ON THE GRAND TRUNK PACIFIC
One of the most enchanting pleasure trips that can be enjoyed on the
North American continent is that from Winnipeg to Prince Rupert
through regions of scenic glory
"Where all wonder tales come true";
where one journeys to the accompaniment of a bewildering series of
surprises that open vistas of new interests and enjoyments never
dreamed of before. It is one of the signal charms of a journey
through regions of majestic beauty and of scenic enchantment that it
is not over even when it is past. Such a trip is a treasure laid up
in life for future enjoyment without limit.
It is only some five hours from Edmonton before one begins to enter
on this wonderland of romance. It is so new that the world of travel
has not yet realised the marvel and glory of this trip. When it is
stated that even the first surveying for this transcontinental line
began only in 1910, it will be readily seen that in this region is
opened up an absolutely new part of the world to general travel. The
anomaly of traversing these primeval wilds in a train so luxuriously
appointed as are the limiteds {160} on the Grand Trunk Pacific
appeals to the comprehension of man's conquest over nature. To
travel in the comfort of these commodious coaches, equipped with a
richly-furnished drawing-room, an admirable dining-car, an
observation car with a spacious balcony platform at the rear and
fitted with writing-desks, stationery in abundance, books, magazines,
and newspapers, is to enjoy a journey on a flying hotel.
"Here is a train worth while!" wrote Sir Arthur Conan Doyle after the
conclusion of the extensive trip that he and Lady Conan Doyle enjoyed
over the Dominion: "it is the latest word in comfort, in luxury, in
safety, in speed. The dining-car is never taken off. The
observation car is a pleasant club. The road is as smooth as
polished marble, with heavy rails well ballasted, no smoke or
cinders.... It has the highest maintenance of track and rolling
stock.... It runs on a marvellous line, destined to a mighty future."
[Illustration: Mount Edith Cavell and Cavell Lake]
The entrance to the Wonderland begins, as was said, some five hours
from Edmonton. The best plan is to leave this thriving young capital
of Alberta by a late evening train, and waken in the morning to find
one's self in a region where the peaks to the south of the Yellowhead
Pass begin to appear on the horizon. He who understands the romance
of railroad travel will raise the heavy blind of the windows of his
lower berth or his drawing-room, so as not to miss the strange
panorama of the night. Indeed, if {161} we compare the romance of a
night on shipboard with that of a night on a flying railroad train,
the latter is incomparably the greater. The first requisite is an
added relay of pillows--all that one wants, and all that one does not
want, so to speak--pillows on which to prop one's self up to the
proper angle of altitude that he may lie at ease and watch that
marvellous moving panorama of forest and glade, of starlit sky, or of
the hills flooded with moonlight; with flitting gleams of shining
silver as the train glides past lakes, or along the course of a
winding river. It is the realm of fäery, where nothing is but what
is not. Is there a moon? There are a dozen moons! There is one in
the south, but a moment later it appears in the far east--no
well-regulated moon would career about in the heavens in so erratic a
manner, therefore there must be another; and when, at the next
glimpse, it again appears at some different point of the compass,
one's conviction that the earth must have as many moons as Jupiter is
reinforced. The vast forest solitudes are all strange; to waken
suddenly and find one's self flying through these unreal regions is
an experience never to be forgotten. It is an experience entirely
lost save to one who unveils his windows to the mystic scenes rather
than sleep in the darkness of drawn blinds. The elusive fascination
possible to the nights on a railway train is a chapter of life in
itself. It recalls to one the dictum of Socrates that all exact
inquiry into such matters as the movements and nature of {162} the
sun and the moon should be excluded from too close investigation!
From Winnipeg the traveller speeds over fields of emerald or fields
of gold, according to the season; the harvest time is a world of gold
and resplendence; and ere the grain ripens it forms an infinite
expanse of tender green. The economist would see in these
far-reaching fields of growing grain a theme for his statistics and
practical deductions as to their contribution to the world's wealth;
but the eye of the pleasure-traveller regards them solely in the
light of æsthetic effect. Wheat or oats, grass or anything else, it
is all one to him as long as the colour scheme enchants his eye. As
he approaches the mountain region the scene is etherealised. Away on
the horizon are illuminated points, but whether on earth, or in the
heavens, who can tell? One begins to enter into the atmosphere that
pervades mountain solitudes. It eludes all analysis, but it is the
most potent of impressions. The gateway to the mountains prefigures
itself as the portal to some trackless spaces not of earth. The
peaks shine with a celestial light. Snow-capped, catching the
morning sunshine in dazzling splendour, they rise as a very wall
beyond which mortal may not pass. Is the wall as impenetrable as it
seems? How can a railway train dash itself through the palisades of
bewildering mountain peaks, clustered in their shining splendour?
