Ocean to Ocean
As we have followed the story of railway construction across the
continent, over the North Shore, athwart the vast plains and on into the
mountains, our eyes have been on the Western sea. It was to win and hold
the illimitable spaces of the North-West that the Canadian Pacific was
first conceived, and it was specially to link up British Columbia with
her sister Provinces to the east that the iron horses were being driven
on steel trails to drink on the sunset shore of Canada.
But we must always keep in mind the fact that this railway was to be
transcontinental in its extent, and that it was down by the Atlantic,
first of all, that men who saw visions and dreamed dreams forecasted its
great destiny by land and sea. They saw it spanning the continent,
continuing across the Pacific, and finally, under one system, girdling
the globe. Others, earlier, made conjectures and expressed vague hopes,
but the most clear and confident note of prophecy was sounded by Joseph
Howe at Halifax, in 1851, in the famous speech quoted in our first
chapter. Later, in the old Province of Quebec, where in a sense
Confederation was first definitely outlined at the Conference of the
Fathers of Confederation in 1864, this prophetic note was taken up and
rendered more emphatic. Thus were the Atlantic statesmen planning ahead.
Moreover, it is interesting to recall that it was Mr. Sanford Fleming,
the engineer of the Intercolonial, peculiarly an Atlantic Railway, who
was called on to explore a railroad way to the Pacific. It was his
secretary on that expedition, the brilliant and versatile Rev. (later
Principal) George Munro Grant, then of Halifax, who made the expression
“Ocean to Ocean” current coin in Canada, by publishing a book under that
title. And still another Halifax writer, Robert Murray, immortalized the
expression, by composing a remarkable hymn with the same designation.
Thus were the oceans early linked prophetically by patriotic seers and
mystics.
Just now I am looking at the realization of these dreams as portrayed in
a unique picture which ought to be found on the wall of every school in
Canada. This picture is commonly called “Driving the last spike,” and to
the superficial observer, unacquainted with the history of the Canadian
Pacific, it means simply the act of joining together the steel rails
which met at a given point in the mountains, as the track-layers,
working from East and West, finished their protracted task. But, in
reality, it means much more than a single isolated act along the
progress of the years. It is a composite deed into which is merged and
concentrated a long series of astonishing achievements wrought by men of
brain and brawn. It represents many mental, moral and physical forces
converging into a climax which could only have been attained by the
persistent, determined efforts of those who believed that obstacles are
thrown in life’s pathway in order that men may wax strong through the
overcoming of them.
In this picture, “Driving the Last Spike,” there is nothing to suggest
“the shouting of captains and garments rolled in blood.” But for those
who will study and enquire, it holds the story of victory snatched from
the jaws of defeat, by a gallant constructive army whose mission was not
to destroy but to build, for the welfare of a nation and lands beyond
its borders. That is why I say it should be on the walls of our
schoolrooms, in order that teachers might relate to young Canadians the
story of an amazing accomplishment on the fields of peace.
Just how amazing and how dangerous was the task of building through
certain parts of the mountains, not far from the scene portrayed in the
picture, may be gathered from the experiences of the engineering staff.
As I am writing I recall that Mr. Noel Robinson, a Vancouver newspaper
man who deserves much credit for his work in connection with the work of
old-timers, elicited once from Mr. Henry J. Cambie, who put the road
through the Fraser River canyons, a few words on the subject. Mr.
