We have been thus far studying the war service of the Canadian Pacific with our minds principally upon the forces drawn from the land portion of the system. But there is in some respects a more wonderful record on the sea. Not that the men on the sea were more valorous than those on the land; but the men on the sea, being located in ships, were more easily followed than the men who in the land or the air forces were scattered in various localities on many battle fronts.

Almost every ship of the Canadian Pacific fleet went on war duty, and fifteen of these were lost by torpedoes or mines or other similar causes on the high seas. These lost vessels represented over a third of the tonnage engaged. Behind this simple statement are many tales of heroism of which there is no permanent record, and there are achievements of thrilling importance done in practically all parts of the world. It is possible for us to give only an outline which can be filled in with deeds of gallantry and valour by the imagination of any reader who knows the traditions of our British men on the high seas of the world.

By following the log of some of the Canadian Pacific vessels we get at least some of the bare facts.

The Empress of France had barely reached the dock at Liverpool, two days after war was declared, when she was requisitioned for special service by royal proclamation. Within a few days after her cargo was unloaded, all passenger accommodation and other wood work was removed. Armed with eight six-inch guns, she was sent out, manned by a naval crew, to patrol in the North Sea between Shetland and Iceland, and became, a few months later, the flagship of the patrol squadron, in which service she intercepted 15,000 ships. Later, she was transferred to convoy service in the North Atlantic route. In that service she escorted nine convoys of twenty vessels each, carrying per convoy about 30,000 troops, mostly Americans on their way to the front. Some indication of the extent of the war service of the Empress of France may be gathered from the fact that while in commission she steamed 267,000 knots and consumed 170,000 tons of coal. These figures as to only one vessel out of many, tell little of the services and the hardships of a gallant crew, but they shed some light on the frightful monetary cost of war.

The Empress of Britain, one of the new and large vessels, was fitted out as a transport, carrying troops to the Dardanelles, Egypt and India; also from Canada to the Western Front. Besides her own crew she accommodated 5,000 officers and men. During one of her trips across the Atlantic with a full complement of crew and soldiers, a German submarine launched two torpedoes, one of which missed the bow by three feet and the other passed some ten feet astern. It was all in the day’s work; but that was a close shave “between the devil and the deep sea!”

The splendid new steamer, the Calgarian, of the Atlantic service, was one of the many Canadian ships sunk by the enemy during the War, but not before doing some notable work. Along with the famous Vindictive, the Calgarian blocked Lisbon to prevent German ships sheltering there from coming out on raids into the Atlantic; and later, for nearly a year of continuous service, was stationed outside New York to prevent the escape of German ships interned there. Then, when she was convoying thirty vessels across the Atlantic, she was torpedoed and sunk with the loss of forty-nine men.

Our old Pacific Coast friend, the Empress of Russia, had a thrilling experience as an Admiralty cruiser. She left Vancouver for Hong-Kong on her usual run in August, 1914, but she was already designated for war service. At Hong-Kong her interior fittings were taken out and replaced by coal bunkers, and eight guns were mounted fore and aft. British Naval Reservists and French gun crews were put aboard in place of the Chinese hands, and the Empress started out to work. Shortly afterwards she met the pride of Australia, the cruiser Sydney, after that gallant ship had smashed the wicked German rover, the Emden. The Russia took off the prisoner members of the Emden crew, including the Captain, Von Muller, and put them out of commission by landing them at Ceylon. With the help of some Indian troops, she captured the Turkish fort of Kamaran on the Red Sea. Then, for twenty-three days, she and her sister Canadian Pacific vessel, the Empress of Asia, guarded the British port of Aden until the arrival of British warships. After some more dangerous experiences, the Empress of Russia, the Empress of Asia, the Empress of Japan, the cruiser Himalaya, and the destroyer Ribble, kept in blockade the Port of Manilla, where fifteen German ships were hiding in the hope of getting out with supplies to their war vessels. Finally the Russia spent a year cruising in the East, and then, when the War was over, slipped back quietly on to her old peaceful run out of Vancouver to the Orient.

One can only sum up in a wondering way the enormous service done for the Empire by this great railway company, by saying that during the War, Canadian Pacific ships carried over a million troops and passengers on war business. They carried over four millions of tons of cargo and munitions of war, and many thousands of horses and mules for transport service on the field. And perhaps one of the most amazing and least-known feats of the Canadian Pacific was the carrying to and from Flanders and France, through Vancouver, of what seemed a numberless army of Chinese from the North of China, who went out to do the unskilled labour on the field and thus released thousands of the allied soldiers for the fighting line, who otherwise would have had to do this highly necessary non-combatant work.

Letters from Mr. David Lloyd George, the dynamic war-time Premier of Britain, and others, to the Company and to officials, conveyed the appreciation of the Old Land to the Canadian Pacific for its unique assistance in a crisis hour. Many decorations worn by Canadian Pacific men who served on land and sea, and the scars of battle on many of her ships, attest the unique way in which President Shaughnessy (one of whose sons fell in action) and his wide-reaching organization came to the assistance of the Motherland when vital things were in danger. Let this great service not be lost sight of when petty matters and little controversies in commercial life have their innings.

