If we are to judge by the names of Canadian geographic features, the early pioneers had extensive kitchen gardens and perhaps more extensive diets than commonly acknowledged.
As befits a nation with considerable Irish input, potatoes lead the way claiming no less than 39 places – plus six Spuds.
Following come onions at 25, beans with 22, 19 carrots and 15 turnips. Cabbages are less than popular with just nine. And this is without the additions of such variants as Potato Bed and Wild Potato, Big Onion, Beancan and Beanpot, Bad Carrot, Turnip Patch, and Cabbage Town.
Then come the runners-up: beets, cauliflowers, chard, collards, endive, fiddleheads, melons, peanuts, peas, rhubarb, rutabaga, scallions, sorrel, squash, tomatoes, and yams. And that’s not counting a dozen dedicated to Pumpkins and eleven more to Corn.
In beans, we’re full of them. A couple of Lac Haricots in Quebec are of note as is a Lima Point in British Columbia. But as for variants Ontario can boast Beancan Bay, Kenora; Beanpole Lake, Haliburton; Beanpod Creek leading into Beanpod Lake in Nipissing; and Beanpot Marsh, Renfrew. Ontario also has six Bean Lakes while elsewhere from sea to sea to sea there may be found bays, brooks, creeks, islands, yet more lakes, points, ponds and even Beans Ledges in Charlotte, New Brunswick all celebrating our appreciate of the leguminous veggie. Elsewhere, perhaps on the wide open Prairies, but doubtfully if by Sarah Binks, this was noted in verse of a dubious nature:
- A crepitant cowhand named Sweezy
- With his blasts made the country breezy.
- Accomplished by means
- Of big meals of red beans,
- To Sweezy these breezes come easy.
Other legumes were highly valued of course – witness the famed habitant pea soup that supported voyageurs paddling across Canada. So it is hardly unusual to record Lac Péas in Antoine-Labelle, Quebec. Perhaps the word ‘pea’ associated as it is with ‘pee’ or urine discouraged places to be designated simply was ‘Pea,” singular. There are, however no less than 11 features name Peavine across the land, four Pea Point and an underwater feature known as Pea Patch.
Admittedly the shape of a geographical feature is likely to result it being named after yet another legume, the peanut, but nevertheless it is raised as a crop in southwest Ontario. Quebec alone can boast five Lac Peanut – strangely, the language police have yet discovered this maudit anglais corruption. Elsewhere, there are to be found a couple of Peanut Islands and half-a-dozen Peanut Lakes.
Rather unsurprisingly given their keeping qualities, Canadians have loved their roots. Way in the lead is the humble potato or spud. As noted above, the tuber is celebrated with 39 place names, plus such features as Potato Bed Cove in Newfoundland and Wild Potato Lake, Rainy River, Ontario.
There are just over two dozen places that include ‘onion’ in their designations, not forgetting Wild Onion Ridge, Lillooet Land District of B.C. Let’s also throw in ‘scallions’ here with Scallion, Manitoba a station along with Scallion Creek in the same province.
Carrots are popular too with 19 to add to our burgeoning list with bays, creeks, lakes, rapids, rivers and even a mountain of umbelliferous nature. But what to make of Saskatchewan’s Bad Carrot Lake and a river of the same name is a puzzle . . . Saskatchewan more prosaically has a Beet Lake, while in the Kootenay Land District, B.C. may be found Beet Creek.
Rutabagas find favour in Quebec with two Lac du Rutabaga on the map. Elsewhere in Canada though it is plain and simply turnip, all 15 places plus an island in Halifax, Nova Scotia resounding as The Turnip Patch plus a Wild Turnip Hill in Alberta. Finally in getting down still further to our roots, we must note yet another Quebec pair, Lac Yam, along with Kenora, Ontario’s Yam Lake.
Surprisingly at first glance, tomatoes are low on the list – Tomato Creek, Alberta and Tomato Lake, Kenora, Ontario are the only offerings. But then the luscious berry only became popular in recent history, too late to be commemorated extensively in Canada’s geographical kitchen garden. Indeed rhubarb has double tomato’s popularity: a pair of Lac de la Rhubarbe in Quebec, Rhubarb Lake, Manitoba and Rhubarb Creek, Cassiar Land District, B.C.
Despite the jeering designation of Toronto’s Cabbagetown – allegedly because residents grew brassicas in their front yards – there are almost a dozen cabbage celebrations across Canada. These include such intriguing items as Cabbage Willows Bay in Nunavut, Cabbage Harbour Head of Newfoundland and, continuing on the nautical theme ‘Down East,’ Cabbage Cove, Cabbage Garden Cove, and the somewhat ominous sounding Cabbage Garden Shoals, all in Nova Scotia. That other brassica, cauliflower, is remembered in Cauliflower Lake and Creek of Haliburton, Ontario.
Other greens do not fare so well. There are three Lac Collard in Quebec, a Lac Endive at La Côte-de-Beaupré in the same province, which also boasts of a Mont Sorrel and a Lac Sorrel high in Baie-James. Chard makes a single appearance as Chard Lake, Manitoba.
Corn was raised in Canada long before the coming of the colonists to Quebec. Once again there are some dozen features named thus, including Corncob Lake, Parry Sound, Ontario to show that byproducts of the valued grain were also much appreciated.
Squash and pumpkin are two more of a long line of kitchen garden subjects that originated with the New World first inhabitants. Strangely just four places celebrate squash but at least 15 for pumpkins, not forgetting Lac Pumpkinseed, Papineau, Quebec, Pumpkinvine Brook, Shelburne, N.S. and the Maritimes being the Maritimes, ledges, shoals, rocks and islets name after that member of the Cucurbitaceae.
Finally, completing our garden tour, we are forced to note that geographically eggplant has never found much favour outside Gallic culture, as witnessed by the single Lac des Aubergines of Vallée-de-l’Or, Quebec, while Fiddleheads are strictly New Brunswick as in Fiddlehead Island, Carleton.