And what world lies beyond?
The grandeur grows more impressive. And as {163} among the problems
of life, so among mountains, there is usually a way out. In this
case it is the Yellowhead Pass. In the preliminary survey and
construction of the railroad this Pass was chosen by the skilled
engineers who at once recognised its striking characteristics, for it
permitted the railway to take its line across the Rocky Mountains at
the lowest altitude of any transcontinental line on the continent.
The swiftly flowing waters of the Athabasca River mirror the towering
peaks above. The Pass grows wider; again, there is a narrower curve
as it deftly penetrates its way between the vast heights. The
tourist has of course betaken himself to the outside platform of the
observation car. Here is a spacious balcony, with projecting roof to
shield from sun or wind; a space ample for some sixteen seats, which
offers a moving picture that reveals the handiwork of Nature as
distinct from that of Art. Here the traveller sits, with all the
majesty of the mountain contours about and above him.
This Yellowhead Pass had been, for some generations, the great
natural highway of the fur trade. The Hudson Bay post was
established here as early as in 1800, and the name of a yellow-haired
trader, known to the Indians as "Tête Jaunne" (otherwise Jasper
Hawes), led to the present name of this historic spot. One cannot
but dwell a little on the Yellowhead Pass itself, as one of the
special features of the trip; not merely a passage-way to traverse,
but as a region rich in novel points of beauty, never {164} twice the
same, but varying with every atmospheric change and from every new
angle of vision. Traverse the Yellowhead Pass by day in the
brilliant sunlight; or on one of the marvellous moonlit nights, when
every peak rises in silver sheens; when the stars look down as if
they were great globes of light near at hand, and the walls of sheer
rock are so softened under the mystic light as to be no more mere
rocky precipices, but the field of the weird dances of the Brocken.
Gnomes and sprites emerge from some unseen caverns; the cliffs tower
into the sky and bring the stars down to earth, so as to make them
seem as accessible as electric lights. There are projecting
balconies far above where perhaps the Spirits of the Solitudes
congregate.
The eastern approach to the Yellowhead Pass is guarded by the Boule
Roche and the Roche à Perdrix Mountains, these marking, also, the
entrance to Jasper Park. The fabled Valley of the Cashmere is hardly
less familiar to the great tide of summer travel than is this
Yellowhead region. In a preceding chapter (on the summer resorts of
Canada) the pleasure resources of Jasper Park were somewhat
suggested, and Mount Robson Park will doubtless also become one of
the great favourites of the world. The great natural reserve of
Jasper Park comprising 4400 square miles is one that for all time
will be preserved in its absolute integrity. No spoliation will be
permitted. It is not only a national but a continental
pleasure-ground for all time. Mountain-climbers {165} will find here
the fullest scope for their prowess. More and more will the
Mountaineering enthusiasts of Britain be allured to Canada instead of
to Switzerland--a part of the great Empire, calling with a thousand
voices to every trueborn Briton. To many visitors the best use they
have for a mountain peak is to look at it rather than to ascend it.
Why tramp about when the eye registers all its supreme splendour and
the tourist may luxuriate in the shaded portico outside his camp and
revel in the changeful panorama of colour and beauty? Or he may
stroll in fertile valleys, brilliant with flowers; he may ride, or
drive, along good trails with new enchantments meeting him at every
turn.
Two beautiful lakes, Pyramid and Patricia, are in the very shadow of
Pyramid Mountain, only four miles from Jasper station. At this
station are the Park superintendent and his staff, who are ever ready
with help and information and who effectually banish from the mind of
the tourist any fear of strangeness or solitude. While hunting is
not permitted in Jasper Park, the angler may, if he likes, fish all
day in the clear lakes. They are well stocked with trout. The
complete ban upon hunting or any use of firearms is a great safeguard
to the wanderer through woods and valleys, making accidents of this
nature impossible. Maligne Cañon and Maligne Lake have been already
discussed in the chapter already alluded to on summer resorts, but no
description could convey any idea of the spectacular {166} beauty of
the excursion leading past Lakes Edith and Beauvert, through dense
forests of spruce and cottonwood, with the walls of the cañon rising
300 feet in height on either side. Here is a trip of thirty-five
miles from the cañon to Maligne Lake, that sheet of pure, emerald
water--an excursion amid such magnificence of beauty as to defy
adequate description.
Jasper Park is now enriched by the presence of an imperishable
monument that will endure throughout the ages; one to which thousands
of travellers, in the years to come, will make their pilgrimage as to
a shrine. It is a memorial that not only lends its glory to the
Dominion, but to the entire continent as well; for not unaccompanied
by faithful hearts from her great sister nation across the border
shall Canadians seek this mystic altar to which every wind wafts
aromatic fire. For it is a shrine consecrate to all that is noblest
in womanhood, all that is most heroic and divine in our common
humanity. The Dominion, the States, are at one in their reverent
appreciation of the greatness of simple fidelity to duty. He who
keeps faith with his ideals is the true hero. It is he who enters
into the fellowship of the mystery. He may go down to death in
apparent darkness and defeat; he rises in eternal glory. For to be
spiritually-minded is life and peace, even the life eternal.