Robinson says: “In response to some pressure as to the difficulty of
laying out the work—apart altogether from the difficulties of
construction—Mr. Cambie admitted that these were great. Mr. Cambie
spoke particularly of the Cherry Bluffs section, and said that quite a
stretch of it was laid out by a few men, as there was only room for a
few to work. Two agile men, with experience on sailing vessels, sprung
ropes from rock to rock or from tree to tree. Then a few engineers,
steadying themselves with these ropes, went along in their bare feet to
lay out the work, with a precipice and then Kamloops Lake, of unknown
depth, down below them. Mr. Cambie admitted that he was one of these
engineers. One of the engineers, Mr. Melchior Eberts, in 1881, while
climbing over a bluff covered with snow and ice, slipped and fell head
first down a steep slope, to his death.” Speaking of the difficulties,
Mr. Cambie went on to say: “We had to increase the curvature beyond
anything we had ever seen up to that time on a main line of railway, and
in order to get round the face of some of the bluffs we had to construct
what we called grasshopper trestles, that is, trestles with long posts
on the outside, standing on steps cut in the rock, and on the other side
a very short post, if any, because very often we had half a road-bed.
These things have since been done away with and their places taken by
retaining walls.” In my own conversation with Mr. Cambie he has spoken
to me feelingly about the loss of life through the canyons of the Fraser
during construction days. Practically all the work was through rock
which had to be dynamited in places where it was very difficult to get
shelter when shots were fired. Men were drowned also here and there
along the river. Thus again we are reminded that this battle in time of
peace was only won, like other battles, by great sacrifice. These are
things we must never forget when we enjoy the results of the struggles
of others in our own or earlier days.
The spot at which the last spike was driven was named Craigellachie, as
already intimated. The story of the name has not always been correctly
told in this connection, beyond saying that the word was sent as a
cablegram from Stephen to his fellow-directors in a crisis hour to
encourage them not to give way, though the position seemed hopeless at
the time. The expression is in reality not one word, but two, Craig
Ellachie. This was the name of a grey rock in a Scottish glen, the home
of a famous clan. And the legend is that when the clansmen went forth to
war, the windswept pines and heather on the lonely hilltop whispered to
the forth-going men the war-cry “Stand Fast, Craig Ellachie.” And now,
in a new land, at a place where rails met through the steadfast
persistence of these Scottish men and others, the mountains heard the
echoing blow of the hammer which is in the forefront of the picture,
“Driving the Last Spike.” Contrary to a general impression, created by
the importance of the occasion and by some writers, the last spike was
not of gold, but iron, like the other millions of them that had been
driven all along the line. The event itself was so intensely dramatic
that it needed not any conventional setting to give it _éclat_. Mr. Van
Horne, who was not disposed to waste in any case, perhaps felt that iron
was more significant of the spirit in which determined men had
accomplished the apparently impossible. And so he had said in a matter
of fact way, which was in itself abundantly thrilling: “The last spike
will be as good an iron spike as there is between the two oceans, and
any one who wants to see it driven will have to pay full fare.” The
Directors who had passed through the fierce fire of the economic
struggle to build the road could not afford, without a sort of
sacrilege, to have anything conventional to bring people from the ends
of the earth for the occasion. There was grim, but splendid, simplicity
about the ceremony that was profoundly appropriate under all the
circumstances.
It was on November 7th, 1885, that the rails met in the Eagle Pass
section of the road, and a group of men alighted from the train to be
present when the last spike would be driven. By general concensus of
opinion, the hammer to drive it was placed in the hands of Donald A.
Smith. It was a great honour, but worthily bestowed on the white-haired
veteran and victor in a hundred fights against obstacles. It was a far
cry from the little village of Forres, in Morayshire, to the way station
of Craigellachie in the mountains of Canada. But Donald A. Smith, the
lad who had left Forres with all his worldly possessions in a carpet
bag, and endured cold and snow-blindness in the Labrador till he rose to
the higher places in the Hudson’s Bay Company, had now come to stand on
Canada’s pioneer transcontinental steel trail and drive the spike that
would link up, into a true Confederation, the scattered Provinces of the
Dominion.
