Canadian Transport Sourcebook

Chapter 6: The Story of the Canadian Pacific Railway by Keith Morris

Superstructure.

The economic history of Canada since 1885 is fundamentally the history of the Canadian Pacific. As the railway and its many anxiliaries develop so developes the Dominion.

The record of growth is unsurpassed in the annals of industrial enterprise. The railway mileage controlled by the Company has expanded to nearly twenty thousand miles. the single track of early years is rapidly being converted into a double track from ocean to ocean; branch lines and connections have been extended north, south, east and west, spreading settlement and civilisation with the rails; mountain grades have been halved; long lines of snowsheds have been supplanted by tunnels which pierce the giant buttresses of the Selkirks; trestle bridges have given way to steel; "ocean" liners have been placed on the Great Lakes; gigantic additions have been made to the storage capacity of the grain elevators; a hundred thousand miles of telegraph lines are now in operation; palatial new hotels have been erected and additions and improvements made to the older; new railway stations have been built in the big centres of population which, along with the Company's hotels, are among the leading architectural features of the cities and a source of pride to the citizens; immense railway workshops have been developed—the Angus workshops in Montreal, employing six thousand men, rank first in magnitude on the American continent; a million and a half acres of arid land in Southern Alberta have been irrigated and made suitable for intensive farming; and huge modern liners have been added to the Atlantic and Pacific fleets, constituting these the pre-eminent factors in the Canadian-Atlantic and Canadian-Pacific maritime traffic.

One hundred and twenty thousand men are to-day on the pay roll of the Canadian Pacific. 'It might be said that over five hundred thousand persons are directly interested in and look forward to the monthly pay-day, while, if we consider the allied interests, the indirect relations sustained one way or another, the commercial and industrial affiliations of the Company outside the regular list of employees, we get over one million people more or less directly concerned, in the issuance, once a month of those seemingly innumerable bits of paper which are so eagerly transmuted into bread and butter. If, however, we get beyond all those who are more or less directly interested in the Company, and reach out to the various activities which depend on the Company—each industrial organism with its own army of employees; if we consider every allied or affected interest, we find that the entire population of Canada are affected in their lives and outlook by the operations of the C.P.R.'

In this work of expansion—a work which has resulted in the creation of a superstructure of world-wide fame and significance—the same indomitable energy has been shown as in the building of the line. In the closing sentences of Lord Mount Stephen's farewell letter, written, readers will remember, scarcely three years after the completion of the transcontinental line, the retiring President said:—'I cannot refrain from congratulating the Shareholders upon the arrangements recently completed by Sir Donald A. Smith and myself which will have the effect of securing to the Canadian Pacific Railway the permanent friendship of the new and important American lines, extending from Sault Ste. Marie to Minneapolis and St. Paul on the one hand, and to Duluth on the other, and reaching a traffic the importance of which would be difficult to over-estimate. It is also a matter for congratulation that arrangements have been practically settled with the Wabash Railway for the permanent connection between the Detroit River and Chicago and the South-West; and, further, that the long pending negotiations with the Imperial Government for the establishment of a first-class steamship line between Vancouver and Japan and China have at last been concluded.'

The establishment of a chain of hotels across Canada is not the least important of the Company's developments. From the Atlantic to the Pacific these hostelries are of much utility to travellers, who otherwise would frequently have to endure the discomforts of the 'second-rate' and often unwholesome accommodation which only is available in communities still in the early stages of growth.

The Chateau Frontenac, in Quebec, the dominating architectural features of Canada's most historic city, and the Hotel Vancouver—'The World's Half-Way House'—in Vancouver are meeting-paces of wayfarers from all corners of the earth. The Place Viger, in Montreal, the Royal Alexandra, in Winnipeg, the Hotel Palliser, in Calgary, the Banff Springs Hotel, in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, and the Empress Hotel, in Victoria—'that little bit of England on the Pacific'—are establishments of the highest national and continental repute, and in many other centres of Canadian travel the Canadian Pacific Railway hotel is a radiator of social activities, or a haven of rest, according to the tastes and desires of the visitors.

A story—a true story—is told of an American woman who, after gazing at one of the world's wonders, the great Illecillewaet Glacier, a mighty mass of crystal ice towering thousands of feet from the level of the Canadian Pacific railway track, asked in all earnestness: "Is it a real glacier, or only one that the Company have put there for an advertisement?"

That was a task beyond the powers of even the men of the C.P.R. But to them belongs the credit of opening to the nations of the earth the portals of a mountain region which, for immensity and scenic grandeur, is unparalleled elsewhere in the world. 'Sixty Switzerlands rolled into one,' is the description by Edward Whymper, the conqueror of the Matterhorn, of this land of peaks and eternal snow. 'It is a glut of glory,' said another traveller, her mind overwhelmed by the sheer riot of splendour.

