Rose-Delima: A Saga of Northern Ontario

Lydia Burton was an editor and writer living in Toronto, and was co-author of Editing Canadian English.

This is the second novel of a trilogy based on the social history of the mining and lumbering country of northern Ontario. Having survived the devastating Cochrane-Matheson fire of 1916, French and English farmers had rebuilt their lives and worked their land in the hope of better times ahead. But the 1930s depression wreaks its effects on them, as well as on unemployed men and their families from the cities, sent north by the government in some misguided hope that the lot of these destitute people would improve in remote places where they could farm. The government programs promise much but deliver little, thus creating another set of struggling poor in the area.

The town of Val-d’Argent is the setting for vignettes of families and individuals. The story of Rose-Delima Marchessault and her relationship with childhood friend Donald Stewart is the thread that links the joys, miseries, and eccentricities of the other characters. The Catholic Church and the local curé naturally affect strongly the lives of the French families. The younger generation dreams of life beyond poverty and toil and considers leaving — a circumstance that has always driven young people to migrate and challenge their environments, just as such dreams and hopes may have driven their parents to migrate to Val-d’Argent, a town that can stand in for many such rural places. Rose-Delima’s brother Germain is one of those energetic young people who have imagination, skill, and the willingness to take risks in order to create viable farming or business enterprises in an area that is economically depressed. His successes and failures demonstrate his ability to adapt and create alternatives for himself. His efforts represent the spirit of all those who venture to new places — like Val-d’Argent — and who ultimately may want to escape from them.

As Rose-Delima matures and begins teaching in a poor country school, she tries to aid the children who attend classes irregularly because they are needed at home or at jobs when lumbering is available. The inequities of poverty and the odds against the occasional talented child she finds in her class make her despair, so that she, too, seeks the wider horizon of a new place in the hope of a better life. This unpretentious novel provides us with a feel for the struggle and individuality of those rural people who gave character to Canada through their efforts and survival.