It is fitting that Edith Cavell, who gave her life for her country;
who died the death of the martyr {167} rather than betray her trust,
should be commemorated with a memorial whose monumental grandeur
exceeds that of any Egyptian king or Assyrian monarch of remote
antiquity.
A marvel of glory is this mountain peak now christened Mount Edith
Cavell. It rises in solitary majesty out of this morning-world,
lifting its head into the faint, transparent azure of ethereal
spaces, while its base is rooted amid the rocky fastnesses of the
great range. The naming of Mount Edith Cavell is the tribute of the
Dominion to one great-souled woman, and thus to all that makes for
the greatness of womanhood. On its precipitous slopes may be read by
all who have the inner vision the scroll of human fate.
The peak is calculated to enchain the eye by its towering height and
faultless symmetry. Did Nature herself design and fashion it for its
strange destiny? Was it indeed reserved for its present
consecration? Who may know? Life is a chain of sequences divinely
ordered. It lieth not with man to direct his steps.
"The shuttle of the Unseen powers
Works out a pattern not as ours."
In the matter of naming new places in Canada the Geographic Board is
the governing body. It was at their meeting in Ottawa in March 1916
that the decision was made that this peak should immortalise the name
of Edith Cavell. The suggestion had previously been made that the
name of {168} Mount Robson should be changed to that of Mount Cavell,
but this would have been so inevitably confusing all over the world
that it was thought wiser to select a peak hitherto unnamed. To Dr.
E. Deville, the Surveyor-General, the Geographic Board therefore
made this announcement much to the gratification of that well-known
official. Thus is a woman's life of simple faithfulness to duty
lifted into immortal resplendence. What a monitor suggesting
unfaltering devotion to great issues will Mount Edith Cavell remain
to the throngs of passengers on this Grand Trunk Pacific line, who
will watch for its appearance on the horizon, and gaze, with
steadfast view, until it fades in the far distance. For several
miles can it be seen, and what traveller will gaze on this height
without feeling it to be one of the spellbinders of the Dominion? or
without finding himself involuntarily recalling those wonderful lines
of Emerson?
"Inspirer, prophet evermore!
Pillar which God aloft hath set
So that men might it not forget;
It shall be life's ornament
And mix itself with each event.
By million changes skilled to tell
What in the Eternal standeth well!"
Brulè Lake, in Jasper Park, is an expansion of the Athabasca River,
and the railroad line follows the east bank of the lake. Canada
would be the paradise of Undine, the water sprite of La Motte
Fouqué's famous story, for rivers broaden into {169} lakes, and lakes
connect themselves by a chain of rivers, until the continuous
possibilities for inland navigation appeal to the geologist as a
problem of the ages to be solved. Many theories are evolved; even as
they are in Arizona, as to the origin of that apparently impenetrable
mystery, the petrified forest.
At the station of Miette Hot Springs another excursion may beckon to
some travellers in that up the valley of Fiddle Creek, which flows
into the Athabasca River. There are a number of basins encrusted
with yellow from the sulphur that abounds in the water, which has
strong medicinal properties, and which ranges from a hundred and
eleven to a hundred and twenty-seven degrees in temperature.
Then, too, there are the Punch Bowl Falls, reached by an attractive
trail from the station known as Pocahontas. Jasper Park extends to
the boundary line which marks the division between Alberta and
British Columbia; and crossing this boundary the traveller finds
himself in another of Canada's gigantic reserves, that of Mount
Robson Park, with Mount Robson itself as the centre dominating the
entire region. The train stops at Mount Robson station, and one
seems to enter a new world in this near approach to that king and
monarch of the Canadian Rockies, the peak of Mount Robson towering
upwards for 13,068 feet in the clear air. Of his first view of this
peak Lawrence J. Burpee, F.R.G.S., writes:
{170}
"... Almost without warning it came. We rounded the western end of
the Rainbow Mountains and looked up the valley of the Grand Fork.
'My God!' some one whispered. Rising at the head of the valley and
towering far above all the surrounding peaks we saw a vast cone, so
perfectly proportioned that one's first impression was rather one of
wonderful symmetry and beauty than of actual height. Then we began
to realise the stupendous majesty of the mountain...."