The Canadian Government quickly realised the priceless treasure which the railway had brought to the nation. An Act was passed, 'after a memorable debate in the Dominion House of Commons,' setting apart for the use and enjoyment of the people a national park, to be named the Rocky Mountains Park, with the C.P.R. station of Banff as the radial centre. Subsequently this park was extended to embrace an enormous area, and Yoho Park and Glacier Park were also added later to the national reservation—a reservation comprising a territory nearly six thousand square miles in extent.

'Let us think of the future,' Lord Bryce has said. 'We are the trustees of the future. We are not here for ourselves alone. All these gifts were not given to us to be used by one generation or with the thought of one generation only before our minds. We are the heirs of those who have gone before, and charged with the duty of what we owe to those who come after, and there is no duty which seems to be higher than that of handing on to them undiminished facilities for the enjoyment of some of the best gifts the Creator has seen fit to bestow upon his people.' The Dominion Government, to their honour, have given practical effect to Lord Bryce's dictum, and their national park policy rests on a broad and generous basis.

To preserve intact for the benefit not only of Canadians but for visitors from all parts of the globe the resplendent and majestic beauties of the mountain zone of Alberta and British Columbia is a work worthy of the Government of a great Dominion. And in that work the Canadian Pacific Railway Company are helping nobly. 'It is the people's right to have primitive access to the remote places of safest retreat from the fever and the fret of the market place and the beaten tracts of life. We are devoutly grateful, as we ought to been, that the Canadian Pacific Railway Company have shown themselves wise in a national sense, by refusing to follow in the wake of the cog-railways of the Rigi and Pike's Peak': it is a Canadian mountaineer's tribute.

While assisting in the work of conservation, the Company are active in the work of development on aesthetic lines. At the great scenic centres, Banff, Lake Louise, Field, Emerald Lake, and Glacier—they established mountain hotels and these have become the headquarters of mountaineers. They instituted a service of Swiss guides, and the model Swiss village of 'Edelweiss' for the homes of these sturdy sons of the mountains. They built a number of specially equipped observation cars for travelers whose only opportunities for seeing the region in all its native glory are from the railway train. They employed world-famed mountaineers to explore and map the country; they cut mountain trails; and in general have encouraged and assisted every scheme for the creation and improvement of facilities for a full appreciation of this dazzling Land of Enchantment.

In the big work of building a motor road through the mountains from Calgary to Vancouver they are associated with the Dominion Government and the Provincial Governments of ability and British Columbia. The route of this road which, when completed, will be the most beautiful and alluring of all the pathways of Canada, follows the old coach road from Calgary to Banff and on to Lake Louise as far as Castle Mountain, turns thence to Vermilion Pass, the boundary of Rocky Mountain Park on this side. From Vermilion Pass the road crosses the Briscoe Range by Sinclair Pass and ascends the valley of the Columbia to Windermere Lake and the source of the Columbia. Crossing the spit of land that separates the Columbia from its mighty tributary to Kootenay, the mountain highway follows the latter stream to Wardner, then verges west to Kootenay Lake and Nelson, crosses the Columbia again after its huge bend to the north, and swings down to the international boundary at Grand Forks. From there the road follows a general westerly direction, crossing Okanagan River, ascending the Similkameen, traversing the Hope Range and coming down the Coquihalla to Hope on the Fraser River, and descending the Fraser to Vancouver.

An alternative route runs west from Windermere, other the Wells Pass, crosses the Lardo country to the head of Lower Arrow Lake, thence up Fire Valley to the old wagon road to Vernon and Grand Prairie, thence by way of Douglas Lake to Merritt and a junction with the main route. The main road from Calgary to Vancouver will have a total length of about six hundred miles, constituting a panorama of scenic glory.

Another alternative route swings east from Wardner and traverses the Crow's Nest Pass to the Alberta side of the Rockies, then follows the foothills to Calgary. Yet another branch of the main highway runs from Castle Mountain through Rocky Mountains Park to Field and Golden. The route of this branch and that portion of the main road from Castle Mountain to the Columbia Valley traverses several wildly beautiful valleys and mountain passes, encircling a region of heaven-towering peaks, snowfields, glaciers, ice-cascades, lakes and waterfalls—a peerless region which rouses nature lovers to ecstasy.

The nomenclature of the Rocky Mountains and Selkirk Mountains exemplifies and commemorates the stupendous achievement of the explorers and builders of the Canadian Pacific Railway of making a great national heritage available to the people.