Mr. Smith had not done much manual labour in recent years. But he was no
stranger to physical toil. While in Labrador he had run with his dog
trains in winter, and in summer cultivated an astonishing garden and
farm, which was a surprise to all who visited the bleak locality. So,
despite the years that had elapsed since that time, Smith swung the
sledge hammer with a will that day, and the iron spike was driven home
to forge a new link of Empire. I have been listening in imagination to
the echoes of the hammer-blow through the passes and along the mountain
sides, and thence around the seven seas of the Empire. For this was a
right royal event, which evoked swift messages from good Queen Victoria,
the Marquis of Lorne, and many others who recognized the enormous
Imperial significance of what had taken place in the heart of the great
mountains under the Red Cross flag. And the day would come when a great
war was to break suddenly over the face of the world. In that day of the
Empire’s danger she would realize, even more vividly, the value of this
Canadian transcontinental road which, by the time of that war, had
transformed the Middle West of Canada from a wilderness into a vast
storehouse of food supplies. In that day of war the Canadian Pacific
would transport by land and sea hundreds of thousands of soldiers and
labourers to the sphere of conflict, and, from its own employees, would
furnish for the safety of the Empire not only a large quota of fighting
men, but some of the most expert railway builders and transportation
officers in the world. All this was wrapped up potentially in the
thrilling incident of driving the last spike at Craigellachie.
So once more I look at the picture. The camera could not take in a large
group, but it is representative in some fair degree of the men who made
the event of that day possible. Tracklayers and sectionmen, engineers
and contractors, superintendents and Directors, and others, were
present, for they all had a share in the victory. Some of them I can
pick out in the crowd; others are to me unknown. Some one, whose face is
hidden by a bystander, is holding Donald A. Smith’s overcoat, for the
veteran had taken it off in order to swing the hammer in workmanlike
fashion. The tall figure of Mr. Sandford Fleming, his beard and hair
white with the snows that never melt, is conspicuous near the
foreground. He will be remembered as the engineer-in-chief who blazed
the way through the mountains in the early days, and who, though not
then on the staff as engineer, was called from the Old Country in 1883
to help in finding a way through the Selkirks. After retiring from the
engineering staff he became a Director of the Company and so remained to
the end of a distinguished and highly useful life. Other engineers whom
I see in the group are Marcus Smith, a quite remarkable man who had
general charge of the Coast section; Major Rogers, the famed finder of
Roger’s Pass through the Selkirks; and Henry J. Cambie, who put the
railway through the Fraser River canyons, one of the most picturesque,
but one of the most difficult, portions along the line. Van Horne did
not always love the engineers, whose care in location did not entirely
chime in with his ideas of speed in building. But after letting them
know his mind in emphatic language, he recognized the sphere of their
responsibility, and, after discussing other possible ways, let them have
their way if they made out a case. The three above named were near
enough to be present at Craigellachie on that eventful day, but they
represented a band of very gallant men in the same vocation—men who
often ventured their lives in the dangerous places they were
investigating. Representing the contractors, who were a legion, we find
in the group James Ross, who had much building to do in the mountain
section, and who had witnessed many difficulties in dealing with a large
army of men of many nationalities. Generally speaking it can be said
that the contractors gave themselves with enthusiasm to their work, and
the Canadian Pacific was the training school for a host of young
Canadians in the business of railway building. In after years many of
these men became famous in railway work. Their ambitions, begotten and
intensified by their experience on the pioneer transcontinental road,
led them into very large enterprises of their own in the same line. Some
of their undertakings were premature, in view of Canada’s population,
but some day they will enure to the benefit of the country.
While speaking of the contractors, one would like again to say something
of the thousands of track and tunnel men, represented at Craigellachie
that day by the hundred or two on that section at the time. Their lot
had not been easy as they toiled on through summer’s heat and winter’s
cold. Every effort was made to the end that they should be well fed and
sheltered, where possible, but certain hardships which were inevitable
were for the most part cheerfully borne. In the dark days they had to
wait for their pay, that being true of all the employees at times. But
these men had faith in the big enterprise and took their share of the
hard times, saying, as did one business man on the North Shore, who had
several thousands coming to him for supplies, “Van Horne will put this
thing through and I will wait.” This was showing a good spirit; albeit
we ought to remember that the men who were undergoing the most terrific
strain were the Directors, who had not only pledged all their private
means, but were facing at times the peculiarly unbearable possibility of
the whole vast undertaking crumbling into failure before their eyes.
