Canadian Transport Sourcebook

Chapter II

Organization

The organization of survey parties to run trial lines through the wilderness was now in full swing.

The Headquarters Staff was increased and even the highly inefficient Commissariat Department was attended to and there was less shortage of the necessaries of life. Main depôts of supplies were established at all principal points accessible by water. Thunder Bay, on Lake Superior, was a great distributing point, and Fort Garry, on the Red River, was another important place where provisions could be obtained from the Hudson's Bay Company. The Headquarters of this vast organization, as I previously remarked, were established up on the hill in the old stone barracks overlooking the Ottawa River, and it was from there that the master mind issued his orders.

I must now pay a tribute to the Divisional Engineers and all their officers and men engaged on these surveys. In my humble opinion, based upon many years of service in various capacities, there was never known a more loyal, conscientious, thorough-going set of men than those on the Engineering Staff of the C.P.R. Far removed from the watchful eye of their chief, only occasionally inspected by the District Engineers whose duties extended over enormous areas, these men conscientiously performed the work allotted to them, keeping a daily record of events, always striving to reach the goal to which they were ordered, often under most hazardous and heartrending conditions. Patiently enduring sickness, often on short rations, exposed to every known kind of weather, conscientiously giving a man's work for a poor day's pay, keeping regular hours with no holidays except Sundays (and not even those for the officers), they religiously plodded along through Summer's heat and Winter's icy blast till the line was finished and they were ordered home.

I merely point this out to show how easy it would have been for a "slacker," hundreds of miles from his base, to have taken things easily and loafed on the job, allowing his men to idle, himself enjoying any fishing or shooting there might happen to be in the vicinity. Instead of which these men, with truly loyal instincts, followed a deadly dull daily routine of duty day after day, week after week, month after month, until they once more reported at Headquarters on the hill.

What was there to prevent one of these men, isolated as he was from the outside world for many months, with no check on his movements, from leisurely taking his own time, turning out when he felt like it in the morning and knocking off whenever he chose at night? He could falsify his daily diary, fudge his observations and then, like the celebrated Doctor Cook, return home a hero and declare he had been to the North Pole. There was no Peary to discredit him.

It was in 1873, I think, that I went out with a jolly old Irishman as second officer. His name was Henry Carre, C.E., a well-known engineer from the Inter-Colonial Railway. My immediate senior officer was good old Horatio F. Forrest, a man much older than myself, of particularly precise and correct habits and extremely methodical; he neither smoked, swore nor drank, which was somewhat of a novelty in our profession, besides which, I believe, he was a devoted Christian and used to say his prayers before turning in.

As we were running through a heavily timbered country I had an easy time and did not have to turn out in the mornings with Forrest, but waited till he had some line cut through the woods when I could easily catch up with the levels.

I remember how Horatio used to annoy me in the dull grey mornings, when I would feign extreme fatigue and sleepiness and take some time to wake up. At last, goaded to desperation, I perpetrated the following "Poem," addressed to Horatio:

The Summer's sun was rising fast
O'er lakes and rivers of the past,
When H.F.F., the transit man,
Sprang from his couch and thus began:
"Oh, Secretan, turn out, I pray,
"And don't lie sleeping all the day,
"'Tis half-past five: You say, 'What bosh!'
"Come, come! Get up and take a wash,
"For breakfast now will soon appear,
"The sounds of knives and forks I hear."
The cook sings out in accents clear,
Which grate on my awakening ear.
And yet that transit man still cries:
"Oh , Secretan, arise! arise!"
I peep from out my blankets green,
Sit up, and on one elbow lean;
At my warm bed take one fond look
Then make a bee-line for the brook,
Where quickly I my head immerse
And everything in general curse,
Murmuring the while at my hard life
Wishing I'd never left my wife
Or little ones who looked at me
And clung so fondly round my knee,
It may be right, it may be wrong,
There's no redress at Nipigon.
So as I sing this plaintive lay
The time is up, I must away;
The sun darts down his fiercest ray,
Those awful flies commence to play
Beginning thus—Another day!

This much amused old Henry Carre, whose soul was not without some poetry, which—alas!—was totally absent from the soul of Horatio, who looked at me more in sorrow than in anger and wondered what would be the ultimate fate of such a promising and yet frivolous young man. I suppose he thought that I was destined to be hanged some day and no doubt prayed for me that night accordingly, while the jolly old boss and I were having a good game of cribbage until the early hours.

While we were "doing our bit," many other Divisions were distributed from the head waters of the Ottawa River West, (the District under James H. Rowan, C.E.), towards Fort Garry on the Red River, now the great City of Winnipeg. In the Rocky Mountains, I believe, about that time, my old friend Walter Moberly, C.E., belonging to a distinguished family of engineers, was prowling round examining many different alleged passes some to be commended and considered, and others condemned and rejected. the old Moberly log-huts where he wintered on the Columbia River, somewhere near Golden, are, I believe, still in existence. On the Pacific Coast, harbours were being examined with regard to their suitability for a Western Terminus. Engineers' offices were opened in Victoria, B.C., about 1873 or 1874, for these parties from the Coast. All the Eastern Divisions reported to Headquarters in Ottawa—except those that were kept in the field all Winter, which often occurred, as in many districts Winter was a favourable season for making rapid explorations, dog-sleds being used for transportation or toboggans hauled by men.

Those of us who were lucky enough to get home in the Winter came to Ottawa and worked on the plans showing our Summer's work, until navigation opened in the Spring. These plans and profiles were very elaborate and thorough, the ordinary working plan being 400-feet to an inch, while a small scale general plan of 4,000-feet to an inch was made showing the whole line.

In 1874, the old Barracks were burned down one cold Winter's night, and when I arrived at my office next morning I found nothing but icicles and firemen. Most of these valuable plans were destroyed, but some few were saved and with the help of notes, diaries and memory, we started to make new ones in temporary quarters apportioned to us in the Senate and Commons.

The Capital in those days was exceedingly gay, and young husky returned engineers were always in great demand at balls and fétes, having no difficulty in competition with the pallid yet persevering bank clerk for the favours of the fair sex in the mazy waltz.