A peculiarly striking sidelight is thrown on the general subject of war by the changing attitude to the subject of Sir William Van Horne, who lived only a year into the war period, but who studied it all with the thoroughness so characteristic of the man. Some years before the Great War he had written to Mr. S. S. McClure, in New York, almost in praise of war as a creator of heroisms and an inspiration to valiant endeavour. But as he studied the Great War, with its horrible engines of destruction, high explosives and silent, stealthy weapons of death on land and sea and in the air, he began to see the monstrous side of such a method for settling international differences. He saw the frightful annihilation of some of the brightest young men whose record he knew in his own organization, and whose services to the country, had they been spared, would have been beyond price. One would like to have had his changed attitude put into words by himself in his own vivid and vigorous way. Perhaps he would have left us an expression of assured hope that the day would come

But, despite all its horrors, war has, for human society, some compensation in the fact that it reveals suddenly certain elements of good in the world whose existence we had only dimly realized before. I remember how, as a boy, riding on horseback over the prairie in dark nights, I used to conjecture in a vague way as to the character of the trail ahead and as to what life of man or animal might be shrouded in the blackness. And I recall how fascinating it was to have flashes of lightning break recurrently now and then from the clouds, each flash burning its way into the darkness, revealing the trail, showing cattle and horses and the humble homesteads of pioneers who were beginning to settle on the plain. It has sometimes seemed to me that war is a flash of lightning which reveals much hitherto only dimly imagined as existing in society. That it reveals many mean and disquieting features and qualities in human life goes without saying. But that it also reveals many noble characteristics, is amply demonstrated. The recent Great War, for instance, revealed the greatness of the common man who, from some unspectacular occupation, where these qualities were present but unnoticed by the community, went out where the lightning flash of war disclosed to the world marvels of heroism and self-sacrifice. Similarly, we often discovered in the common business world and amidst business organizations at home, a readiness to serve and sacrifice which before had only been dimly understood as existing at all. The War revealed it.

The Canadian Pacific Railway, which had overcome early difficulties on the road to success, was probably regarded by the average Canadian with some patriotic pride as a prosperous organization, but possibly he thought it was not much concerned about things beyond its own welfare. Yet it is not too much to say that the War suddenly revealed in it vital qualities of loyalty to the Empire and showed the Company personified as a good citizen of Canada. As a citizen it threw itself into the business of helping to defend the country and to assist in making conditions as good as possible in war times.

The recent incident in the earthquake in Japan will illustrate my point as being in keeping with the traditions of the Company. There at Yokohama the Canadian Pacific steamship, the Empress of Australia, as related elsewhere, was just casting off, when the earthquake took place. Taking interest in the safety of themselves and their ship mainly as a means of helping others, Captain Robinson and his gallant crew became a band devoted to heroic rescue. We need not detail the story here, but, the captain and men, knowing the traditions of the Company, did not consider for a moment the immense expense and loss they were incurring in cancelling a voyage and placing the ship and all their stores at the disposal of the suffering and destitute.

The War gave the Canadian Pacific many opportunities of living up to these traditions, and the Company did not fail. While its ships were being sunk in service on the high seas and its general business on land was being dislocated, the Company did its part as a citizen in the enlistments, as already recorded. But, in addition, every good cause which aimed at alleviating human suffering and administering to human comfort found what to some must have seemed a surprisingly large support from the Company. Hospitals at home and field hospitals abroad, Red Cross movements, nurses’ homes, returned soldiers, disabled men and their dependants, Y. M. C. A’s, Salvation Army efforts, and all such persons or organizations were on the list for assistance in a big way. The War brought this out more distinctly, but it was part of the Company’s tradition. It is trustee for the funds of its shareholders, and cannot throw these funds away to improvident people or undeserving causes; but it uniformly seeks to help the community in the interests of the general weal. The Canadian Pacific Railway, owning and maintaining in Canada an enormous amount of property and employing over one hundred thousand people, who receive eight millions monthly in salaries and wages, is manifestly an extraordinary contributor to the upkeep of the Dominion in the ordinary business way. When we add to this the fact of the Railway’s support of all worthy causes, we are able to estimate in some degree the value to Canada of its citizenship.

But for the fact that it is verified by actual tabulation, the statement that the Canadian Pacific Railway during the autumn of the year of grace 1923 carried two hundred and fifteen million bushels of grain over the steel trail, en route to feed the hungry in all parts of the world, would seem, to some of us, incredible. This huge scale of grain transportation means that about one hundred and thirty thousand cars were charged with the duty of taking to the world’s markets the magnificent product and offering of the vast prairie country of Canada. In the above sentences we personify both the cars and the prairies, because it does not require much imagination to speak of such prolific soil and such burden-bearing rolling stock as if they were instinct with life. The fact that behind them both is the splendidly strong endeavour and the passionately devoted skill of faithful men and women, seems only to add force to the personification of the elements of production and distribution, which, under Providence, they use for the good of the world. To some of us who look back to earlier days in the West, there is vivid romance in this development, and there is a sort of Alladin-lamp wonder in the transformation which the above statements indicate.