It is not only that Mount Robson is supreme in the range of the
Rockies in Canada, but it is one of the notable mountains of the
world. In its peculiar beauty of form and proportion it is hardly
surpassed by any known peak. It has many aspects and phases--it is
clearly seen in brilliant sunshine, it is dimly discerned when it
enwraps itself in clouds and ethereal mists, it is seen again by
resplendent moonlight--and one finds each phase has its own
enchantment. Its glistening crest is visible for twelve miles after
the train pulls out from the station. Its colossal glacier tumbles
masses of ice-fields down into Berg Lake at the foot, and these
masses of ice continue to drift on the surface of emerald water that
holds its colour in the same strange way as do the waters of the Gulf
of Corinth.
The Alpine Club of Canada has made excursions to these places, and of
one quest on Berg Lake a member writes:
"... I shall not soon forget that first day when we came up the trail
and, looking through as far as the eye could reach, saw countless
blossoms--brilliant crimson Indian paintbrush, pale pink columbines,
and mauve asters, their stems imbedded in the softest and greenest
{171} of foliage and moss; nor another day, when on the side of
Rearguard, we came upon a garden of blue forget-me-nots.... Whilst
we lingered amongst the flowers that first day, an avalanche crashed
into the lake and the big waves came rolling across until they
reached the shore above which we were standing, while broken ice
floated out as miniature icebergs upon the milky blue surface of the
lake. And Lake Adolphus, across the Pass--I could not find a word to
describe its indescribable blue. Seen from camp or through the trees
from the side of Mount Mumm, it was absolutely lovely. Then there
was the Robson Glacier, in plain view of camp and only a few minutes'
walk distant, a never-ending source of interest, with its ice cave
and its seracs and crevasses."
As the train sweeps on the tourist sees, from his comfortable seat on
the platform of the observation car, a myriad rocky pinnacles
silhouetted against the heavens. The peerless grandeur of these
peaks, snow-crowned and glistening with glaciers; of emerald lakes at
the foot mirroring overhanging crags; of unmeasured wastes of
windswept snow-fields; of ethereal solitudes and depths unfathomed,
in the wild gorges, where, for all the eternities, only the stars
have looked down; and the isolated grandeur of Mount Robson itself
lifting its glittering summit into the skies--all this amazing wonder
enters with new force and richness into life itself. Half a century
ago Milton and Cheadle christened it "a Giant among Giants,
Immeasurably Supreme." The first ascent of Mount Robson was made
only as recently as in 1909 by the Rev. George Kinney and Mr. Donald
Phillips, their final success being the outcome of a trial of twenty
days, during which {172} they were continually baffled and driven
back by adverse and seemingly impossible conditions. But the
difference between success and failure may be accurately defined as
persistence of energy. He who gives up, fails; he who does not give
up, succeeds. It is only a question of time and of tenacity of
purpose. Two unsuccessful attempts to ascend to the summit of Mount
Robson had been made in 1907-8. There is a trail leading to the
north side of Mount Robson, along the Grand Fork River, skirting the
shore of Lake Helena and up through the Valley of a Thousand Falls,
with the celebrated Emperor Falls within view, and thus on to Berg
Lake and to Robson Pass. The trip to Berg Lake can be made within
one day, and it is an excursion into regions of such marvellous
beauty that can never be translated into words. In all this
bewildering sublimity the spellbound gazer can only question, with
Robert Service:
"Have you seen God in His splendours? heard the text that
Nature renders?"
Such fantasies of combination, too, as meet the eye: castles, towers,
fortresses, that glow like opal and ruby and topaz; walls of sheer
glaciers rising in dazzling whiteness like a spectral caravan;
formless solitudes fit only for the abode of the gods! The spirit of
the mountains is abroad on her revels; ice peaks 10,000 feet in the
upper air are her toys; the winds are her Æolian harp; the Valley of
a Thousand Falls is her theatre for pastime. Neither the Swiss {173}
Alps, nor yet that mysterious chain of the Tyrol, haunted by drifting
cloudshapes and vocal with rushing waterfalls, can compare with the
colossal scale of this splendour of all the Mount Robson region. It
is the encountering of an entirely new range of experiences. It is
Service again who interprets one's emotional enthusiasms in the
stanzas:
"Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else
to gaze on?
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets
blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream
streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God's sake go
and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.
"Have you known the Great White Silence, not a snow-gemmed
twig a-quiver?
(Eternal truths that shame our soothing lies),
Have you broken trail on snow-shoes? mushed your huskies up
the river,
Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize?"
Strangest of all, in these stern mountain solitudes, with their
glittering crevasses of ice, there are sheltered valleys all aglow
with myriads of flowers in brilliant and gorgeous hues; and here, at
sunset, peaks touched to gold and crimson are seen looming up in the
transparent air against a background of intensely blue sky, a
spectacle to inspire both painter and poet with its unearthly beauty.
