Westward with the Prince of Wales

by W. Douglas Newton

CHAPTER XVII

THE PACIFIC CITIES: VANCOUVER AND VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA

I

Vancouver was land after a mountain voyage. With the feelings of a seafarer seeing cliffs after a long ocean journey, we reached common, flat country and saw homely asphalt streets.

There can be no two points of view concerning the beauty and grandeur of the mountain scenery through which the Prince had passed, but after a succession of even the most stimulating gorges and glaciers one does turn gladly to a little humanity in the lump. Vancouver was humanity in the lump, an exceedingly large lump and of peculiarly warm and generous emotions. We were glad to meet crowds once more.

There are some adequate streets in this great western port of Canada. When Vancouver planned such opulent boulevards as Granville and Georgia streets, it must have been thinking hard about posterity, which will want a lot of space if only to drive its superabundant motors. But splendid and wide and long though these and other streets be, the mass of people which lined them on Monday, September 22nd, was such as to set the most long-headed town planner wondering if, after all, he had allowed enough room for the welcoming of Princes.

From the vast, orderly throng massed behind the red and tartan of the Highland guard of honour at the station, thick ranks of people lined the whole of a long route to Stanley Park.

This crowd not only filled the sidewalks with good-tempered liveliness, but it had sections in all the windows of the fine blocks of buildings the Prince passed. Now and then it attempted to emulate the small boys who ran level with the Prince's car cheering to full capacity, and caring not a jot whether a "Mounty" of the escort or a following car went over them, but on the whole the crowd was more in hand than usual.

This does not mean that it was less enthusiastic. The reception was of the usual stirring quality, and it culminated in an immense outburst in Stanley Park.

It was a touch of genius to place the official reception in the Park. It is, in a sense, the key-note of Vancouver. It gives it its peculiar quality of charm. It is a huge park occupying the entirety of a peninsula extending from the larger peninsula upon which Vancouver stands. It has sea-water practically all round it. In it are to be found the greatest and finest trees in Canada in their most natural surroundings.

It is one big "reservation" for trees. Those who think that they can improve upon nature have had short shrift, and the giant Douglas pine, the firs and the cedars thrive naturally in a setting that has remained practically untouched since the day when the British seaman, Captain Vancouver, explored the sounds of this coast. It is an exquisite park having delightful forest walks and beautiful waterside views.

Under the great trees and in a wilderness of bright flowers and flags as bright, a vast concourse of people was gathered about the pretty pavilion in the park to give the Prince a welcome. The function had all the informality of a rather large picnic, and when the sun banished the Pacific "smoke," or mist, the gathering had infinite charm.

After this reception the Prince went for a short drive in the great park, seeing its beautiful glades; looking at Burrard Inlet that makes its harbour one of the best in the world, and getting a glimpse of English Bay, where the sandy bathing beaches make it one of the best sea-side resorts in the world as well. At all points of the drive there were crowds. And while most of those on the sidewalks were Canadian, there was also, as at "Soo," a good sprinkling of Americans. They had come up from Seattle and Washington county to have a first-hand look at the Prince, and perhaps to "jump" New York and the eastern Washington in a racial desire to get in first.

In this long drive, as well as during the visit we paid to Vancouver on our return from Victoria, there was a considerable amount of that mist which the inhabitants call "smoke," because it is said to be the result of forest fires along the coast, in the air. Yet in spite of the mist we had a definite impression of a fine, spacious city, beautifully situated and well planned, with distinguished buildings. And an impression of people who occupy themselves with the arts of business, progress and living as becomes a port not merely great now, but ordained to be greater tomorrow.

It is a city of very definite attraction, as perhaps one imagined it would be, from a place that links directly with the magical Orient, and trades in silks and tea and rice, and all the romantic things of those lands, as well as in lumber and grain with all the colourful towns that fringe the wonderful Pacific Coast.

Vancouver has been the victim of the "boom years." Under the spell of that "get-rich-quick" impulse, it outgrew its strength. It is getting over that debility now (and perhaps, after all, the "boomsters" were right, if their method was anticipatory) and a fine strength is coming to it. When conditions ease and requisitioned shipping returns to its wharves, and its own building yards make up the lacking keels, it should climb steadily to its right position as one of the greatest ports in the British Empire.

II

Vancouver, as it is today, is a peculiarly British town. Its climate is rather British, for its winter season has a great deal of rain where other parts of Canada have snow, and its climate is Britishly warm and soft. It attracts, too, a great many settlers from home, its newspapers print more British news than one usually finds in Canadian papers (excepting such great Eastern papers as, for instance, The Montreal Gazette), and its atmosphere, while genuinely Canadian, has an English tone.

There is not a little of America, too, in its air, for great American towns like Seattle are very close across the border—in fact one can take a "jitney" to the United States as an ordinary item of sightseeing. Under these circumstances it was not unnatural that there should be an interesting touch of America in the day's functions.

The big United States battleship New Mexico and some destroyers were lying in the harbour, and part of the Prince's program was to have visited Admiral Rodman, who commanded. The ships, however, were in quarantine, and this visit had to be put off, though the Admiral himself was a guest at the brilliant luncheon in the attractive Vancouver Hotel, when representatives from every branch of civic life in greater Vancouver came together to meet the Prince.

