“A garrison order announced the intended march. It was hailed by men and officers with enthusiasm, as an effort yet unknown in British warfare and therefore well worthy of British soldiers to accomplish. There is a characteristic cheerfulness in the Canadian soldier, inherited from his French ancestry, which, being lively and good-tempered, tended much toward lightening the labours of a heavy march or the hardships of the campaign, and accorded perfectly with the dogged and varied characters of the English, Irish and Scotch which completed the regiment.”
“The company presented a most unmilitary appearance, as it marched without arms or knapsacks, in Indian file, divided into squads, so many to each toboggan, the rear of it being nearly half a mile from the front.”
“I may well say, if possible, as those who have not experienced it, cannot figure to themselves the extreme frigidity of a temperature from eighteen to twenty-seven degrees below zero. When we got to the end of our day's march, the cold was so intense that the men could scarcely use their fingers to hue down the firewood and to build huts. And it was dark before we could commence cooking, if sticking a bit of salt pork on the end of a twig and holding it in a fire could be soaked out. It generally happened that we were as completely enveloped in smoke as an Eskimo family, but like them, we found it much more agreeable than having no smoke at all, as it warmed the hut. Moreover, I imagined that sleep without fire in such cold would have proved the sleep of death.”
“On the twelfth of April, we were marching up a gentle ascent, when suddenly there lay before our astonished and delighted view, the town of Kingston, the magnificent Lake Ontario, and what was far more surprising still, a squadron of ships of war frozen on its bosom. It produced a striking and indescribable sensation, as none of us Europeans appeared to have reflected on the circumstance of being sure to find a fleet of man-of-war on a freshwater lake!”