To traverse such a region as this amid the luxury {174} of the
appointments of the Grand Trunk Pacific's transcontinental trains
seems at first an anomaly; nothing is primitive save the forests
primeval; nothing wild but the scenery. It is all a new universe,
somewhere between the once familiar earth and the dream of
Paradise--something by which to set the compass of life to a new
polarity.
An intrepid mountain climber, Miss Mary L. Jobe, F.R.G.S., made a
wonderful quest into these Canadian Rockies recently, and explored a
region 100 miles north-west of Mount Robson. Of one scene there Miss
Jobe writes:
"A massive white peak shot into the blue from a walled fortress of
rock. Two colossal rocky towers stood guard over a file of lesser
peaks; multi-coloured masses of granite, glacier-hung, glowed with
irridescent tints, while down a valley rushed a foaming river to meet
the cascades of colour pouring from the mountain...."
Between Mount Robson and Prince George (from which young city a
railway will soon be completed linking it with Vancouver) the route
on to Prince Rupert follows the Fraser River, the waters of which are
a chrysolite green, the furious current flecked with foam, while the
Fraser, at one point, transforms itself into a lake, seven miles
wide, with that easy power of compassing transformation scenes,
lightning changes, so to speak, of which the rivers of the Dominion
appear to hold the secret. When a Canadian river grows tired of
running, it immediately turns itself into a lake. When a Canadian
lake becomes tired of staying in the same place, {175} it at once
proceeds to become a river. Just what species of genii control the
wilds of Canada has not yet engaged the attention of her
statisticians. The great Fraser River has its headquarters in the
Yellowhead, and flowing through a broad valley, watering large
fertile tracts of land, it makes its progress to the Pacific 800
miles away. The view of this wonderful river from the railroad, as
the line passes high above the swirling waters, is a magnificent one.
The Fraser has a beautiful bend at Prince George, turning sharply to
the south, while the railway proceeds through another smiling valley,
the Nechako--a valley which is rich in plateau lands favourable for
agricultural uses, and along whose course are numberless sylvan
scenes that lend to it great beauty. Vanderhoof, the gateway to all
the region of lakes of British Columbia, is the capital of the
Nechako Valley. The railway again enters into the mountains, the
Coast Range, in the Bulkley Valley, and for a distance of 200 miles,
between Smithers and Prince Rupert, the view is diversified by
mountain peaks. The Nechako and Bulkley Rivers water fertile valleys
of more than 6,000,000 of acres, easily cultivated and offering a
scenic setting unparalleled in the world. Hazleton is a prosperous
and growing centre with an assured future. From this city the
railway route follows the Skeena River, which also has a trick of
widening at intervals. The splendid train glides on and on, and is
it on the air that one seems to hear echoed:
{176}
"There's a whisper on the night-wind, there's a star a-gleam to
guide us,
And the wild is calling, calling ... let us go!"?
The onward route is enthralling. There comes in sight La Riviere au
Shuswap, a tributary of the Fraser, with a vanishing view of three
peaks close together, far up the valley, as the train rushes past.
For it is not every mountain that can have a station to itself, as
has Mount Robson, thus giving the passenger time to see its wonders
with no little satisfaction. Before the junction of the Bulkley and
the Telkwa Rivers is reached, the railway passes Lakes Decker and
Burns; and at the junction of the rivers mineral deposits of copper,
silver, lead, and coal have been discovered that promise rich
leading. Hudson Bay Mountain is a prominent peak, 9000 feet in
height, and in this mountain also silver and silver lead, copper, and
anthracite coal are found; and the Hudson Bay Glacier lies only four
miles from the railway track, easily reached on horseback. The train
runs close to the shore of Lake Kathlyn, a lake filled with a
black-spotted trout, and Hudson Bay Mountain is repeated in the lake
as in a mirror.
[Illustration: Charles Melville Hays]
Bulkley Gate is something to see, if one may judge by the contagious
enthusiasm of the young train agent who proceeds to announce it, with
the pride of a showman displaying his wares. By just what necromancy
a railroad system magnetises every employé, from the most important
officials to the youthful recruit, with its own courtesy and {177}
unanalysable charm in all the relations of service, may not be
revealed; but the result is very much in evidence.
In all the hotels of this line, as well as upon railroad lines, the
duty, grace, and charm of courtesy of manner are constantly
inculcated. To make the service the best on the continent seems to
be the ideal of the staff through every grade and department.