Agriculture is the oldest and the most distinctively fundamental industry in human society. It is by no means the easiest. It knows scarcely any limitation in the hours of toil, and its most strenuous and imperative duties come at a time of the year when city dwellers seek the cool shades of the holiday season. But it has some strong compensations. There is the consciousness of being in an occupation absolutely essential to the existence of humanity, and one that involves dwelling near to Nature’s heart, unafraid of privation and want. Rural life has opportunities and spaces for meditation, which is in danger of becoming a lost art in some other spheres. Farms are feeders of cities in more ways than one. They give leaders to the public life and learned professions of the nation, and but for the fresh blood that farms pour into cities every year, these centres would die of pernicious anemia. Those of us who were born on farms and recall our boyhood days can understand how, in the nerve-wracking anxieties elsewhere, men can enter into Whittier’s fine picture of the country lad who knows nothing about insomnia and indigestion:

As suggested above, some of us have seen much development since the railway came. I recall the small fields of grain in the original colony along the Red River and the somewhat larger ones that began to open out on the prairie. When reaping was done with the sickle and cradle, and threshing with the flail and the two horse treadmill, the acreage under cultivation could not be large. And though, in my time, our people began to bring in reapers from St. Paul by cart-train, even to that wonder which we called the “self-raker,” there was little inducement to grow much, because there was only a small local market and no way of exporting. Things were in that condition when the Governor-General, Lord Dufferin, and Lady Dufferin, visited Manitoba and drove the first spikes in the Pembina Branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway on September 29th, 1877. That branch was on the east of the Red River and some years went by before the steel crossed at Winnipeg and reached the prairies. But even in 1877 there was more grain being grown than could be marketed at home. And the eloquent Dufferin referred to the situation in his own sympathetic way when he said, near the conclusion of his famous address in Winnipeg, “You have been blessed with an abundant harvest, and soon, I trust, will a railway come to carry to those who need it, the surplus of your produce, now, as my own eyes have witnessed, imprisoned in your storehouses for want of the means of transport. May the expanding finances of the country soon place the Government in a position to gratify your just and natural expectations.”

Meanwhile, as they waited for the longed-for and greatly needed railway to come, some of the early settlers were experimenting in growing grain that would be adapted to the soil and the climate. There were some who thought that wheat could not be grown to perfection very far west and north of the Red River. But there were others who felt differently.

I recall that excellent man, eloquent of speech and graceful in manner, J. W. Taylor, the United States Consul at Winnipeg, often called “Saskatchewan” Taylor, by reason of his personal knowledge of our North-West country. Despite the fact that some of his countrymen to the south might not like it, Consul Taylor persisted in saying that north of the international boundary was “the very home of the wheat plant.” And had he lived to see it, his kindly heart would have rejoiced when wheat grown at Fort Vermillion on the Peace River, a thousand miles north-west of Winnipeg, took the first prize at a World’s Fair in his own country.

In any case the good consul did much to bring about this present day by helping the settlers to select suitable grain. Many a time, for instance, did he bring, in envelopes, to my father on the old Red River homestead, samples of wheat he had received from different parts of the States. And he and my father, who were great friends, would plant these in garden plots and wait through the summer to see which would come to perfection during the season before the frost arrived. Some of this same wheat was given to others till the original contents of the selected envelope produced a harvest in many fields.

Later on came benefactors like the painstaking Professor Saunders and Seager Whealler, and others who, through careful seed selection, transformed the face of the country by making it possible for harvests to ripen where nothing of that type ripened before. Thus it became possible in the year 1915, when our Empire was at war, for the great prairies to pour out their millions in wheat and flour to help in the battle for freedom. The soldiers in uniform at the front were supported by the soldiers in overalls at home, or the War could not have been won. And of these at home the soldiers of the soil deserve to be mentioned in despatches for their strenuous work in the greatest feeding industry of the world.

And now, beside the stations along the pioneer Canadian Pacific and its endless gridiron of branch lines on the prairie, we have been seeing in these recent autumn months of 1923 the teams with the drivers, waiting their turn at a thousand elevators. The river of wheat on the main line is being swollen into floodtide from the tributary branches. Back of the railway and headed towards it, we have seen apparently interminable lines of wagons laden with grain. Like a long procession of industrious ants we have seen these wagons coming along the level plain, then up and down the ridges, to empty their loads at the capacious elevators. Thence the grain is poured into the cars which stand by on the steel trails behind panting locomotives—iron horses that chafe and tug with impatience to get way. And they must get away as quickly as possible, for other trains are ready to use the sidings to relieve the pressure caused by the wagons pouring their load into the elevators. A great army of men are at work and thousands of horses. But it is a beneficent, constructive army of men, with their lumbering artillery of horses and wagons engaged in the gigantic task of sending food supplies to the great centres of population all over the world. The elevators are the peaceful headquarters of a great staff employed to transfer foodstuffs from these prairie commissary stores to the railway trains which carry them in rushing torrents of speed to the great lakes, the canals and the open sea. It is in great and wonderfully significant contrast to the scenes from which we take this illustration, when militarism made its way unchecked, and, on a hundred battle-fields, we saw wounded men and tortured horses and derailed trains in the havoc of war—“rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent.” Canadians have proven their mettle, as a peace-loving people will always do when aroused to resist wrong, but ours is not a militaristic nation. And we should take a noble pride in seeing in these peaceful, industrious hosts on Canadian plains some fulfilment of the promised time, when “men shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks and study war no more.”

