This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on May 3, 1941.
I have purposely refrained from writing about the spring here at the coast until the grip of winter has been loosened “back home,” for, with all their magnanimity of spirit, the people there might find it a bit hard to contemplate the larks singing above, the flower fields, while they thaw out their radiators, or worse still, shovel the snow out of the lane to get in another load of coal.
But now spring has broken across Canada, and grass is springing on the meadows, the blue anemones carpet the headlands, hens cackle in the farmyards and cattle hold their heads up to the sun, for they have heard the meadowlarks and robins and know their deliverance has come.
Life has compensations for everything, and no one values the spring like those who wait for it. Here on my desk I have some verses written by a Saskatchewan farmer who now lives at the coast, and in these simple words flow the whole story of the miracle of spring, as it comes on the “penitent prairie”:
“We couldn’t hold out much longer,
Our feed was low in the bin
The cattle were gaunt with hunger
And nothing but bone and skin.
When just like a voice from heaven,
Came the sudden cry of a crow;
Then we picked up heart for another start,
For we knew that the snow would go.
And the wind from the west came softly,
And a robin sang in the tree,
And the water roared, as it topped the ford
On the way to the distant sea.
And the grass showed green in the meadows
And the frog sang loud in the slough,
And the geese flew by, high up in the sky,
A streak in the vault of blue.
For spring once more had opened her door
And summer was coming in.”
We have had spring here since February, but it was the cawing of a great company of crows from the branches of the evergreens in one early morning that gave me the real feeling — the exalted feeling — that spring had come. I could smell the burning prairie grass, mixed with the steaming breath of the land, and see, in my mind, the men at work on the long fields. I could hear the fanning mill at work, shaking the weed seeds out of the seed grain, with its sliding, pounding rhythm, and feel again the activity of the farm, wakened from its long sleep.
Spring on the Pacific coast is a sight to remember. The dogwood alone is worth a trip to this enchanted country. Think of a tree beautifully rounded, with shining leaves, and so thickly flowered with creamy white stars that the whole tree looks like a white tent against the wall of green.
We had an argument one day about the number of petals in the dogwood stars. I said six — someone else was equally sure there were only five, and a third member of the group said four. And the amazing thing about that argument is that we were all right. The dogwood star varies.
Another lovely bloom at this time is the white broom, which sways in the breeze, gives a fairy-like lightness and ethereal beauty that leaves me wordless. It is easy to believe a good fairy lives in the heart of this beautiful bush. It makes me think of those lines of Longfellow’s about the “songs that have power to quiet the restless pulse of care.” White broom, as it bows and beckons, comforts me, even today when the war news is discouraging.
There are white iris in the garden now, too, and white tulips and the white spirea and sweet alyssum, but no white flower has the austere beauty of the broom for me.
Before me as I write there is a clear glass bowl of crimson tulips and white broom which I wish I could send to every reader of this column. I would put in a dozen stalks of bluebells, too, to make it the right combination of colour.
We have been reading so much of herbs this year, and their value in the making of cheap cuts of meat taste like sirloin steak and rump roasts, that many gardens have a place devoted to rosemary, fennel, marjoram, basil. These are all new to me. We have had sage, mint and parsley, chives and garlic, but this year we have stepped up into the high brackets and have a herb garden all set.
I regret I have to report the loss of both the chives and garlic. They are overdue and must be presumed lost. Where last year they nestled side by side there in a plain bit of well-cultivated soil — so we fear the hoe-worm got them.
Now I am working hard to acquaint myself with the new herbs. So when my guests exclaim in rapture, “What is the intriguing flavour in this beef stew?” I will be able to reply without a quiver, “O that!’ Let me see — it is marjoram, but I forget whether I used origana majorana and origana onites.” That should put a bouquet into any stew.
Speaking of stews, I am pleased to report a good catch of onions this year. Green onions ready for eating, big onions for seed — in fact, I have some of the prize Alisa Craigs planted for seed, donated by the champion onion grower of Gordon Head.
There is a continuity about gardening that makes a garden into a serial story. The old friends come back — the regal lilies with red spurs, the fuchsia bushes hung with golden balls, the tamarisk ready to shoot its smoky pink tendrils, the laburnums hanging out their yellow lanterns and even the old maple stump at the road is shooting up its leaves, forgetting the tragic happening of 1937, when its main trunk had to be cut down.
And up from the rockery at the kitchen door, straight and tall, stand the two “wood-colts” of mysterious origin. Last year, when they were through blooming, I thought I should dig them up, but they were too deep for me. But they are here again in bloom — ruby-red — the two finest tulips on the place!
Just now we are in that lovely time when the cherry blossoms on the grass like confetti make every walk look like the church steps on a Wednesday in June. Tulips edge the paths, and through the blossoming apple trees we see the deep blue of the sea. Everywhere flowers are blooming, the stately iris, purple, white and light blue — wallflowers along the roads in shades of yellow and brown with their almond perfume — lilacs are in bloom, and the broom along the roads frame each picture in gold.
A new book on Australia has just come, and I have read the last chapter first — the author’s summary. In this he analyzes his feeling for the country, with which he says he has fallen in love. It is easy to write of admiration, he says, but love is different: it is physical and comes from the senses. Reason plays no part.
So when he tries to write about Australia, his words may not have meaning for anyone but himself, just as a well-loved name scribbled on a blotting paper may have meaning for the writer.
So he calls on the Australian poets to help him, and from Marcus Clark, the Australian poet, he quotes: “In Australia is found the strange; the grotesque and gloomy, the strange scribbling of nature learning how to write. Explorers named the mountains out of their suffering — Mount Misery, Mount Dreadful, Mount Despair. It has the beauty of loneliness. The lovers of Australia can understand why Esau loved his desert heritage more than all the bountiful richness of Egypt.”
Now if this is a correct estimate of our sister country, the Pacific coast furnishes a direct contrast. The charm of the Pacific Coast is its peace, its comfort, its quite nights and moderate climate. The winds blow, but not too hard or loud; the rain falls and the rivers run, but not in flood. There is a balm in its air and healing in its quite places.
Some of McClung’s columns from the 1930s and 1940s have been collected in a book, The Valiant Nellie McClung: Selected Writings by Canada’s Most Famous Suffragist, by Barbara Smith.
