Canadian Transport Sourcebook

Chapter 8: The Story of the Canadian Pacific Railway by Keith Morris

The Making of a Nation.

An American senator in a moment of irritable admiration described the Canadian Pacific Railway as 'The Dominion of Canada On Wheels'—a definition which, although of an exaggerated nature, suggests the dominating position which the 'C.P.R. has acquired in the affairs of a nation.

From the beginning of their existence the Canadian Pacific Railway Company have been the leading factors in the national development of the Dominion. 'Never were the fortunes of a great country and a great commercial corporation so closely intertwined as in the case of the Canadian Dominion and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company,' Dr. Parkin wrote only nine years after the historic happening at Craigellachie. 'From Halifax to Vancouver the "C.P.R.," as it is familiarly called, is a factor, and often a large factor, in the affairs alike of the country village and of the great city—in the politics of the municipality, the province and the Dominion.'

Since those days of which Parkin writes, the Canadian Pacific have gone far, very far, and have become an even more dominating factor in the economic and social life of the Dominion. And the position they have acquired is the natural sequence of their activities, for the Company are doing much of the work which in other countries is done by the Government. The Dominion and Provincial Governments of Canada are accomplishing their splendid part in the task of securing settlers from the British Isles, the United States of America, and other parts of the world, and assisting them to become worthy citizens of the Dominion, but the settlement of the great agricultural plains of the West, which has brought Britain's great over-sea Dominion before the eyes of the world, is primarily the result of the building, development, and operation of the transcontinental line through a region which before the advent of the iron horse of civilization was the domain of savages and buffaloes.

The railway galvanised a sleeping country into activity. The West was awakened by the touch of steel.

The Goddess of Agriculture had in her goodness endowed the land with the power to produce grain in abundance. But she needed the aid of man in making the land exercise its wonderful power and assume its heritage as the Granary of an Empire.

The Canadian Pacific, it might be fancied, made a compact with Ceres. 'Do your part in the giving of crops,' they said, 'and we will do ours. We will bring the men, from all the ends of the earth if need be, to plough and cultivate the land into productivity.' Ceres replied: 'I agree.'

The Canadian Pacific Railway Company are carry out their part of the 'compact with Ceres' vigorously. They have become the biggest homemakers in Canada. By the establishment of C.P.R. 'colonies,' where the interests and happiness of the settlers are promoted and jealously guarded by the Company; by their activities in Great Britain, Northern Europe and the United States in securing settlers, not only for their own lands, but for the Dominion as a whole; and by their co-operation with the Dominion and Provincial Governments and civic municipalities in every scheme which has for its object the progress of Canada and Canadians, they are worthily fulfilling their pledge.

In this work of nation-building the conversion of an area of three million acres of ranching land into a crop-yielding territory, supporting a prosperous community, is a noteworthy achievement.

Southern Alberta has veritably been irrigated into prosperity. Before the wizard wand of the C.P.R. was waved over the land the rancher and his cattle reigned supreme. Now the farmer is king, paying homage only to the Company who supply him with the water of agricultural life—the homage, not of subjection, but of gratitude.

The work has not yet reached its finality. But that already accomplished constitutes the system the largest of its kind on the American continent and second in the world. From the great Bassano Dam, connecting with the Bow River, there radiates a network of canals and ditches, which are as the arteries of the body corporate, and through which flows the life-giving fluid from the mountains beyond. In the establishment of 'Ready Made Farms' in Western Canada for British settlers the Company have laid the foundations of what will ultimately develope into an immense colonization project. Indeed, as a prominent economist has said, the far-seeing statesmanship of the Canadian Pacific is nowhere more clearly exemplified than in their efforts to stimulate immigration. 'The direct aim of the Company in prosecuting this work is to benefit their stockholders. But in looking after the interests of their proprietors they are promoting the welfare of the Dominion and of the British Empire. They are assisting to provide Canada with what she stands most in need of—population. They have irrigated a desert into land that is bearing the richest crops. They are ministering to the Dominion's political stability through helping to maintain an equilibrium between the races, and the constant manifestation of the railway's executive of a public spirit has done much to earn for the Company the good will of the people.'

In war, as in peace, the Canadian Pacific Company have helped valiantly in the cause of Empire. Even before the railway was completed the Company were involved in matters military, and the story of their achievement during the Riel Rebellion, when the Indian and half-breed population of the Western plains were in arms against the Dominion Government, and the scattered white settlements were in dire peril, is memorable in Canadian history.

The new railway had one hundred and thirty miles to be completed. William Van Horne, recognising that if the rebellion was to be crushed without disastrous consequences to Canada the soldiers would have to be conveyed to the scene of insurrection without delay, offered to the Premier, Sir John A. Macdonald, to undertake the task of transporting the troops.