The scenes in the time of the grain marketing movement to the railway and the elevators suggest massed formation for peaceful ends. But back of this massed formation is the individual home on whose character and success the future of the country depends. Tales, more or less mythical, perhaps, but with some foundation, are told of city-dwelling lads who thought of milk and bread as the product of the milk-wagon and the baker’s cart. But it is probably quite true that there is not enough thought given to the household on the plain where the origin of food products is better understood through the toil of the day. The homesteader on these great wheat areas had no easy task. The breaking of the land, the struggle to make ends meet till the farm became productive, the endurance of summer heat and winter cold, were all part of the daily round and the common task, and no human pen will ever fully portray the heroism of the pioneer women who bore their share of every burden and kept their homes in order without many of the comforts and facilities that are available to city dwellers. Then there came later on the care of stock, the sowing, reaping, threshing and marketing—in all of which there is need for tremendous persistence—these are elements in the industry of the farm; and one is sometimes appalled to think of what would happen if those employed in that industry should go on strike!

A recent and interesting development has taken place in the flowing of the river of wheat for export. It is a far cry from the days when special seed was brought by Consul Taylor in envelopes and sown in garden plots on the Red River to these days when the plains are dotted with vast farms all the way from the scene of those garden plots to the Rocky Mountains and from the international boundary-line to the Sub-Arctic. Now it is becoming evident that other outlets must be found for the floodtide of wheat in addition to the old course eastward to Fort William and beyond. It looks as if there will be somewhere on the prairies, ere long, a new watershed, a sort of “Great-Divide” such as we see in nature along the Canadian Pacific in the Mountains, where the rivers begin to flow both east and west to different outlets on the way to the lakes and the sea. After this manner also the rivers of wheat will run to either ocean.

A few days ago I was talking with that genial and experienced railway man (now retired) Mr. E. A. James, in Vancouver. Mr. James when a lad was the private telegraph operator for that master railroad builder, Van Horne, and went with him on a trip to the West Coast when the end of steel was not to its present terminus. Mr. James relates that one day Mr. Van Horne, Mr. L. A. Hamilton, and himself, were standing on rocks and stumps where Hastings and Granville Streets now intersect at the Post Office, in the business heart of Vancouver. Mr. Van Horne took out a piece of paper and sketched the location. Mr. James, a mere boy, had nothing wherewith to purchase any rocks and stumps and ventured a rather sceptical opinion as to the future of a city in such a locality. Mr. Van Horne said, “My boy, there will be a very great city here. To this place will come steel tracks carrying endless trains of passengers and freight. And from this place, an all-the-year-round port, will sail fleets of vessels engaged in trade all over the world.”

Now, since the Panama Canal has been opened, it is evident that trains of wheat will come to the Pacific in ever-growing number from some economic watershed on the plains. Outlets, both East and West, will be increasingly necessary to carry the produce of the vast prairie section to the food markets of the world. For many years Fort William and Montreal have struggled to handle the immense burden of this growing wheat traffic. Now the Pacific route has come to relieve the abnormal pressure on Eastern ports and lead to further developments in agriculture on the prairies. And from Vancouver and other points on the West Coast this wheat will go by vessels of all kinds to the ends of the earth—to the over-crowded centres of Europe and Asia and Africa, as well as to the islands of the sea. Thus shall the forecast made that day on the site of Vancouver City by Mr. Van Horne, the builder of the Canadian Pacific Railway, be justified, even though that forecast was made at the rough-looking outpost of

An alien traveller in this country, looking for an expression in which to indicate the extent and character of the Canadian Pacific Railway, finally settled on “The Dominion of Canada on wheels” as sufficiently descriptive. This, of course, is overdoing it very considerably, but one who passes through the length and breadth of the country and finds this great organization ministering to his comfort and convenience at all points on land and water, can be excused for his exaggeration. So popular and universally known are the letters “C. P. R.” that there has been a general popular tendency to use them without authority for commercial advantage. Behind the letters there has come to be a guarantee of value and efficiency which trades of various kinds have been quick to see. The Company had to put a stop to this monographic proclivity on the part of the public, lest the practice of some should lower their reputation for efficiency. But Colonel George Ham tells us of an attempt to stop the unauthorized use of the letters on a barber-shop on the prairie, which ended in a truce. An Irishman who ran what he called “The C. P. R. Barber Shop” received a note to desist from the use of the famous letters. He replied, “I don’t want no lawsoot with your big company. The letters on my shop don’t stand for your ralerode, but for something better. I left a mother in Ireland. She is dead and gawn, but her memories are dear to me. Her name was Christena Pearson Riordon, and what I want to no is what you are going to do about it.” To prosecute that man under the circumstances would be a sort of sacrilege, and so the Company let it go, secretly doubting the witty story, but rather pleased that the repute of the Company made it worth while to use the letters and write the legend about their origin.