Bulkley Gate proves itself quite worthy of its young champion--a
wonderful gate indeed, formed by a dyke that formerly crossed the
valley, and at last gave way before the power of the river. The
Skeena and the Bulkley Rivers unite near Hazleton, and in close
vicinity is the Rocher Deboule Mountain, which is known as the
Mountain of Minerals. It is extremely rich in copper ore, large
quantities of which have already been taken from it. All along the
picturesque and turbulent Skeena River are quaint Indian villages,
with the totem poles of their tribes. Here also mountain peaks are
much in evidence, and in the spring of 1916 one of these, 9000 feet
in height, was chosen to bear the name of Mount Sir Robert, in honour
of the Premier of the Dominion, Sir Robert Borden. A large glacier,
which seems to be at least a mile in width, has been named Borden
Glacier, and both the peak and the glacier can be seen from Doreen
station.
Thus is the entire route one of exceptional beauty and never-failing
interest. From the first to the last there is not a dull moment.
And in crossing the {178} wonderful bridge that connects Kaien Island
(on which Prince Rupert stands) with the mainland, the traveller
finds something to enlist his enthusiasm for science as well as that
enlisted for nature. This bridge is nearly a thousand feet in
length, and includes six spans, two of which are of two hundred and
fifty feet each. The engineers encountered great difficulty, because
of the furious racing of the water through the channel, so that at
times the divers could not descend. The conditions not unfrequently
reduced the working hours to little more than three out of the
twenty-four.
The construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific that extended the western
lines of the Grand Trunk System from Winnipeg to Prince Rupert was an
epic story of the Dominion. For it was really one of the determining
events of British Empire history, as well as an exceptionally potent
factor in the contemporary development of Canada. It has not only
changed the map of the country, but also takes its place in
international advancement. To open a new and vast territory whose
splendour of scenery, incalculably marvellous resources, and climatic
conditions are such as to invite and sustain immigration is an
achievement that brings to bear a signal influence upon the peoples
of the entire European continent and even upon the Orient. It was at
once the opening of a new realm for human life. Education and
culture are invited to enter. It is hardly possible for the mind to
grasp, or for {179} the imagination to picture, all the possibilities
of the future that are initiated by so great an enterprise. The
Indian trail, the packhorse, the canoe, gave way to the steel tracks,
the luxurious trains of vestibuled cars laden with civilisation
advancing into the wilderness. A great Canadian railway is not built
to meet the recognised demands of settlement. It has to act as
pioneer and create the conditions that make settlement possible. Its
construction is, literally, the manifestation of belief in the things
not seen. It is a creative power prospecting for paths of national
destiny.
The story of that reconnaissance through hundreds of miles of an
apparently impenetrable wilderness is one to haunt the imagination.
It is a story of hardships and of heroisms. Emerson declares that
"The hero is not fed on sweets."
The pathfinder shares the usual experience that invests heroism.
It is to Charles Melville Hays that the conception of thus extending
the Grand Trunk System is primarily due. Mr. Hays was endowed with
the "seeing eye." He was gifted with that penetrating order of
comprehension that swiftly discriminates between the possible and the
impossible, and sets the key of achievement accordingly. He was not
infelicitously called "the Cecil Rhodes of Canada." With that same
brilliant capacity to conceive new combinations that build up new
orders of life, {180} Mr. Hays had that tenacity of purpose which
alone renders such conceptions available, and he had an even larger
power than that of the Empire builder in Africa for relating his
dream to definite conditions.
It is recorded that there came a morning in Canada when the Dominion
awakened "to experience a thrill of excitement from the Atlantic to
the Pacific." For the newspapers had announced that a new
Transcontinental railway was to be undertaken, and that the Grand
Trunk System was the initiator of this stupendous scheme. It seems
that Mr. Hays himself had conveyed to the press merely this laconic
statement overnight, and it was the spark that incited a very
conflagration of discussion. There was an instantaneous public
clamour whose geographical limits were only defined from Halifax and
Vancouver, from Dawson to Hudson Bay. But when the morning dawned,
and the startlingly interesting news incited the pursuit of the
President of the Grand Trunk System for fuller information, that
distinguished official had already boarded his steamer and was fairly
off on the high seas for Europe. The man at the head of a railway
system that, by the addition of its new western lines, attains to no
less than 8115 miles in extent, with its inestimable potentialities
of service, may well be accorded rank among the notable figures whose
genius and courage have helped to shape the destiny of the Dominion.
In the work of constructing this great {181} trans-continental road,
Mr. Hays called as his lieutenant, in 1909, Mr. Edson Joseph
Chamberlain. Mr. Chamberlain was Vice-President and General Manager
of the Grand Trunk Pacific for three busy years, and after the
tragedy of the _Titanic_ in 1912, he was called to succeed Mr. Hays
as President of the Grand Trunk System.
The chief engineer in charge of the construction of the Grand Trunk
Pacific was Mr. J. B. Kelliher. With him went a party of gentlemen
to make the preliminary exploration after the surveyors had made
their pioneer report on the possibilities of the route. While they
had secured a general impression of the topography, the problems that
remained were intricate and manifold.