Two of the Directors, Mr. Sandford Fleming and Mr. Harris, appear in the
group when the last spike was driven, and behind them stands Mr. John H.
McTavish, one of the famous family connected with the Hudson’s Bay
Company through many years. Just within that circle in the picture
stands a little boy with his neck craned to see the veteran nailing the
steel to a tie. He was the water boy who carried drink for the men as
they toiled on the road. I sometimes wonder what became of that boy who
had the rare privilege of looking on when this extraordinary event in
Canadian history took place. He was witnessing what might be called the
birth of a nation.
With hands in the pockets of his overcoat, in a characteristic attitude,
and apparently gazing intently at the hammer and spike, stands the
strong, powerful figure of Mr. Van Horne, the general who had reached
his objective after a desperate battle. His favourite type of
square-crowned hat is pulled well down, and his whole posture suggests
determined strength. His face, withal, has a dreamy cast, and one would
give more than the proverbial penny for his thoughts. His mind, no
doubt, was dwelling on the struggle through which he had fought for four
tremendous years. But he was doubtless also looking into the future. No
one knew so well as he did, that though, in one sense, the road was
completed, there was another sense in which it had only begun. Many
improvements and extensions were still to be made, branch lines and
double tracks were to be laid, traffic had to be developed, the land had
to be peopled and the obligations of the road, incurred for bringing it
to the last spike, had to be met. But it is a striking thing to recall
that the total indebtedness of the Company to the Government was met
within a year of the opening of the road, and that the Company has never
had to ask the Government for a dollar since that time. The road was to
prosper immensely, and the man who, in some trepidation, had written
this same Van Horne in the darkest days, as to the Company’s securities,
and got the laconic telegram, “Sell your boots and buy C. P. R. stock,”
did well if he accepted the advice.
Men who were present at Craigellachie when that last spike was hammered
home, tell us that for a while after the sound of the blows ceased there
was absolute silence. The few hundreds who had the privilege of being
there seemed, in a sense, stunned by the enormous significance of the
event. Then some one gave a shout—perhaps it was that little “water
boy,” because it is like what a boy would do—and then the mountains
echoed with a perfect frenzy of cheering, that continued for minutes,
breaking out again and again. Mr. Van Horne was called on by the crowd
for a speech. Without changing his attitude and with his eyes still upon
the junction of the rails, the great railroader said simply and quietly,
“All I can say is that the work has been well done in every way.” It was
a short speech, but it was a profound tribute to everybody who had taken
part in this colossal enterprise. Directors, officials, contractors,
navvies, teamsters, stonecutters, bridge builders, train men, telegraph
operators and all the rest were embraced in this terse, but heartfelt,
and richly-deserved eulogium. And the conductor had a splendid
conception of a climacteric moment when he shouted “All aboard for the
Pacific,” and the train took its swift way down to the Western sea. Two
centuries had gone by since daring British explorers had essayed in vain
to go across the North American continent by some hitherto undiscovered
waterway to the Pacific. They were amongst the famous forerunners of the
gallant and able men who had now, after amazing endeavour, laid the
steel across prairie and mountain where not many years before hunters
and trappers, by packhorse, snowshoe, travois or wooden cart, had broken
adventurous trails. Thus there had now been opened up a new Empire,
whose enormous extent and productive capacity would make it one of the
wonders of the world and the Mecca for millions of the human race.
Regular passenger service was not inaugurated till the following spring,
the first through train reaching Port Moody in June, 1886, and Vancouver
in May, 1887. Port Moody was the statutory terminus, but the extension
to Vancouver was inevitable, although Port Moody real estate owners
naturally threw every obstacle in the way of the railway going farther.
Vancouver had been swept by the great fire in 1886, but the courageous
inhabitants started to rebuild and there were probably two or three
thousand people, under the leadership of the first mayor, Mr. Malcolm A.