'How can you carry men without a railway? It is impossible,' answered the Premier.

'Raise the men, and give me a week's notice of their arrival, and I pledge myself to do it.'

'What do you pledge?' asked Sir John.

'I pledge my word, and, if necessary, my life.' was the answer.

'Can you do it in a month's time?' was the next question.

'I will do it in eleven days to Fort Qu'Appelle,' said Van Horne. 'Send up the men and I only make one stipulation: I shall carry them up in my own way, and they are under my direction for transport and supplies.' ('I was not going to have quarter-masters and such-like fussy folks bothering about red tape and supplies,' said Van Horne, in describing the episode.)

'The railway was being built in sections and there were many gaps in it. But the sleds which had brought four thousand men up to work on the railway line were available. Into these Van Horne packed the soldiers like sardines in a barrel. He directed his own transport, and he took them across the snow whenever there was a gap in the railway line, and he reached Qu'Appelle in six days, thus leaving five days to spare over and above the contract which he had made.' And the rebellion was crushed.

In the greatest of world wars the Canadian Pacific railway Company proved of immense service to Canada and to the Mother Land. 'Imperial in character, international in influence, trans-continental in size, the Canadian Pacific Railway occupies a premier position in the activities of this growing country. Therefore, in the first business of Canada, the successful prosecution of the war, it was not surprising that the Canadian Pacific Railway took a prominent part. Canadian Pacific ships transported men, munitions, and food supplies across the Atlantic.

In their primary business of railroading the Company handled with despatch their share of the immense crops of wheat and grain from the western prairies, much of which was sent to the Allies in Europe. The executive officials and employees gave their assistance to the Empire and to Canada, both on active service and in the acquisition, manufacture, or transportation of the various "bullets" that were so necessary to bring to a successful issue the operations carried on by British forces.'

On the declaration of hostilities, Lord Shaughnessy was able to offer for the service of the Government perhaps the most perfect organization of its kind in the world, an organization controlling fast ships capable of being converted into armed cruisers and transport on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, nineteen thousand miles of railway track for the transportation of men and supplies across and from Canada, and a telegraph system of over one hundred thousand miles of wires.

Three of the Pacific 'Empresses' were made into armed cruisers, and, as narrated elsewhere, did good work in helping to round up the elusive German 'Emden.' Before being released by the British Admiralty the 'Empress of Russia' steamed eighty thousand miles in seven months over the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and several of the Company's Atlantic vessels formed part of the great modern Armadas which brought the Canadian Expeditionary Forces to England under the watchful care of the all-powerful British navy.

At the request of the Canadian Government the Canadian Pacific formed a Railway Construction Corps for service in Flanders; this corps was described by the King as one of the finest bodies of men he had ever seen, and their work at the front exemplified their capacity as experts. For the securing of general war supplies in the Dominion, the Imperial Munitions Board commissioned the Purchasing Department of the Company to act on their behalf.

In these and other ways the Canadian Pacific worked, and worked strenuously, in the service of the British Empire. In the annals of the Company the record of their work during Armageddon stands high in a record of great national and Imperial achievements.

In that mightiest of all the world's structures, the British Empire, Canada occupies an imposing position, and the progress of the Dominion automatically adds to the progress of the Empire. As a leading factor in the development of British North America, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company are taking an important part in the development of the Imperial fabric.

They are primarily a commercial corporation, with profit-yielding transportation by land and sea as their chief function. But in the very nature of their work they are Empire builders. From the moment of the driving of the last spike in the transcontinental railway the Canadian Pacific assumed a status of Imperial significance. The saving of British Columbia, the opening of the vast agricultural plains of Western Canada to settlement, the linking of Canada and Canada's people from ocean to ocean, the establishment of an all-British highway from Great Britain to Asia and Australasia, the stimulus to the industrial activities of Eastern Canada, the widening of the national horizon—these were the immediate results of the Company's work.

The development of trade between Canada and the Mother Country and between the Dominion and her sister Dominions, the peopling of the prairies with British citizens, the establishment of the wheat zone—Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta—as the Granary of Empire, the securing of a higher place for Canada among the nations of the world, and the strengthening of the Imperial family ties—these are among the later fruits of the Company's activities.

In truth, the history of the Canadian Pacific is a history of work from which have sprung results of far-reaching value to Canada and to the Empire.

