Early Tourism in St. Andrews

Early Tourism

Standard
Oct. 30/1834
"On Scenery Near St. Andrews, NB" The Chamcook Mountain and the picturesque. Good part of the many mills lining the river from the lake. See photocopy.

Ramble and Remarks: On Scenery near St. Andrews, NB:
I have long admired that beautiful expression of Shakespeare--the air smells wooingly--but I feel it this morning with something like that conscious delight which experimentalists must feel who find their theories result in reality. I was always an early riser and could hold a thousand arguments in favour of the practice. I am now afoot ere the sons of commerce, and the busy imps of toil have resumed the labour of the day. . . . Yesterday I enjoyed the fine view from the higher grounds of the town. Today I mount that peaked hill which retains its Indian name, the Chamcook, and from its summit I anticipate a glorious scene. Here comes my companion.
            Excepting by water, St. Andrews possesses but one highway leading to and from the town; its peninsular position, however, renders this no inconvenience. The improvements in the environs, I am informed have been rapidly made, all within these few years. After passing the next villa belonging to the Sheriff of the County, the road rises rapidly, and from the top of the ascent, a splendid prospect opens in every direction, and now we see the noble Chamcook reposing in the placid stillness of the early dawn and now . . . we accelerated our pace for about a mile, and after turning to the right came to the foot of the mountain. Cultivation has crept up its sloping sides, and denuded it of its majestic clothing. Its bald crown rises above its fair scattering locks still strewed on its venerable head, and a fringe of foliage environs it below, like the ample beard of an ancient dervis. Utility is ever at variance with the picturesque, and the best taste may be compelled to bow to circumstance. The proprietor, a gentleman by the name of MacLauchlin, is making extensive and I think judicious improvements; and no doubt takes as much pleasure in contemplating his cultivated slopes, as I should, to find them covered with their wonted forest. Merely as an admirer of natural landscape I lament the disappearance of the wilderness, but as a . . . I rejoice at the cause. This is not quite so extravagant as sentiments I head lately expressed on the picturesque, which I am tempted to extract from my journal as follows:
            During my sojourn in Canada I was much amused by the foppery of a red coated aristocrat, who was mincing twaddle to a young woman whom I cannot designate by the term of lady, for according to my acceptation of that word, it means a female of education, good manners and intelligence. The beau and the fair one lounged on the quarter deck of the steamer, and while we glided through some delightful scenery, they pored drowsily over the contents of an album. . . . Ere they had turned over a tithe of the motley leaves, they came to a pause, an awful pause, prophetic of the end. Like most of these fashionable trifles, it seemed as if the powers of its projector had been exhausted in the first mighty effort, and a void of space remained to be otherwise employed when the magnificence of the binding should be forgotten. After a long listless look at the gaudy gilding, the hero drawled out--"aw--the myrtle is exquisite--quite recherchez--but--aw--pardons--not a single sketch of Canada." "O la la major," exclaimed the belle, "positively now, how can you--only fancy a view of spruce bird cage like houses and long straight roofed barns! Nothing else among these poor people improving their farms--no dilapidated castles, no dear old ruins--this new Country is altogether entirely quite too young for such delightful accidents."
            Methought I heard the voice cry sketch no more; utility is ever at variance with the picturesque. We may now return to the Chamcook.
            To ascend this hill is fine exercise; unlike the labour of Sisyphus, it is just sufficient to quicken respiration moderately, without causing exhaustion through fatigue. We reached the summit by a devious track and at length stood on the topmost point. All my poetic preconceptions were realized. I can feel, but not convey them. I shall merely enumerate the leading features of the grand and varied view.
            A jumbled mixture of crags and knolls and volcanic inequalities stretch in indistinguishable confusion far to the east. The Wolves seem to repose in a hazy placidity on the almost undisturbed bosom of the Bay of Fundy, which withdraws until the eye cannot distinguish it from the misty mixture of the lower clouds. To the south, that long stretch of something bluer and denser than the distant vapour is the island of Grand Manan. The broken and irregular indentations which hem in the nearer bay are a series of Islands from Great Latete to Campobello. The territory to the eastward is part of the State of Maine: with a telescope you may plainly discern the star-spangled banner of the fort of Eastport. The Bay of Passamaquoddy occupies the middle space, and there lies Saint Andrews Island in front of the town, but by far the finest portion of this panorama is the County watered by the Scoodiac. A splendid outline bounds the horizon to the north west. The undulating district of St. David, the mountains of the lakes, the hills of Pleasant ridge, a purple conical peak far away north east, and a succession of eminences to the right complete the circle. We are placed on an almost isolated elevation, and can take in an immense assemblage of mountains and plains, forests and cultivated lands, rock and streams, and the great ocean commingling with the sky. Although the woods were most splendidly arrayed in hues as gorgeous as the sky at sunset, and all the tints of hill and dale and sea and sky were blended in harmonious perfection, yet neither any friend nor I were attracted by the beauty of the colouring; a sense of the grand and severe admitted of no minor impression.
            Our unsated gaze was long turned to the diversified objects around us--the varied beauties of nature seldom pass upon the senses; but the sharp morning air at length brought us to the craving sense of a keen appetite. Luckily my friend had not neglected the commissariat, and whilst he untied a well stored napkin, he repeated the repeated the appropriate lines of Allan Ramsay . . . Seated by a mountain rill, we went through a practical illustration of the poet's assertion and having finished our repast descended joyously to the highway.
            We next directed our steps to the hamlet at the outlet of the Chamcook lakes, where we were attracted by new and interesting objects.