MacLean, to greet the first train with rousing cheers and an address. It
was a great day for Vancouver. A generation has since grown up which
does not fully understand, because it does not know. But the people who
know the story of the fire-swept area of rocks and blackened stumps into
which the first Canadian Pacific train rolled that day, thirty-seven
years ago, bringing in with it the dawn of a new day, do not forget. It
linked the cold ashes of the new townsite to the throbbing power of
Eastern Canada, and put a new name on the map where Orient and Occident
looked each other in the face across the Pacific. It is rather a
striking coincidence that I am writing these words on the 23rd of May,
the anniversary of the arrival of the first Canadian Pacific Railway
train in Vancouver in 1887. And on this day, in this Year of Grace 1924,
the _Empress of Canada_, one of the Company’s great steamships, has just
come back to this West Coast after a five months’ voyage around the
globe. The space of time between is brief, considered as a span in
history, but in that time the Canadian Pacific has not only covered the
Dominion in all directions with its steel trails, but has compassed all
the oceans with her floating palaces.
That day in May, 1887, the prominent officials of the road on the
Pacific Division were the heroes of the hour—a group of able and
reliable men—Messrs. Harry Abbott, Richard Marpole, W. F. Salisbury,
Henry J. Cambie, D. E. Brown, George McL. Brown, H. Connon, Lacy R.
Johnson, A. J. Dana, with a faithful band, the forerunners of the
present host, in their employ.
As I am writing this paragraph on the eve of May 24th, the anniversary
of the birth of good Queen Victoria, of immortal memory, it is fitting
to note the following fine letter from the Marquis of Lorne to the
Canadian Pacific authorities: “The Queen has been most deeply interested
in the account which I have given her of the building of your great
railway, the difficulties which it involved and which have been so
wonderfully surmounted. Not one Englishman in a thousand realizes what
those difficulties were; but now that the great Dominion has been
penetrated by this indestructible artery of steel, the thoughts and
purposes of her people, as well as her commerce, will flow in an
increasing current to and fro, sending a healthful glow to all the
members. The Princess and I are looking forward to a journey one day to
the far and fair Pacific.” It was in keeping with the idea running
through this letter that the Queen conferred a baronetcy on President
George Stephen and a knighthood on Mr. Donald A. Smith. And out in the
great mountains which these two Scottish men so wonderfully helped to
pierce with the steel trail, there are monuments to them in the
cathedral peaks, Mount Stephen and Mount Sir Donald, “More enduring than
brass.”
Since that day in 1887 there have been, as the Marquis of Lorne’s letter
prophesies, a constant succession of most distinguished travellers. The
princes of our own Royal line, including our present gracious King and
the present Prince of Wales; noblemen, statesmen, scientists, novelists,
poets, soldiers, sailors, missionaries and others of world-wide fame,
have passed and repassed over this iron highway, entranced and amazed at
the richness, the fertility, the resources and the incomparable scenery
of the country. Volumes could not record their praise for the country,
for the travelling accommodation and for that courtesy and
considerateness by employees for which the Canadian Pacific is known the
world over. It has always been the aim of the road to see that children,
ladies, old and feeble people, can travel alone with the utmost safety
and comfort, and the testimony of travellers is that this tradition is
steadily maintained under all circumstances. There are doubtless many
travelling people who are selfish, unreasonable and hard to please, but
generally speaking (and I have seen this exemplified scores of times)
the official or employee of the Company proceeds on the assumption that
“the passenger is always right,” and in the end everybody is satisfied.
In this connection Lady Macdonald, who went with her distinguished
husband, Sir John, on the second regular train to the Coast, wrote in
her account of it: “It was quite touching and something new in railway
life to find the brakeman grieving over the smoke and apologizing for
it.” If there was a forest or prairie fire abroad the train-hands were
not to blame. If the reference was to the old coal-burners in the
mountains, the Company now uses fuel oil.
