Life in the new land was hard and uncertain. He had left behind a vibrant town and warm comfortable home to replace it with a tent and food shortages. The new Planter townships lacked churches, schools, and other infrastructure familiar in the towns that they had left behind in New England. The townships remained isolated and connected to the outside world only by narrow paths through the forest and ships along the coast. For the first few years, as Britain and France remained at war, threats of attack by France's allies, the Mi'kmaq, remained a possibility.