Of course so far-flung a system as the Canadian Pacific must have many places where the traveller shall find rest and refreshment with a stop-over on the way. And so, amongst a few special features to be noted in this closing chapter, are the palatial hotels in the big centres of population, the chalets and bungalow camps in the mountains and by the streams and lakes all across Canada.

The names of some of these big hotels, which are not only stopping places for the traveller, but social centres and community service club meeting places in most localities, have an element of romance about them. Several indicate the devoted loyalty of the Company to the sovereigns of Britain, such as the Hotel Empress, of Victoria, the Royal Alexandra of Winnipeg, in honour of the Queen, and the Queen-Mother, two of the greatly beloved women of the Empire. The Hotel Vancouver, in the city of that name, commemorates Captain George Vancouver, the illustrious British sea-rover who sailed his wooden vessel into the harbour one hundred and thirty-two years ago. In Calgary the Hotel Palliser recalls the famous explorer of that name, who was sent years ago to explore the mountains and report on the possibilities of a railroad being built through to the Coast. He reported that a railway could not be built across the continent on British soil. Years afterward the Canadian Pacific proved that Palliser’s conclusion was incorrect. Nevertheless the big Company recognized the greatness of the man, and named the hotel under the shadow of the mountains after him. In those mountains a chain of hotels and chalets and camps, at Banff, Lake Louise, Emerald Lake, Glacier and Sicamous, supply accommodation amid the cathedral mountain peaks where the scenery is conceded to surpass anything of that type in the world. At the Atlantic gateway, in the ancient fortress city of Quebec, stands the Chateau Frontenac, on the site of the chateau of a Governor or Intendant in the old French regime. The architecture of this hotel is of the seventeenth century, and so magnificent are its proportions that as high as fourteen hundred guests have sheltered under its roof at one time during the tourist season. Up in Montreal the Place Viger Hotel stands at the heart of the historic site of the ancient Montreal, a city that was old when our Western cities had not been born. The Hotel Algonquin, down at St. Andrews-by-the-sea, in New Brunswick, swings an Indian name into the orbit of the fashionable tourist traffic of Canada and the United States. Bungalow camps all through the mountains furnish for the tourist, resting places at points so amazingly splendid from a scenic standpoint that they summon annually hosts of tourists who wish to get “near to nature’s heart,” and “far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife.” Thus has the pioneer Canadian transcontinental, built by toilers who slept under the open sky or in the tent by the right of way, erected palatial and romantic resting-places for travellers who desire relief from the rush of modern business, or recreation, in the true sense, after social dissipation of energy in the crowded haunts of fashion. There was a time long ago when only the wealthy and the “leisured” classes could travel and enjoy the quiet by the sea or the majestic scenery of the mountains. But now, by availing themselves of special rates in excursions, touring parties and such like, great crowds of those who best appreciate the opportunity are found on trains making their way to these tonic resorts.

In this chapter on some special features on the Canadian Pacific, we are claiming the liberty of swinging from one subject to another as they come our way. And so we get back to the land and the foundational occupation of tilling the soil. It has always been the policy of the Company to encourage this fundamental industry and to help build up the agricultural side of life on the great Western plains. This, of course, in turn builds up the traffic without which railroads cannot operate anywhere. To this end, apart from the ordinary means of securing settlement and cultivation of land, Mr. Van Horne years ago started a large farm at East Selkirk on the Red River, and the Company, in more recent years, established the famous farm at Strathmore in the irrigated region of Southern Alberta. With means for experiment at their call beyond the reach of the ordinary farmer, the Company has set a higher standard both in grain cultivation and stock, especially the latter. Through sending their stock to exhibitions and in other ways the Company sought to show to farmers the wisdom of eliminating “scrubs” of all kinds, which cost as much to maintain, but produced less in every particular. The other day I saw some beautiful photographs of stock now at the Strathmore farm. They all held fine records and, standing in the pasture beside the irrigation lake, were a joy to behold.

This reference to irrigation leads us to a paragraph or so on the remarkable work done by the Canadian Pacific in order to make the dry spaces of Southern Alberta blossom like the rose. In years when rain is plenteous the need of irrigation is not so apparent, but on the average there are some areas of that southern portion decidedly dry, although fertile if watered. In days far gone by, these areas were the habitat of the buffalo, and in later years ranchers held thousands of acres under rental from the Government for great herds of cattle and droves of horses. From buffalo to the tame species seemed a reasonable transition, and, barring accidents or untimely weather in winter or summer, the ranchers did business of great value to the country, and in most cases, with reasonable management, made money. Then the Government decided that these great spaces should be thrown open for homesteading, and the wide-reaching range has given place to numerous farms over the same area. This was well enough in wet years, but when the dry years came crop failure stared the homesteader in the face. This led Colonel J. S. Dennis, civil engineer and surveyor, who (like his father of the same name and vocation) has been from early times intimately connected with Western Canada in peace and war, to study the whole situation. There had been some limited areas around Lethbridge irrigated by the old Galt Company, and Colonel Dennis advised the Canadian Pacific to go into the business on a large scale. It took a bold man to give that advice and a determined man to carry it through, at a cost to the Company up to date of the huge sum of sixty millions of dollars. Dennis knew that the Bow River, fed by the eternal glaciers of the Rockies, was an inexhaustible source of water supply if it could be properly harnessed for the task of giving sufficient moisture to the dry spaces of the plain. And this was what Colonel Dennis and his assistants proceeded to bring about by turning the waters of the Bow River in directions where it would do most good in making the wilderness rejoice. For centuries in the ancient mythology of Greece and Rome the fable of Hercules, who cleansed the stables of Augeas, the cattle-king, by turning a river through them, was one of the wondrous tales of the world. That was fable and fiction, but the irrigation plan inaugurated by Dennis in Southern Alberta is fact and reality. It is the biggest irrigation movement on the continent, and for pure romantic interest dwarfs the ancient tale of Hercules into insignificance.

