American Photographer/The Bridgeman Art Library/Getty Images
My children are the seventh generation of Canadians on my side of the family. My forbears first came to Ontario in the 1850s from Scotland and they must have been hearty souls, indeed. Although the majority of the family laid their roots in urban Toronto and stayed there, one branch of the family set off to a small town just north of Toronto and began the hard task of farming.
I've thought about those settlers a few times this winter as we were pounded with more and more snow. In those days, you had to be organized and thrifty and careful with the preservation of your foodstuffs, if your family was to survive the winter. It's now the second week of April, and I've been whining about being tired of cabbage and rutabagas. Of course, my great-great-great-grandparents didn't have the option of running to the grocery for the guilty pleasure of buying a head of lettuce from the United States when vegetables got boring. They just got on with it and boiled some more spuds. No doubt they had a cold cellar and ate potatoes, carrots, and rutabagas, and prayed for spring more fervently than I've ever done.
