WHO GREW THE TURNIP: How Much Research It Takes to Tell a Story

ByLee Ann

I wonder if readers have any idea how much time it can take to write a sentence. I’m not talking about a sentence that is just well-crafted. I mean a sentence that is accurate and rich with detail. In a non-fiction book like Muskoka’s Main Street it’s really important that the stories I tell are not only well-crafted – by this I mean clear – but also correct and informative. 

SPOILER ALERT! I have this great sentence in Chapter 3: “Moses Martin, a 66-year-old Canadian, grew the turnip on Lot 9 East of the Muskoka Road in Morrison Township.”

Here’s what it took for me to write that one sentence.

First of all, as you, my faithful followers will know, I’m talking about THE turnip. The 16 kilogram mammoth prize turnip that was grown along the Muskoka Road in 1860 and paraded around as definitive proof Muskoka was a good place for farming. (Muskoka wasn’t, and isn’t, but that’s another story.)

I first read about the turnip in Muskoka and Haliburton 1615-1875 A Collection of Documents by Florence B. Murray. Surveyor J.W. Bridgland (my favourite surveyor who wrote all the blunt reports) mentions the turnip in his 1861 inspection report to the Commissioner of Colonization Roads.  Of course I wanted to include this in the book!

Then I found R.J. Oliver’s “Report on Free Grants on the Severn and Muskoka Road.” He was the government land agent in the district and he says he actually had the turnip in his possession! It’s a white turnip weighing, he says, 14.7 kilograms. Maybe it dried out a bit in the time it took for him to write his report, but never mind that. He also says the turnip was grown on Lot No. 9 East Morrison.

Ah ha! This sent me to Library and Archives Canada again, where I had already planned to go to look at the 1861 census. That year, the census consisted of a personal report – with names, ages, ethnic origins etc. – and an agricultural report, which gives acreage, crops grown, livestock held – AND the lot and concession numbers where people lived.

“Lot 9 East Morrison” means the 9th lot on the east side of the Muskoka Road in Morrison Township. Who owned that lot? Moses Martin, identified on the Agricultural Census. Who was he? A 66-year-old born in Upper Canada, living with his wife Catherine and four sons, all labourers: Moses Jr., 21, John 17, William Edward, 14, and Robert Henry, 12. They lived in a shanty – which is not nearly as fancy as a log house – on their 100-acre lot, where they also grew spring wheat and potatoes and made maple sugar. Oh, and they also had one pig.

Now I can write a sentence! And not just the sentence I got from an excellent but still secondary source, Murray’s textbook. A sentence that is rich with detail and one that gives information that I’ve never seen published before: the name of the actual guy who grew the famous turnip.

One sentence: about half a day of research, not counting travel time.

What do you think – was it worth it? Are you surprised at what it took?

WINTER WELCOMES MUSKOKA’S FIRST SETTLERS

ByLee Ann

What a spectacular winter season we’re having in Ottawa! The canal is open, the ski slopes are crowded, all the outdoor rinks are going full blast. The snow squeaks when you walk on it; snow pellets sting your cheeks.

With every waterproof boot-step I take, with every adjustment of my polar-fleece toque, I think of the first settlers on the Muskoka Road. 

They arrived in October 1859. The surveyors had driven stakes into the corners of their lots, but other than that, they had trees. And despite the glorious tinges of autumn leaves, the clock was ticking rapidly towards a winter some of them could not have imagined. Months of frozen isolation under feet of snow thrown down by screaming winds.

Shelter? Better make good use of that axe, my friend, against the old-growth forest. Clear out the underbrush first – saplings as tall as a man, standing in a tangle of grasses. Pile that over to the side of where you’ve decided to make your clearing. Hack down some of those giant pines – they’ve stood for an eon growing trunks so wide two men can’t reach each other from opposite sides.

Get busy. Make some logs and pile them, still barked and round, on top of each other, then scrounge around for some moss and – if you can find it – some clay to stuff in the spaces. Lay a few more logs across the top for a roof – remembering to leave an opening as a chimney, since you couldn’t afford to bring a stove. The fire will double as a heater and a place to cook.

You might use a blanket to cover that doorway, but chances are you’ll rip that down to wrap around you one frigid night. You want a table to sit at? A block of wood. A chair? More wood. Then for a mattress some soft, fragrant tamarack boughs.

It’s too late in the season to plant anything, so I hope you’ve laid in some salt pork and flour. You’ll be walking a kilometre or so to the Severn River for water to stir in with your flour to make bannock. Jackson’s store is there, but he’s just opened up and has to walk 19 kilometres to Orillia for supplies. Maybe he can sell you some wool stockings and moccasins – oh, and ask him for a buffalo skin robe, and some fur-lined gloves too, if you can afford it…

Can you imagine the bleakness of that first winter? Dark, lonely and freezing cold – and boring, with nothing much to do but try to survive into another day.

I think I’ll go turn on my gas fireplace and put the coffee-maker on. Maybe go for a walk later, with my gortex and thinsulate to keep me company.

SPARKLING GEMS AND NUGGETS

ByLee Ann

James W. Bridgland is fast becoming my favourite of the Muskoka Road surveyors. His reports are so blunt! He’s given me some fabulous material to work with, not the least of which is his right-between-the-eyes warnings to his boss about Muskoka. “One vast field of granite rock” he called it, in 1852.  When he returned to the district in 1859 to inspect the beginnings of the Muskoka Colonization Road, his report nearly vibrates with scorn. “Bad mud holes, bad roots and bad stones abound,” he writes, and goes on to rant about the contractor responsible. About the settlers he was kinder, noting they were poor and had done the best they could in clearing their land. 