The perfection of the engineering arrangements ensure the settler against interruption of the water service and so against worry in regard to his crops. He is sure of the sunshine and in the irrigation area he is sure of the moisture. The Western section of this area has its centre at Calgary, where, through concrete headgates, the water is admitted from the Bow River as desired. A dam is also provided for very dry seasons and at any time water can be sent seventeen miles into an immense reservoir three miles long and two wide. Out of this reservoir are three secondary canals having a total length of 254 miles. These canals supply water to 1,329 miles of distributing ditches, and when the Company brings the water to the highest point on the boundary of a man’s farm, he can then have it run through his ground as he desires.

To irrigate the Eastern section was a greater problem, but near the town of Bassano the immense dam was built which raised the water of the Bow forty feet above its usual level. This Bassano dam is a costly structure with sluice gates operated by electricity. Then there are canals and reservoirs, including the famous artificial Lake Newell, about twenty-five square miles in extent and containing water enough to cover 185,000 acres of land one foot deep. There is in this same locality, near the town of Brooks, the great concrete aqueduct over a depression of the prairie. This huge water carrier is two miles long and, at places, fifty feet above the ground. It is a unique and startlingly modern sight from the train on the great plains where once the lordly buffalo roamed in vast herds with earth-shaking tread.

The results of all this enormous irrigation system are being slowly worked out, and settlers who are intelligently availing themselves of it are finding immensely increased production, especially in grain and root crops, as well as particularly large yields in alfalfa and timothy hay. The irrigated farm affords endless opportunity for cultivating all that goes to make up a prosperous and variegated homestead. It will yet grow to be a new and large factor in Western Canada. It has cost the railway Company much, but will yield its returns to the honour and credit of the men who made waters flow through vast dry areas and proved the truth of the parabolic saying of the Scripture vision, “everything shall live where the river cometh.”

It is rather a far cry from the irrigated areas of Southern Alberta to the more or less aristocratic residential hill at Vancouver city. But both at least are alike in this, namely, that they exemplify special ways of dealing with land. In the one case the land is a great prairie section which we measure by miles, in the other it is a city section which we measure by feet. The residential hill at Vancouver is appropriately called Shaughnessy Heights after Lord Shaughnessy. Properly speaking, Shaughnessy Heights is in the Municipality of Point Grey, where the Canadian Pacific is the heaviest taxpayer. But the residents on the Heights are leading business and professional men of the city, and hence it is popularly, though not correctly, thought to be part of it. The treasurer of Vancouver, with an eye on tax receipts, would not object to its being in the city!

Shaughnessy Heights at one time was intended by the Company to be a separate municipality. But the way was not open, and the next best thing was to make the area a sort of last word in town planning, and so secure a good sale for the lots therein. The district is largely the result of the foresight of Mr. Richard Marpole, who, as executive agent for the Company, felt that unless something was done to clear the land and make the district attractive for residences, the residential area would settle in another direction and the “hill” would be left high and dry on the Company’s hands. Mr. Marpole’s project for clearing and planning a new residential section was not received with enthusiasm by the Board, on account of the large expenditure involved. But he persisted and finally got his way, to have the land cleared by a new process and a town-planning movement inaugurated under the guidance of a specialist from Europe. At present Shaughnessy Heights has an area of about a thousand acres, though not all cleared, and the expenditure by the Company in developing a residential district there has involved the neat sum of two million dollars.

The district was laid out not in rectangular blocks, but by roadways following the contour of the ground, thus providing an easier grade and giving to the maximum number of residents the best view possible of the mountains and the sea. Both the type and the cost of residences and the location as well as the architecture of all buildings, are subject to the Company’s approval. If any intending residents feel restive under these requirements, their feelings are mollified by the knowledge that the Company not only aims at the best results for all who are intending to build, but, in addition, makes liberal terms for the land and loans money to build the houses. The aim of the Company is to prevent uniformity and sameness in style of residences, and, as to street lines, avoid the straightness which means monotony. By Provincial statute the whole district is to be held till 1935 for residential purposes only, except that provision is made for churches, schools, government buildings and recreation grounds. Some seven hundred houses are already erected on Shaughnessy Heights, and the locality is one of Vancouver’s leading attractions to tourists owing to the fine class of buildings, the wonderful flower gardens, and the rather labyrinthine character of the streets. It is a beauty spot above the general level of the city, and a desirable place of residence for those who can afford it. It is presumed that those who cannot afford it will not try the impossible. Mr. Newton Ker, assistant executive agent for the Company at Vancouver, and formerly city engineer in Ottawa, is in charge of the Heights and the further development that will be necessary as the city grows. He has the combined qualities of an expert and an enthusiast in the work.

