Canadian Crusoes: A Tale of the Rice Lake Plains by Catharine Parr Traill (review)

160 LETTERS IN CANADA 1986 the endnotes to find out whose words lam reading. Should we not all give this courtesy to the critics we quote? This is undoubtedly a book that will prove its usefulness. I wish it were a longer study. I have no doubt at all that many longer studies will owe their seeding to it. (CLARA THOMAS) Catharine Parr Trail!. Canadian Crusoes: A Taleof the Rice Lake Plains. Edited by Rupert Schieder Carleton University Press. lv, 324· $24.95, ~.95 paper Ably and enthusiastically edited by Rupert Schieder, Catharine Parr TraiIl's CaruJdian Crusoes is the second scholarly edition of twelve to be published by the Centre for Editing Early Canadian Texts (CEECT) and Carleton University Press. Based on the attraction TraiII had as a child for the story of Robinson Crusoe and her later fascination as a backwoods mother with stories of children lost in the bush, her narrative describes the plight of three resourceful 'teenagers' who, sometime in the latter half of the eighteenth century, become lost on the then-uninhabited Rice Lake Plains north of present-day Cobourg. So drastic is their disorientation that, though they set up camp near Rice Lake only eight miles from the Cold Springs homes of their pioneering parents, they live for two years on their own, enduring trials by fire and cold and Indian captivity until directed homeward by an old trapper and family friend, Joseph Morelle. If in 1852 TraiIl worried about the plausibility of such lostness, readers today will have even greater problems of credibility. For adolescents so capable and practical, who were reared in the bush, it seems at times downright ridiculous that they make so little by way ofeffort to get horne, especially after their trusty dog finds them.TraiII provides various unsuccessful pretexts to 'settle' them, as it were, in makeshift wilderness quarters. Readers quickly discover, however, that her real concern is to celebrate the usefulness, resourcefulness, and ingenuity under duress of her civilized Crusoes. Thus, she builds into the narrative a great deal of pioneering practicality (Hextor Maxwell), domestic enterprise (Catharine Maxwell), and creative verve (Louis Perron), completing her threesome and providing new narrative energy by the introduction of an abandoned Mohawk maiden, Indiana, whose presence allows TraiII not only to detail Indian lore and ways but also to construct a model conversion from primitive and pagan to Christian and civilized values. The romantic, fanciful, and simplistic dimensions of this culturalfoundation story often seem naive, the sugar of goodness and courtly behaviour all too exemplary in the foursome. But if TraiII overdoes the business of model behaviour - she was, after all, writing both to amuse and teach Victorian children - she is far more realistic and effective in her loving deSCriptions of the plainS, ravines, and islands near Gore's Land- . nUM.tU''IrIIII.l:!.::' lUI ing, her presentations of Ojibwa and Mohawk culture and behaviour, and her attention to the flora and fauna of the area. The local historian and botanistin Trail! provide a solid basis of authentic detail against which her attempt to transplant the Crusoe myth forcibly to Canada can be measured . In his skilfulintroduction, Rupert Schieder details both the evolution of Trail!'s idea for Crusoes and its curious textual history. As was often the case in her long writing career, Traill, living out of the way in rural Upper Canada, had very little control over the various appearances of the book and received little remuneration (though her need was great) for her efforts. Lacking a surviving manuscript or extant publishers' records, Schieder was led on a merry chase through libraries and archives insearch of exact and relevant information that would throw light on the book's publishing history. At the same time, with the aid of CEECT'S careful procedures for collating various editions and issues of the text, he provides the reader with a series of appendices that show the changes Traill incorporated into a later edition (1882) and a list of variant readings in the three editions published during her lifetime (1852,1859, 1882). The apparatus also includes sixteen pages of explanatory notes, a record of published versions of the text, a bibliographical description of...