We soon lost sight entirely of the river, and struck into the deep solitude of the forest, where not a sound disturbed the almost awful stillness that reigned around us.  Scarcely a leaf or bough was in motion, excepting at intervals we caught the sound of the breeze stirring the lofty heads of the pine-trees, and wakening a hoarse and mournful cadence.  This, with the tapping of the red-headed and grey woodpeckers on the trunk of the decaying trees, or the shrill whistling cry of the little striped squirrel, called by the natives “chitmunk,” was every sound that broke the stillness of the wild.  Nor was I less surprised at the absence of animal life.  With the exception of the aforesaid chitmunk, no living thing crossed our path during our long day’s journey in the woods.

In these vast solitudes one would naturally be led to imagine that the absence of man would have allowed Nature’s wild denizens to have abounded free and unmolested; but the contrary seems to be the case.  Almost all wild animals are more abundant in the cleared districts than in the bush.  Man’s industry supplies their wants at an easier rate than seeking a scanty subsistence in the forest.

You hear continually of depredations committed by wolves, bears, racoons, lynxes, and foxes, in the long-settled parts of the province.  In the backwoods the appearance of wild beasts is a matter of much rarer occurrence.

I was disappointed in the forest trees, having pictured to myself hoary giants almost primeval with the country itself, as greatly exceeding in majesty of form the trees of my native isles, as the vast lakes and mighty rivers of Canada exceed the locks and streams of Britain.

There is a want of picturesque beauty in the woods.  The young growth of timber alone has any pretension of elegance of form, unless I except the hemlocks, which are extremely light and graceful, and of a lovely refreshing tint of green.  Even when winter has stripped the forest it is still beautiful and verdant.  The young beeches too are pretty enough, but you miss that fantastic bowery shade that is so delightful in our parks and woodlands at home.

There is no appearance of venerable antiquity in the Canadian woods.  There are no ancient spreading oaks that might be called the patriarchs of the forest.  A premature decay seems to be their doom.  They are uprooted by the storm, and sink in their first maturity, to give place to a new generation that is ready to fill their places.

The pines are certainly the finest trees.  In point of size there are none to surpass them.  They tower above all the others, forming a dark line that may be distinguished for many miles.  The pines being so much loftier than the other trees, are sooner uprooted, as they receive the full and unbroken force of the wind in their tops; thus it is that the ground is continually strewn with the decaying trunks of huge pines.  They also seem more liable to inward decay, and blasting from lightning, and fire.  Dead pines are more frequently met with than any other tree.