The Emigrant's Welcome to Canada, Robert Cruikshank, circa 1820
An ill-prepared London dandy is greeted by one of our own. Cruikshank may not have known which way snowshoes should point, but he's certainly skewered his young fop, who has packed not only bear grease (proto-Brylcreem), but silk stockings, dancing pumps and (multiple!) "beauty spot punches".
Settlement of the Ottawa area had already begun when the artist completed this cartoon — Philemon Wright landed in Hull, 1800, and Bradish Billings set up camp in Gloucester, 1812. The Town Clerk's census for 1822 listed all of 37 'Men Heads of Families' with 191 persons in total.
The assessment roll noted 303 acres under cultivation, three houses of dressed timber, four
frame houses under two storeys, two merchant shops and a sawmill (source). Construction of the Rideau Canal would begin some four years after that.