In many and varied ways is this great work accomplished. Not the least of these is the part played by the Company in the Dominion tours of members of the Royal Family, as evidenced by the remarkable accomplishments of the C.P.R. during the historic visit of the Prince of Wales to Canada in 1919. 'An Imperial service has been rendered by the Canadian Pacific Railway,' a correspondent's message to his journal in London reads, 'and it may well be doubted whether there is any other corporation in the world which could have even attempted such a feat as the transport of the Prince with his staff and attendant journalists over a journey of ten thousand miles. The train was a triumph amidst the other triumphs of the tour, and His Royal Highness went himself to the C.P.R. offices in Montreal and expressed to Lord Shaughnessy, the Chairman and Mr. E. W. Beatty, the President, his appreciation of the splendid services which the company had rendered to him and his staff during his journey.

'It was one of the most wonderful journeys that have even been accomplished in the history of railway travel,' another correspondent records. 'The mere mileage covered in itself is remarkable. During the last two months the Prince has crossed and recrossed the Dominion from ocean to ocean, besides making several side journeys north and south of the main route. On one occasion the whole train was transported a considerable distance on barges up Lake Kootenay, a feat never before attempted by the Company on so large a scale, and that portage, like every other detail of the travelling arrangements for the whole journey, was carried through without a hitch.

'Altogether, the control and service of the Royal train—the most completely and elaborately equipped that has ever been run—were a wonderful exhibition of highly-trained human efficiency. But there was something more in it than that. The machine worked without a hitch because every constituent part of it was inspired, first of all, with a desire to make the journey as smooth as in them lay, because of the personal devotion which the Prince arouses from all who come in contact with him; and, secondly, with the mutual spirit of loyalty between the employees and employers of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which is characteristic of all I have seen of the working of the Company. One of the greatest compliments paid to the Prince during his stay in Canada has been the spirit in which everything connected with the working and organisation of the train which has been his home for over two months has been carried out.'

The Canadian Pacific Railway, like a rolling snowball, gathers size with impetus. As the Dominion expands the Canadian Pacific as an integral and vitally essential part must grow with it, just as Canada must grow with the Canadian Pacific the country and the corporation are interdependent.

To that growth no man or woman can state a limit. The enormous and incalculably rich natural resources of Canada, only a meagre portion of which has yet been tapped; the immensity from her national territory, comprising in area nearly four million square miles—forty per cent. of the area of the British Empire; her brain, body, and character-building climate; her geographical position, midway between Europe and Asia, and contiguous to the United States of America, with the Atlantic fronting her shores on the east and the Pacific on the west;the virility and enterprise of her people, now numbering only nine million, in a country with room and scope for two hundred milling, all assure the Dominion in the future a proud position among the great nations of the world.

In the fulfilling of Canada's national destiny, the Canadian Pacific will continue, as in the past, to take a strenuous part. Already the Company are preparing to render titanic assistance in the solution of the problems which have come to all nations after the cessation of strife and a war-scarred world has laid down its death-dealing arms, and the accomplishment of tasks made bigger by strife.

They are assisting manfully in the solution of the ex-soldier problem. Any man who served on active service in the Canadian Unit of the British Army, or in the British Army or Navy; or in any Unit of any British Dominion, or a Canadian who served with any of the Allied Forces in the Great War, is eligible to obtain a farm under the Canadian Pacific Railway Scheme of Land Colonization by Returned Soldiers, provided he has certain qualifications which are fully set out in the regulations.

The project has been formulated and brought into force with a keen desire on the part of the Company to do their share in recognising the work of men who fought for the Empire, and who now desire to take up farming. While it is recognised that the scheme must of necessity contain something of philanthropy in the way of easy terms and material assistance in the earlier years of the settler's efforts it is not, of course, intended to do otherwise than administer those farms on a thoroughly business-like basis, or to allow them to be taken up except by men who are earnest in their intention to try and make a success of farming and who have the foundation qualifications to justify an expectation of success.

Under this assisted settlement plan the approved settler may select his own farm from the Company's lands in certain defined districts of Alberta and Saskatchewan, the area not exceeding three hundred and twenty acres. The Company will advance the settler a sum up to two thousand dollars, and, if satisfied that he is unable to provide living expenses for himself and his family during the first year of his occupation, financial assistance will be rendered for this purpose. The payment for the land and advances is spread over a period of twenty-two years, and in every way possible the Company will help the soldier-settler to attain that success and happiness in his career in Western Canada to which his valiant defence of the Empire on the battlefields of Europe rightly and justly entitles him. Aided by its European organization, the Canadian Pacific will thus be a leading factor in the movement to Canada and settlement therein of British men, women, and children now that the black clouds of war have been scattered by the sweet winds of peace.

It is a noble work that lies ahead of the Canadian Pacific Company—a work fraught with significance to Canada and to the British Empire.

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.