To give another example: One day Mr. Van Horne overheard a trainman in
rather sharp altercation with an irritable and unreasonable passenger,
and speaking to this trainman afterwards, Van Horne said: “You are not
to consider your own personal feelings when you are dealing with these
people. You should not have any. You are the road’s while you are on
duty; your reply is the road’s; and the road’s first law is courtesy.”
The reader will see that while, in one sense, this seems to suppress the
individuality of the employee, there is another sense in which it
honours his position by making him, in that connection, the accredited
representative of the Company. Mr. Van Horne inculcated this in many
different ways, till employees took a pride in the road. They felt they
were part of it. Even Van Horne’s faithful coloured car-porter, the
well-known Jimmie French, used to tell passengers “how we built the C.
P. R.” It will be recalled that when that porter died, Mr. Van Horne,
who grieved greatly over the passing of a friend, walked in the funeral
procession as chief mourner. That is the spirit of the road.
It would be impossible to mention a fraction of the famous travellers
who have made the Canadian Pacific their way of travel, but there are
two of the public men of that period who had been protagonist and
antagonist on the subject for years, whose journey to the Coast had more
than usual interest on that account. The one was Sir John A. Macdonald;
the other was the Hon. Edward Blake.
Sir John and Lady Macdonald crossed to the Pacific on the second train
that made the through trip. Sir John, being the head of the Government,
was nominally at least the sponsor for the Canadian Pacific, although we
must not forget that his Minister of Railways, Sir Charles Tupper, did
the larger part of the fighting to get it through. Sir John, however,
was always the man who had the last word as to assisting the road, and
though he tried the patience of Stephen and Van Horne at times, he was
the real originator of the plan and in the end gave it his powerful
assistance in the days of stress. Sir John, during that trip over the
road in 1886, made one of his characteristically witty and magnetic
speeches at a great mass meeting in the McIntyre Rink in Winnipeg. Those
were my student days, and the chance to hear the popular Premier, who
was on a sort of triumphal trip over the completed road, was not to be
missed. My recollection is that the speech was non-partisan, except for
a few humorous references, and not very heavy. Sir John was alert and
bright even to jauntiness, but he spoke as a man who was through with a
puzzling problem and was light−heartedly taking a care-free holiday. His
allusion to the Canadian Pacific, a strange blending of pathos and
humour, swept the house into a hurricane of cheers. He said “There was a
time when I never expected to live to see the completion of this great
railway. But I knew it would be completed some day, and in that day I
said I would see my friends crossing the continent upon it as I looked
down upon them from another and better sphere. My friends on the
Opposition side of the House kindly suggested that I would more likely
be looking up from below. But I have disappointed all conjecturers, and
I am doing this trip on the horizontal.”
It was during that pioneer railway trip that Lady Macdonald loyally rode
for part of one day in the mountains on the cow-catcher of the engine,
as a way of advertising to the world the safety of the new road.
Mentioning Lady Macdonald recalls the story told by that big-hearted
humorist, Col. George Ham, whom everybody knows and likes. It appears
that Superintendent Niblock, of the Medicine Hat division of the road,
had to be away from home when Sir John’s train was due to pass. But
desiring to show some courtesy he wired some one at the Hat to send Lady
Macdonald a bouquet of flowers. The message appears to have become
mangled and when delivered had “flowers” spelled “flour” and “bouquet”
contracted to “boq.” This looked unusual, and “boq. of flour” was
interpreted to mean “a bag of flour.” This was accordingly despatched to
Sir John’s private car, where the porter had no room to spare, and
refused to accept it. And so both the courtesy and the gift fell by the
wayside, although the intention was good.
The other distinguished public man, as above noted, who travelled to
Vancouver over the Canadian Pacific a few years later, was the Hon.
