DCHP-1 Online

front, the

• 1a n. Ont. the settled land along the shores of Lake Ontario and, sometimes, Lake Erie.

  • The 'front "along the Lake Ontario shore expanded inland with advancing settlement, bringing about the extended meanings below.

  • 1799  Lancaster . . . extends nine miles, which is the ordinary size of all townships, and extending back 12 miles from the front.
  • 1835  (1926)  Even those who are only five or six miles from Peterborough call themselves backwoodsmen and Peterborough itself the great Metropolis is reckoned amongst semibarbarous regions by the dwellers in the front.
  • 1902  . . . the Front, in all matters pertaining to culture and fashion thought itself quite superior to the more backwoods country of the Twentieth.
  • 1953  All the way along the Front, as the shores and the lower lakes were termed, settlement worked back into the bush. . . .
  • 1964  Many an early settler hired out as a chopper for a farmer along "the front", or worked at a saw-mill. . . .

• 1b n. the transcontinental railway and the communities along and south of it, the farthest advance of civilization for many years.

  • 1913  (1917)  On the fourteenth of December, a prospector, who had been working in the vicinity of Rupert House, arrived in Moose Factory with his partner, a guide, and a dog team, en route for the "front."
  • 1931  I remember being of a party where one of the guides was asked how he could go such long periods without news from the "front," as the railroad is called.

• 1c n. the settled, civilized part of the country.

  See also: frontier (def. 3)  

  • 1913  "Cariboo gold," his father had called it, and said that it was sent down in numberless bags to "the front," and the stage brought it.
  • 1933  Few books were well read and wherever possible sons and daughters were sent to College either abroad or "at the front.

• 2 n. Obs. the block or range of lots laid out along the river, lake, or base line marking the beginning of a township; also, the line of this boundary.

  See also: front concession  

  • 1786  (1905)  In the Townships surveyed on River La Fenche I found twenty eight Families settled in front, some with very considerable Improvements.
  • 1829  The townships are farther divided into concessions, by lines running parallel to the river, lake, or settled township, which is called the front.
  • 1834  (1926)  The land after all was not to be had, but McCall determined to buy the front and be contented with the remainder of his land behind at some distance.

• 3 n. Nfld See quotes.

  See also: ice ((n.)) (def. 1)  

  • 1933  . . . on the "Front"--as the Seal Fishery on the east coast of Newfoundland is termed (in contradistinction to that of the "Gulf," which is the smaller west-coast Seal Fishery). . . .
  • 1935  All steamers with the exception of the Ranger sailed for the "front" of the island, while the latter is prosecuting the hunt in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
  • 1956  The "Front," as the ice-hunters call the stretch of sea between Funk Island . . . and the Straits. For this Front is the whelping ground, on which the babes will be born and where the ice-hunters will go after them--babes and grown-ups--with batt and gaff, hitting them on the head and dragging them to a "pan" or store-pile on the ice.
  • 1966  No quota on the number of pelts taken is imposed on the Front, and the hunters may kill adults, something not allowed in the Gulf at this time of year.

• 4 n. in eastern Ontario, the part of a township fronting on the St. Lawrence River and having a separate council.

  • 1966  The Front of Escott was given the approval to take possession of Hill Island by the Ontario Municipal Board in December, 1964. The Front of Leeds and Landsdowne protested and took back the island in July of last year.