that he was an avid botanist and sent home botanical specimens from his travels in Ontario. In 2008 a book was published called Nature's Beloved Son by Bonnie Giesel. She had collected images of his pressed plants and created this stunning book. The specimens were dated and loosely identified to location as well. By following this trail of specimens I am able to follow almost by the week where he was in Ontario during his "Summer of Glorious Freedom".

Why was Muir in Ontario? Well the Civil War was raging in the USA and John was worried that he would soon be drafted to go to war. John's younger brother Daniel had already fled to Canada and was working in a sawmill in Meaford Ontario. Although Muir was born in Scotland, his father emigrated with the family to Wisconsin when he was eleven years old. The father was attempting to be a farmer on some marginal land in Portage County Wisconsin.

In March of 1864 Muir "took to the cars" which was a slang expression of the time meaning that you were going to be taking a train trip. (automobiles were not yet invented) The common belief by American historians was that Muir headed to Sault St. Marie and entered Northern Ontario by that route. Knowing what a northern winter is like and that no roads existed, that is an absolutely absurd deduction. Since Muir shows up in Bradford in early April the new assumption is that he took the train to Toronto and then went north to Bradford. He might have known about a Scottish settlement that existed there or maybe luckily stumbled upon it.

In his first letters home he describes living with a Scottish family by the name of Campbell. They were living in the area just to the west of Bradford and just north of what is now called the Holland Marsh. He spent a lot of time exploring the swamp and the local area. On May 18th Muir leaves the Campbell's and wanders west for three weeks. I believe that from a high hill in the area he could see west to the blue ridge of what we call the Niagara Escarpment and was enticed by the allure of those distant hills.


The Campbell Farm where John Muir first stayed in 1864
Thus on May 18th of this year I started my Pilgimage. I left my car at the Aulde Kirke church and walked the gravel road to where the Campbell farm had been. It was a wonderful experience walking the road bordered by cedar rail fences and watching a small burbling creek that originated on the Campbell farm and then threaded under the road several times. But the past is quickly being taken over by present needs because directly across the road from this bucolic farm is a wall of newly built suburban houses.
I felt that I was so lucky to experience this Muir history before Bradford overwhelms the Aulde Kirke settlement.

In front of the old church is a plaque that describes the foundation of this settlement. Surprisingly the Scottish settlers - pushed off their land by the "Clearances" came via the Selkirk Settlement of Manitoba. They were hounded out of that settlement by the Metis under the encouragement of the North West Company - one of the major fur companies of the time. I can just imagine John Muir getting some education about Canadian and Scottish history by these twice displaced refugees. The church yard is worth a visit to see the tombstones of the original Scots, some being born in the late 1700's and finishing their lives in what became a very successful community.
The history of the Scots who Muir first stayed with in the Bradford area.





The Aulde Kirk Presbyterian Church - just west of Bradford Ontario

 © Robert Burcher 2017


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