Edward Blake. He had steadfastly, consistently and, no doubt,
conscientiously, opposed the construction of the road as involving what
he called “ruinous expenditure” for a young and sparsely settled
country. Mr. Blake’s memory remains as that of one of the ablest and
most high-minded statesman in the public life of Canada and, by general
consent, the most outstanding intellectual force this country has
produced. But, as observed in a preceding chapter, he had never been
West before the famous railway debates took place, and therefore
underestimated the country and its possibilities. When he did come, in
1891, he made a notable speech in Vancouver. In that speech he not only
accepted the situation in a frank and manly way, but, calling on his
large vocabulary and his somewhat unsuspected sense of humour, he gave a
remarkable description of the country by putting everything in words
opposite to the reality. Mr. Blake said: “As I approached this country I
was struck by the remarkable change from the rugged and upheaved
territory of the plains of the North-West to the smooth and level slope
of the Rockies; as I ascended the slope and came upon the somewhat level
and monotonous flats of British Columbia; as I travelled by the languid
Bow and descended again through the valley of the tranquil Kicking
Horse; as I crossed the calm Columbia and travelled down the dead waters
of the Beaver and along the placid Illecillewaet and by the drowsy
Skuzzy; as I passed by the slow Thompson and last of all by the banks
between which the Fraser meanders its sluggish way, I turned to the
fertile resources of your shores and viewed the horizon where it spanned
the meadows of the Selkirks, the fertile level plains of the Gold Range
and the broad plains of the Coast Range, and I reached here converted.”
For a while the audience, thinking that Mr. Blake was getting things
mixed because this first swift trip was confusing him as to locality,
preserved a well-bred, silent attitude, as if much puzzled. In a little
while, as he proceeded, they saw that he was purposely and skilfully
putting everything in the converse way, and the house simply rocked with
delighted laughter in peal after peal. When people are enjoying an
uproarious laugh, they cannot cherish resentment. And so when Mr. Blake,
dropping the jocular vein, went on to say, “When the railroad was built
and finished I felt myself that it was useless to continue the
controversy longer, in deference to this whole country which Canada has
risked so much to retain,” the people in British Columbia forgave him
for calling their Province “a sea of mountains,” and, like true
Westerners, declared that he was playing the game in a sportsmanlike way
and they would call off their feud.
And thus was the great railway opened from ocean to ocean. Much remained
yet to be done in the way of constant improvement of the road and
increase of the rolling stock. But the system was in operation, and the
trains passed East and West over the once “Great Lone Land” and through
the mountain passes. Circumstances have changed somewhat since the
following fine verses were written some years ago by the late Pauline
Johnson, but in general they still represent the situation. Born in
Ontario in the region made famous by her great ancestor, Joseph Brant,
ally of the British people, this gifted poetess, with the Indian blood
of which she was so proud, saw in the Canadian Pacific trains not just
so many cars and engines, but new and living factors in the expanding
life of her beloved Dominion. And so she makes “The C. P. R. No. 1,
Westbound,” say:
“I swing to the sunset land—
The world of prairie, the world of plain,
The world of promise and hope and pain
The world of gold and the world of gain,
And the world of the willing hand.
“I carry the brave and bold—
The one who works for the nation’s bread,
The one whose past is a thing that’s dead,
The one who battles and beats ahead
And the one who goes for gold.
“I swing to the ‘Land to Be.’
I am the power that laid its floors;
I am the guide to its Western Shores
I am the key to its golden doors
That open alone to me.”
And she calls on “The C. P. R. No. 2, Eastbound,” to say:
“I swing to the land of morn—
The grey old East with its grey old seas;
The land of leisure, the land of ease,
The land of flowers and fruit and trees
And the place where we were born.
“Freighted with wealth I come:
For he who many a moon has spent
Far out West on adventure bent,
With well-worn pick and folded tent
Is bringing his bullion home
“I never will be renowned,
As my twin that swings to the Western marts,
For I am she of the humbler parts—
But I am the joy of waiting hearts;
For I am the Homeward bound.”
_From “Flint and Feather,” by E. Pauline Johnson. Published by
arrangement with the Musson Book Company, Limited._