And now we swing back to take another look at the ever-fascinating and impressive track through the mountains, where we saw the last spike driven at Craigellachie in 1885. It will be remembered that Mr. Van Horne, during all those difficult months when it looked as if the Company, owing to the unexpected and terrific cost of construction, was facing financial disaster, refused to stop or even lessen the work. When times were darkest he put on more men and made a bigger effort to get ahead. As long as Stephen and his associates could raise any money and Shaughnessy handle it to the best advantage, Van Horne turned a deaf ear to all admonitions to slow up in construction operations. He said that to do so would only bring creditors around them like a nest of hornets, and that the road completed from ocean to ocean, or in steady course of completion, would not only make appeal to financial men as something worth investing in, but would soon do a carrying trade which would meet the Company’s obligations. So he drove ahead and rested not till the last spike was driven, as related.

But no one knew better than the big railroader that there remained much to be done. He had seen to it that the work was well done and the track secure and safe for travel. The result of the swift completion was early operation of the road, and justified Van Horne’s view by bringing in revenue at once to meet obligations, and by putting the new railway definitely on the map of the world as a worth while business enterprise.

But the speed in construction made much temporary work necessary. Wooden trestles were not permanent structures, and neither were wooden snowsheds. Grades would require to be reduced in places to meet the demands of growing traffic, and curvatures would have to be modified. Hence engineers and contractors of the highest class have been throughout the years engaged here and there in bringing the whole line to greater perfection, with the result that the Canadian Pacific is wonderfully free from danger or delay. The ordinary passenger through the mountains is conscious that he is travelling amidst splendid scenery on a solid road-bed, but only the practical builder and roadmaster can estimate with what constant skill and care the road has been built up and kept to such a high standard of excellence. But even the ordinary passenger can appreciate things so plainly evident as tunnels, and on the Canadian Pacific through the mountains he will find the most interesting system of spiral tunnels in existence, and he will also enjoy the novelty of speeding in comfort through the longest tunnel on the continent. A word on these famous tunnels may fittingly find a place in this chapter on special features.

Previous to 1908 the grades between Hector and Field, in the mountains, were difficult. For some three miles a grade prevailed which was ten times the maximum grade permitted on heavy prairie work. This involved much difficulty in operating, as it necessitated the use of extra locomotives to pull the train up the grade and prevent it going too fast on the way down. In fact these grades involved the use of spring switches along that portion of the line for safety. Unless the engine-driver of a descending train signalled to the switchman that his train was under control, the setting of a safety-switch would divert the train to a catch siding and so bring it to a stop. This system was operated for twenty-four years without a single accident to a passenger train. To say that is to magnify the trustworthiness of the men who operated on the “Big Hill,” and who evidently lived up to the admonition of the time cards on this division, which read “Obey the rules; be watchful; run no risks.”

But the increase of traffic as the years passed necessitated the construction of the famous spiral tunnels through or under Cathedral Mountain and Mount Ogden and the building of special bridges over the river. Leaving technical points and figures aside, it may be sufficient to say that trains entering these mountains climb or descend in a spiral way with less than half the former engine power and with the utmost degree of safety. In my observation it has been a constant delight to passengers to watch how the train loops inside these mountains and comes out at a different level from that which it entered. It is all so novel and free from danger that travellers, enjoying the sensation, are loud in their praise of the engineers and workmen who thought out and constructed these remarkable spirals through the eternal hills, even though it cost the Company over a million to make this change for the pleasure and safety of their guests over the road.

Still more notable as an engineering feat is the great Connaught Tunnel, five miles long, between Glacier and Stony Creek. It is called after a well-beloved Governor-General of Canada, the Duke of Connaught, son of Queen Victoria, of immortal memory. This tunnel was built to avoid the climb over the top of the famous old Rogers Pass, through a gorge subject in winter and spring to snow-slides, against which the railway was protected by four miles and a half of heavily built snowsheds. These snowsheds were built of wood, and wood is not an everlasting material. Occasionally sections of this long shed would be carried away and all of it would show wear in the process of time. Taking this along with the heavy grade, the Company concluded to tunnel through MacDonald Mountain and solve all the problems at the same time. The construction of this double-track tunnel, the longest on this continent, as noted above, was begun in August, 1913. It took over two years “to make a hole through the mountain,” but another year saw the tunnel open for regular traffic. In addition to eliminating the snowsheds, which are not an infallible protection, the tunnel shortens the distance across the Selkirk range by over four miles, lowers the summit attained by the railway by 552 feet, and reduces track curvatures by an amount corresponding to seven complete circles. Perfect ventilation is attained by powerful fans and I have passed through the Connaught Tunnel again and again with windows open and experienced no inconvenience whatever.