[Illustration: Hudson Bay Mountain and Lake Kathlyn, Bulkley Valley]
"In order to obtain a faint idea of the prospect that confronted
those entrusted with the reconnaissance," writes Frederick A.
Talbot,[1] "conceive a vast country rolling away in humps, towering
ridges, and wide-yawning valleys as far as the eye can see, and with
the knowledge that the horizon can be moved onward for hundreds of
miles without bringing any welcome break in the outlook. On every
hand is the interminable forest, a verdant sea, except where here and
there jagged splashes of black betoken that the fire fiend has been
at work. The trees swinging wave-like before the breeze conceal
dangers untold beneath their heavy, blanket-like branches.... Here
is a swamp whose treacherous {182} mass stretches for mile after
mile.... There is a litter of jagged rock ... here a maze of fallen
tree trunks, levelled by wind, water, and fire, piled up beneath the
trees to a height of ten, fifteen, and twenty feet in an inextricable
mass, over which one has to make one's way...." Mr. Talbot
graphically describes that silence of the trackless solitudes: "Not a
sound beyond the sighing of the wind through the trees, the
rifle-like crack of a dead, gaunt monarch as it crashes to the
ground, or the howl of a wolf." At night the party slept in
sleeping-bags; they had scant provisions, too, because to carry an
adequate supply would have been an impediment to progress; and after
the quicksands, the impenetrable forests, they would suddenly
encounter some mad river or vast lake; and at one cache where they
arrived, famished and weary, they found that wild animals had broken
in and destroyed the store of dried fruits, fish, and canned food
they had expected to find. What a story is this record of pioneer
work for the selection of the route and the discovery of the most
favourable Pass for the construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific!
There were many possible Passes investigated before the decision was
gradually arrived at, by the process of elimination, to choose that
of the Yellowhead. The number was first reduced to four; the Wapiti,
Pine River, Yellowhead, and Peace River, and then Mr. Hays decided on
that of the Yellowhead.
[1] _The Making of a Great Canadian Railway_. London: Seeley,
Service and Company, Limited.
"Our engineers have secured so easy a grade {183} through the
Yellowhead Pass," said the Chairman of the Board of Directors, "that
when the traveller takes the trip he will be no more conscious of
crossing a big mountain range, except for the magnificent scenery,
than he would be when he travels by the London and North-Western or
by the Great Eastern Railway."
One interesting fact in connection with the enormous enterprise of
constructing this road was the installation of temporary telephone
facilities, linking together the long line of construction camps that
trailed from Winnipeg to the coast.
Something of all this wonderful story comes fragmentarily to the
passenger whose interest is aroused by the splendid construction of
the road, on which no effort was spared to secure permanence and
safety. One feature that is always a noticeable one to the traveller
is that of the "milestones," so to speak; the tall signs clearly
inscribed with the figures registering the miles as they are so
rapidly passed over.
Not only flowers and glaciers, sunsets and tumbling cataracts, rocky
pinnacles and frowning ramparts, enchant a journey unrivalled on the
continent, but in the palace-train, whose cars are a series of
drawing-rooms in their luxurious appeal, there are varied
opportunities for studies of humanity, human interest, and sympathies
as well. For example, in one corner is an aged French Abbé, absorbed
in his breviary and in a richly bound volume which reveals {184}
itself as the meditations of Fénelon. The air of detachment and
scholarly isolation that he contrives to throw around himself forbids
even much speculation as to whence he came or whither he is going--as
if even one's mental questioning might be an intrusion.
At one little station, as the train stops, its resplendent comfort
contrasting strangely with the primitive life of the newly-fledged
village, there enter a man and woman who have been attended to the
very steps of the vestibule by a throng that apparently represents
the entire population of the town. They are all singing, and the man
and woman linger in the vestibule joining in the song. The man is in
the uniform of an officer of the Salvation Army; the woman,
sweet-faced and smiling, is also costumed in this order, with the
usual Salvation Army bonnet projecting over her serene and pleasant
face. The refrain of the song floats out on the air:
"Yes, we'll gather at the river,
That flows by the throne of God."
There is something in the time, the place, the isolation in the new
and just-opened country through which the train is passing, the
on-coming darkness, and the penetrating cadence of the trite and
familiar melody that touches every heart. Every one joins in the
melody; and as the train begins to move, the outer throng withdrawing
into safer distance, the man and the woman still leaning from the
door of the vestibule, there is a waving of hands, and a {185} chorus
of farewells from the vanishing group left behind, and the train
flies on to the benediction of song that still pursues it on the air:
"God be with you till we meet again!"
The man and the woman catch up the line; they are singing with
melodious voices, the magnetism enchains the passengers, and the
cadence echoes again through the railway car:
"God be with you till we meet again!"