R.J. Oliver, the government’s land agent, delights me too. Here are two of his gems, also from 1859:

1. He singles out the Symington family as being “especially intelligent and industrious.” Perfect! My first pioneer family to feature in the book. This nugget sent me back to Library and Archives Canada this week and into the 1861 census. Turns out there were at least three Siminton families – inconsistent spelling is typical – who settled early. I’ll need to do more research to sort out what their relationships were, but the census gave me a rich picture of early Muskoka. Despite the “vast field of granite rock”, the great majority of settlers listed their occupation as “farmer.” Such high hopes, which in many cases were cruelly broken on that rock. But there were also other skilled people in the little community, including several carpenters, two millwrights, and one gentleman named William Harris, who was a “tailor or doctor.” Does that mean either one in a pinch – it being pioneer days? I immediately imagined the sign on his door: “Stitching of any kind.”

2. “It was on the Muskoka Road,” Oliver writes, “that the mammoth prize turnip was raised last year, weighing 35 1/2 pounds.” Don’t you just love this?

As a researcher, I positively swoon over these gems. This is the kind of material that will help me tell the kind of story I want to tell. I’m headed back into 1861. See you next week.

NO WRITER IS AN ISLAND

ByLee Ann

One of my favourite Christmas gifts this year was a CD of music by Yo-Yo Ma called Songs of Joy and Peace. It’s a collaborative effort with Yo-Yo and other music masters including Diana Krall, Dave Brubek, James Taylor and Natalie Macmaster. When I watched a documentary about the process of recording the songs, I found myself feeling quite wistful about the collaboration. All these talented people got to work together to make something beautiful!

As a writer, of course, I don’t do much collaboration. It’s really all me: I pick the topic, decide on the slant, do the research, write the words, edit the words. There’s no equivalent of an arranger or producer, like there is with an orchestra. Nobody smiling across from me and keeping the beat. I don’t provide the harmony to anyone else’s melody. I’m more like a trumpet solo in an empty room.

And yet.

This week, I had a call from a woman in Toronto who, along with her aunt, has opened her family’s letters and photos to me for inclusion in my book. Mr. Busy listened patiently to my rant about the grant application process I’m currently slogging through. Two new people subscribed to my blog. My friend Lynn lent her HTML skills to update the blog – check out the cool new process tracker! – and also my website. And Lynn, my friend Jen and Mr. Busy all said of course they’d read 20 pages of manuscript on a tight deadline so I can complete the grant application.

Hmmm. Trumpet solo in an empty room? More like an orchestra after all.

THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS

ByLee Ann

It’s the day before Christmas and all through my house

Not a keyboard is clicking, at rest is my mouse.

The manuscript’s tucked in a file coloured tan

Awaiting new word counts and edits come Jan.

I’ve turned my attention to seasonal  matters

The kitchen’s a mess – look, I’ve splattered the batter!

Cookies and squares now should claim me – instead

I find visions of road building dance in my head.

I need to wrap presents, make plans with my friends

But I think of a detail to which I attend:

I remember that one of the surveyors stayed

In Muskoka on site on one cold Christmas day.

Was it Wadsworth? Or Bridgland? I cannot recall.

But think of this lonely work in winter’s pall!

The story’s worth telling – I’ll just make a note

Along with the dozen or more that I wrote

So that when I return to the project I’ll find

All the details are right there still fresh in my mind.

So Gibson, and Rankin and Dennis and Spry

Now dash away, dash away, please let me try

To turn my attention to good times and fun.

 I’m postponing writing ‘til the holidays are done.

To all of my readers, my best and good cheer

Merry Christmas to all, see you in the new year!

LEARNING FROM THE MASTERS

ByLee Ann

Last Friday (December 10) I sent the first 20 pages of manuscript to some “friendly readers:” my writer friends Jen and Lynn, and Mr. Busy. These three offer concrete, honest feedback and some great suggestions for improvement. I want to thank each of them for helping me to become a better writer!

While they were busy reading, I switched gears. I wrote an article for a magazine deadline of January 30 and wrote some advertising copy for my upcoming workshops. I also did some reading and analysis to help me figure out how to make the improvements in the book manuscript that I already know are needed.

First, I re-read two of my reference books:

  1. Read Like A Writer by Francine Prose and
  2. On Writing Well by William Zinsser.

Prose advocates “close reading” of the masterpieces of literature, which, she says, “involves reading for sheer pleasure but also with an eye and a memory for which author happens to do which thing particularly well.”

Zinsser’s book is a primer for anyone who strives to write spare, clear, powerful words. “Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next,” he says, by “using the English language in a way that will achieve the greatest clarity and strength.”

I immersed myself in the lessons of these two teachers and then turned my attention to two books that I consider masterpieces of social history, which can instruct me in creating Muskoka’s Main Street:

  • A Private Capital by Sandra Gwyn and
  • Gold Diggers by Charlotte Gray.

I read the first chapter of each book “like a writer,” with an eye to structure and language. What information is actually in the first chapter? How does the author draw me into the story? How does she orient me to the times and issues she is writing about? How much background history and geography does she introduce? What is the style and tone of the language – the actual words she uses?

One thing I’ve learned so far is Gwyn and Gray use much smaller direct quotes from their reference material than I have. They take what’s in a diary, say, and turn it into modern language to get the story moving. The direct quotes they use are short and catchy. They don’t include any archaic 19th century words that could confuse a reader.

Archaic? I meant, “no longer in ordinary use.” Sorry, Mr. Zinsser.