Mount Stephen, a giant among the giants of the Rockies, is named after the first President of the Company, who later took his title as a British peer of the realm—Lord Mount Stephen—from this cloud-splitting crag. Van Horne Range in the Rockies and Van Horne Glacier in the Selkirks commemorate the Master Builder. Mount Hector is named after the adventurous discoverer of the Kicking Horse Pass— a pass others named from an incident in the explorer's travels. In the Selkirks, the majestic Mount Sir Donald and Sir Donald Glacier are everlasting tributes to the driver of the last spike at Craigellachie, and Mount Shaughnessy stands as a stately statue to Lord Shaughnessy. Rogers Pass, Rogers Peak, and Rogers Glacier honour the intrepid pathfinder, and Albert Canyon and Albert Peaks, his nephew who accompanied him in his exploratory expeditions; Moberly Peak towers in testimony to the work of the dauntless discoverer of Eagle Pass, Mount Sir Sandford, king of the Selkirks, and Fleming Peak are named after the great engineer, and Grant Peak commemorates his friend, Dr. Grant, who shared the hardships of his travels in the mountains.

It is a galaxy of noble names.

When Sir William Van Horne retired from the Presidency in 1898—he succeeded Lord Mount Stephen in that position—his mantle of office was placed on the shoulders of a man who was well able to bear it, and who had been his most brilliant lieutenant: Thomas Shaughnessy.

To the far-seeing and courageous vision, organising genius, administrative and executive ability, and forceful personality of Lord Shaughnessy (as he afterwards became) was mainly due the great modern developments which have made the Canadian Pacific Railway famed throughout the world and which earned for him the appellation: 'King of Railway Presidents.'

'Under Shaughnessy's regimé a colonial railway company expanded into a tremendous world-circling web of commerce of Imperial significance, with radiations in every quarter of the globe. Such developments do not take place by themselves; they require imagination, foresight, and a broad, open outlook, which together spell genius. These qualities the president brought to his life work—these, and an untiring energy and a knowledge of his business that can only be won by those who have climbed upward through every grade.' The words are those of a Canadian writer.

Lord Shaughnessy retired from the Presidency in 1918, but continues to act as Chairman of the Company and as such his valued counsel is still available. In handing over the reins of office he said: 'When the time came when the future welfare of the Company demanded that a younger and more active man should be charged with the duties of chief executive, it was a most fortunate circumstance that the Board of Directors had in hand a man of such paramount ability, and such unquestioned integrity, and such great vision as possessed by our new President, my successor, Mr. E. W. Beatty.'

Mr. Beatty is the first Canadian-born President of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, and is worthily maintaining the traditions of his great office. His administrative talents and executive ability have proved more than equal to the demands of the position, and his statesmanlike grasp of Canada's peculiar problems and his utterances thereon have given him a high place in the national life of the Dominion. He has a strong human element in his temperament, or character—call it what you will—and his position as President of the C.P.R., with a vast army of men under his control, has had no effect on the friendly spirit which characterises all his relations with his fellow-beings. To his intimates of earlier days he is still 'Ed' or 'Eddie,' and his intimates are still 'Bill' or 'Bob' or whatever they may be named, to him.

Mr. Beatty's outlook is eminently sane. He believes that to attain success the most essential thing is good health. Of the moral qualities essential to success he emphasises honesty, courage and modesty. No man, he says, who is not honest, has attained permanent success. He may appear to do so. He may amass money by means which are at least doubtful, but without honesty he cannot gain or retain the respect of his fellow-men, and without that no man can be said to be a success.

Moral courage is what enables a man to do right regardless of what others think or say. Physical courage is very common. 'Moral courage is more rare,' Mr. Beatty says, and life, alas! shows only too well the truth of his dictum. Modesty he also regards as an essential. 'There is nothing more admirable than the modesty of a man who at the same time maintains his own self-respect. Coupled with modesty is courtesy, and most modest people are courteous. Most conceited people are not.'

As President of the Canadian Pacific, and as Chancellor of the McGill University, Mr. Beatty occupies a leading place in the national life of Canada and has, perforce, to make frequent appearances on the platform. He makes no pretence to oratory, but he is a forceful public speaker who says what he means clearly and succinctly, and has the magnetism to hold his audience deeply interested. The kind of speech that he makes is one that is frequently punctuated with applause, and his enthusiastic reception on rising is invariably magnified into an ovation when he closes his peroration. He always catches the crowd.

'Mr. Beatty has no fads,' says George Ham in his "Reminiscences." 'He still enjoys witnessing athletic sports, which he indulged in during his boyhood days, likes a good play at the theatre, delights in a horse-race, and will cheerfully join in a game of cards. His politics are "Canada and the Canadian Pacific Railway.' He enjoys the unbounded confidence of his large circle of friends, and the officials and employees of the Company look to him as one pre-eminently fitted to fill the high position which came to him because of his great personality, clean, forceful character, and his many fine qualities of head and heart.'

Copyright/Licence: The author or authors of this work died in 1964 or earlier, and this work was first published no later than 1964. Therefore, this work is in the public domain in Canada per sections 6 and 7 of the Copyright Act. See disclaimers.