Charles Burchfield, Journals, May 20, 1947

B & I start out at 9:00 for Canada. Dark and foggy and raining. Nevertheless we hoped for clearing weather & persisted. Over Peace Bridge and on the Canadian Blvd.

Dense fog at the Falls—on to Hamilton on the Queen Elizabeth Highway. Acres of peach, cherry & pear orchards in bloom. Not as beautiful as solitary trees.

Stop at Roycroft Inn for lunch. A wait of 15 or 20 min. By now the sun out—the sunlit green maples & street—The new waitress who confessed to being nervous. Being “meatless” Tuesday, we had roast Turkey, very delicious.

The Lake Road to Toronto—(as we had on May 1940). Beautiful estates with great trees, many Norway pines. The white Gothic house with pines that had so attracted me in 1940 had stucco-ed (!)—It’s quaintness gone.

North on Springbrook Rd. to explore the “back” country—

Many beautiful and quaint houses—many of brick—The gothic with elaborate carvings very numerous.

Route 20, (which cuts thru the end of the lake east of Hamilton which just beyond Hamilton, turns east and goes straight to Niagara Falls. The great cut thru stratified rock—Rather barren, flat country with no large trees—rather mean [n.d.] houses, with only a few gothic ones of interest, Sandwiches & coffee at Fort Hill—

Niagara Falls about sun-down. Stop at new American Falls and also Horse Shoe. The latter for me are the most impressive—the sun lighting just the brink of the Falls, a beautiful fragment of rainbows, the color of the crater rim a whole gamut of infinite tones from rich yellow olive in the middle (where it was sunlit) to cool bluegreens (sic) close at hand in shadow. We were struck with the slowness of the water as it poured over (probably only apparently so). It seemed almost like a slow-motion movie. Great clouds of pure white mist. B said very aptly that the “boiling” water at the front of the falls was like maple sap boiling.

By the Blvd. to Peace Bridge. Rich red golden light of the sun on willows. The blue herons- probably seven or eight—

Home a little after nine.

Charles Burchfield, May 20, 1947