It was one of the little episodes that transcend conventionalities
and make strangers into friends. The darkness is coming on; various
nationalities, various individualities--the elaborately outfitted
English tourist, the Reverend Abbé, the pioneer settlers, the stately
official on some mission of Government, the college Professor with
one eye on the landscape in scientific scrutiny--yet all meeting for
the moment in a sense of their common heritage as children of the
Divine Father.
Later it was learned that the Salvation Army officer and his sweet
Scotch wife were none other than Commissioner and Mrs. Charles
Sowton, who were on their way to open meetings in the little Indian
village of Metlakatla, near Prince Rupert, going on later to
Vancouver and Victoria. The Salvation Army is one of the features of
the great North-West. A new territory had been created, and
Commissioner Sowton was appointed to superintend all the activities
of the army in the {186} country west of Port Arthur. For more than
thirty years the Commissioner had been engaged in Salvation Army
work, during which period he and Mrs. Sowton had been stationed in
the British Isles, Norway, India, and the United States in turn. On
their arrival in Victoria on this trip, Commissioner and Mrs. Sowton
were given an official reception, the Mayor and the City Council
joining with the people of the City to welcome these faithful helpers
of humanity. In Vancouver, also, a large meeting was held in the
Pantages Theatre in their honour, Mayor Taylor presiding and many
representative citizens being present.
Nor did the passengers on that particular train fail to make friends
with the wounded Canadian soldier, a brave youth who had lost one arm
in service at the front, and thus crippled for life was returning to
his home at Prince Rupert. To one passenger who was deeply touched
by his courage, his youth, and his patriotism, he was moved to show a
little talisman that he carried in his pocket, an envelope containing
the prayer written by Lord Roberts for the soldiers at the time of
the South African war:
"... If it be Thy will, enable us to win victory for England, but,
above all, grant us a better victory over temptation and sin, over
life and death, that we may be more than conquerors through Him who
loved us, and laid down His life for us, Jesus, our Saviour, the
Captain of the army of God."
To his new friend the lad handed his signed card {187} of
"Self-control; The Sake of Others, and for Love of Christ and
Country," the promise to abstain from all intoxicating liquors, and
to do all in his power to promote good habits among his comrades.
And there was his little card of personal prayer:
"Almighty God, Grant me Thy power, and keep my heart in Thy peace,
help me to avoid evil, and be with me in life and death, for Jesus'
sake."
And the two, strangers but an hour before, were drawn near as sharers
of a common hope, a common faith in the Divine care and leading.
On the arrival at Prince Rupert the populace came out to meet the
young soldier. In him they honoured all Canadian soldiers who were
offering their lives that their Empire might live and that the
freedom of humanity from Prussian tyranny might be preserved. There
was more than one band of music at the station, and musicians,
soldiers, and people joined in the war song:
"When my King and Country call me and I'm wanted at the front,
Where the shrapnel shells are bursting in the air;
When the foe in fury charges and we're sent to bear the brunt.
And the roll is called for service,--I'll be there!
"When the Kaiser's lines are broken and his armies out of France,
When the Belgian desolation we repair;
When the final muster's ordered and the bugle sounds 'Advance'
May the God of Battles help me to be there!
"When for me 'Last Post' is sounded and I cross the silent ford,
I've a Pilot who of 'mine fields' will beware;
When 'Reveille' sounds in Heaven and the Armies of the Lord
Sing the Hallelujah chorus,--I'll be there!"
{188}
No literature relating to the terrible struggle could have brought
home such an intense realisation of the significance of the war, and
the indomitable courage and splendid loyalty of the Dominion, to the
passengers on that Grand Trunk Pacific train as did these personal
contacts and experiences. Canada is not a military nation. She
desires to follow the paths of peaceful progress and noble
development. She has no enmities toward any race, but she sees
clearly the utter demoralisation of the entire world if militarism
and armaments are not exterminated. "The people of the British
dominions are animated by a stern resolve that there shall be no such
outcome," said Premier Borden in an address before the New England
Society, "and they believe it possible to create a well-ordered world
whose harmony shall be based on a mutual respect for common rights."
[Illustration: Indian Totem Pole, Alaska]
The wonderful journey, whose majestic splendour so impressed itself
upon individual life that, in a sense, it could never be over, had
its termination at Prince Rupert. There, again, one may watch the
rose and flame of dawn and the glory of colour from terraced heights
over-looking sea and land; and in all the play of colour reflected
from a thousand waters he may almost find prefigured the twelve gates
of the Heavenly City that were all of pearl; and the foundations of
the wall which were garnished with precious stones--jasper and
sapphire, emerald and chrysolite, and last--an amethyst!
{189}