The work was done by contract by a noted builder of big things—railways, canals, wharves, etc.—Mr. J. W. Stewart. Perhaps he is better known to thousands as General “Jack” Stewart, who left his business in Canada and served during the Great War as the builder in France and Flanders of the light railways up to the battle front, which had much to do with the victory of the allies. Stewart had a strenuous time building the Connaught tunnel, Mr. George Bury, then Western Vice-President of the Company, giving active co-operation and being often on the ground.

To recapitulate in some measure the significant things about this tunnel, in which the world’s records for such work were several times exceeded, one can say generally that the building of it is another evidence that the Canadian Pacific Railway will not consider cost in its efforts to eliminate grades, snow troubles or anything else which stands in the way of the efficiency and safe operation of the road. Though the tunnel was opened for traffic about seven years ago, the Company has kept on making such improvements as preclude all danger from loosened rock or such like. With that in view a large number of expert workmen have been kept in the tunnel in regular shifts, and these men are now completing the fine work of lining the whole tunnel, roof, sides and all, with concrete, in such a way that nothing more can be thought of to make the great “bore” through the MacDonald Mountain safe, secure and scientifically sound. The original contract cost has thus been steadily increased for some years, though the tunnel was safe for traffic when it was opened, until it is probably within the limit to say that this great engineering feat has cost the Company close to ten millions. Just what some of the early critics of the cost of the Canadian Pacific, who thought a bonus from the Government of twenty-five millions in addition to a grant of land was excessive, would think of a case like this, must be left to some one with vivid imagination to say. In this single instance we find the Company, after expending an immense sum on crossing through the Rogers Pass in early construction days, building then nearly five miles of expensive snowsheds and having everything in running order, abandoning the whole thing, and at a cost of nearly ten millions more, going on to make their line more useful and more safe. No doubt the early engineers in the 80’s saw that some such tunnel might be possible, but the railway was then battling for life and could not spend nearly half its total cash bonus on a space of five miles in a road that would measure three thousand miles or so across Canada.

There are other special features that might be noticed in connection with the Canadian Pacific Railway, which has now a mileage of twenty thousand miles of road and its house-flag on all the seas. With its one hundred and twenty thousand employees, and a payroll expenditure of nearly one hundred millions a year, it is a large factor in our modern civilization. It has numberless auxiliary organizations, and has the good habit of backing up industries that tend to build up the country. We do not claim that its motives are entirely disinterested in thus assisting other industries and undertakings, but its readiness to do so indicates the truth of Lord Shaughnessy’s statement that what helps to make Canada helps the Canadian Pacific, and vice versa. Present conditions in this vast organization can be studied by actual observation, and therefore do not come within the scope of this work, which was begun mainly to keep alive the facts that should not be left unrecorded in the history of Canada.

And now, therefore, the agreeable task of preserving, in some humble and imperfect way, the record of a great Canadian achievement is coming to an end. It was not our intention to write in any detail of the present-day operations of the world’s greatest transportation system as a prosperous going concern. The Canadian Pacific Railway is an outstanding factor in the life of the modern world. And one is sorry for any one in the employ of this company who does not realize the importance of having a share, however microscopic to one’s self, in the affairs of an enterprise which belts the earth as a contributing element in the onward march of the human family. There is still romance and fascination in the countless activities of an organization with whose continued prosperity is wrapped up the welfare of numberless homes and uncounted legions of human beings. The contemplation of the future of this world-encircling enterprise introduces us to a realm of mystic adventure whose limits are undefined, because beyond the power of finite intelligence to estimate. So we shall not essay what was beyond our purpose from the beginning of this present writing. The purpose we had in view was to prevent the older generation from a calamitous forgetfulness of the things heroic and impressive they have witnessed in connection with the building and operation of the pioneer steel trail across Canada. And, even more specially, was it our purpose to transmit to the coming generation some pen portraits of giant men whom they are not to know in real life. One regrets the impossibility of placing on these pages a full roll of honour on which is emblazoned not only all those more or less conspicuously connected with the enterprise, but the names of the unknown warriors who, in a great host, moved gallantly forward in as brave a fight against obstacles as the world of industry has ever known. Thousands of these men were under the stress and strain of intense endeavour, or engaged in work where their lives were constantly in danger. They not only went forward undismayed, but solemnly handed on to others the task they could not themselves finish. Like Sir Walter Scott’s wounded knight who, when carried dying from the field, still heard the roar of the conflict and cheered his comrades on to victory, these brave men did their part and encouraged others to persevere. The task they accomplished in the making of Canada into a great Confederacy of Provinces, linked indissolubly together as a noble Dominion, must not be allowed to pass into oblivion. The coming generation must not miss the tonic power that comes from a knowledge of great achievement in a nation’s life. In ancient Egypt it was when men arose who knew not what Joseph had done to give a new and great trend to their history, that the land of the Pharaohs began a journey towards decadence. Our hope is that this book and similar records of life in Canada will help to put iron into the blood of the coming generations, in order that this new land by their consecrated labours may shine with ever-growing lustre in the firmament of human life and history.