Winters of 1817 and 2014

I originally wrote this in February 2014.

The winter of 2014 was a colder winter in Petawawa than it had been for the previous couple of years.  Yes, in previous winters, there were a few days of minus 30 degree or lower temperatures in January.  In 2014, the colder temperatures started in December over the Christmas holidays.  My husband and I were in the Niagara Region for the holidays and came home to find that the battery in the vehicle left behind was frozen solid.

This year was our first winter in Gander. I had been told to expect warmer winter temperatures than Petawawa, but the winter was longer, there was much more snow, and the summer shorter and cooler than what I had experienced in the upper Ottawa Valley.

2014’s cold weather has made me think about how my ancestors may have coped with similar weather. 

My fourth-great-grandfather, Edward Farrell, arrived in Canada and received his land assignment in August of 1817.  He had to build a cabin before winter.  He was fortunate that he had two sons with him as well as his wife.  They also had to be sure of their fuel supply.  Edward had been in the British Army for at least the previous 10 years and spent time on mainland Europe involved with the Napoleonic wars.  I haven’t looked for his military records yet or the regiment’s records, but I am relatively sure that he would have been involved with scrounging for necessities.

Another fourth-great-grandfather, Joseph Armstrong, had a different situation in 1817.  Joseph was a farmer in Cumberland, England, and had been on the same land for over twenty years and all of his children had been born there.  The Napoleonic Wars were over and the British economy had taken a down turn.  Farmers could not sell their crops and, therefore, some of them could not meet their financial obligations.  Joseph was one of them.  He did not lose his farm until 1819, but things would have been tight except for any help the older children could give.

I think of Edward and his family in a cabin that they built themselves, which may have had a lot of drafts and not enough fuel.  I also think of Joseph and his wife, Mary, and the children not old enough to be on their own, facing the cold winters of the Borderlands, with not enough money to be certain of keeping their relatively comfortable home.  Edward’s situation did nothing but improve, while Joseph’s degraded to loss of his farm.  My ancestors did survive the cold winters.  So can I.