In his speech the Prince made direct reference to the American Navy, and to the splendid work it had accomplished in the war. He spoke first of Vancouver, and its position, now and in the future, as one of the greatest bases of British sea power. Vancouver, he explained, also brought him nearer to those other great countries in the British Dominions, Australia and New Zealand, and it seemed to him it was a fitting link in the chain of unity and co-operation—a chain made more firm by the war—that the British Empire stretched round the world. It was a chain, he felt, of kindred races inspired by kindred ideals. Such ideals were made more apparent by the recent and lamented death of that great man, General Botha, who, from being an Africander leader in the war against the British eighteen years ago, had yet lived to be one of the British signatories at the Treaty of Versailles. Nothing else could express so significantly the breadth, justice and generosity of the British spirit and cause.

Turning to Admiral Rodman, he went on to say that he felt that that spirit had its kinship in America, whose Admiral had served with the Grand Fleet. Of the value of the work those American ships under Admiral Rodman did, there could be no doubt. He had helped the Allies with a most magnificent and efficient unit.

At no other place had the response exceeded the warmth shown that day. The Prince's manner had been direct and statesmanlike, each of his points was clearly uttered, and the audience showed a keen quickness in picking them up.

Admiral Rodman, a heavily-built figure, with the American light, dryness of wit, gave a new synonym for the word "Allies"; to him that word meant "Victory." It was the combination of every effort of every Ally that had won the war. Yet, at the same time, practical experience had taught him to feel that if it had not been for the way the Grand Fleet had done its duty from the very outset, the result of the war would have been diametrically opposite. Feelingly, he described his service with the Grand Fleet. He had placed himself unreservedly under the command of the British from the moment he had entered European waters, yet so complete was the co-operation between British and Americans that he often took command of British units. The splendid war experience had done much to draw the great Anglo-Saxon nations together. Their years together had ripened into friendship, then into comradeship, then into brotherhood. And that brotherhood he wished to see enduring, so that if ever the occasion should again arise all men of Anglo-Saxon strain should stand together.

There was real warmth of enthusiasm as the Admiral spoke. Those present, whose homes are close to those of their American neighbours living across a frontier without fortifications, in themselves appreciated the essential sympathy that exists between the two great nations. When the Admiral conveyed to the Prince a warm invitation to visit the United States, this enthusiasm reached its highest point. It was, in its way, an international lunch, and a happy one.

III

After reviewing the Great War Veterans on the quay-side, the Prince left Vancouver just before lunch time on Tuesday, September 23rd, for Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, which lies across the water on Vancouver Island.

It was a short run of five hours in one of the most comfortable boats I have ever been in—the Princess Alice, which is on the regular C.P.R. service, taking in the fjords and towns of the British Columbian coast.

Leaving Vancouver, where the towering buildings give an authentic air of modern romance to the skyline, a sense of glamour went with us across the sea. The air was still tinged with "smoke" and the fabled blue of the Pacific was not apparent, but we could see curiously close at hand the white cowl of Mount Baker, which is America, and we passed on a zig-zag course through the scattered St. Juan Islands, each of which seemed to be charming and lonely enough to stage a Jack London story.

On the headlands or beaches of these islands there were always men and women and children to wave flags and handkerchiefs, and to send a cheer across the water to the Prince. One is surprised, so much is the romantic spell upon one, that the people on these islets of loneliness should know that the Prince was coming, that is, one is surprised until one realizes that this is Canada, and that telegraphs and telephones and up-to-date means of communication are commonplaces here as everywhere.

Romance certainly invades one on entering Victoria. It seems a city out of a kingdom of Anthony Hope's, taken in hand by a modern Canadian administration. Steaming up James Bay to the harbour landing one feels that it is a sparkling city where the brightest things in thrilling fiction might easily happen.

The bay goes squarely up to a promenade. Behind the stone balustrade is a great lawn, and beyond that, amid trees, is a finely decorative building, a fitted back-ground to any romance, though it is actually an hôtel de luxe. To the left of the square head of the water is a distinguished pile; it is the Customs House, but it might be a temple of dark machinations. To the right is a rambling building, ornate and attractive, with low, decorated domes and outflung and rococo wings. That could easily be the palace of at least a sub-rosa royalty, though it is the House of Parliament. The whole of this square grouping of green grass and white buildings, in the particularly gracious air of Victoria gives a glamorous quality to the scene.

Victoria's welcome to the Prince was modern enough. Boat sirens and factory hooters loosed a loud welcome as the steamer came in. A huge derrick arm that stretched a giant legend of Welcome out into the harbour, swung that sign to face the Princess Alice all the time she was passing, and then kept pace on its rail track so that Welcome should always be abreast of the Prince.

The welcome, too, of the crowds on that day when he landed, and on the next when he attended functions at the Parliament buildings, was as Canadian and up-to-date as anywhere else in the Dominion. The crowds were immense, and, at one time, when little girls stood on the edge of a path to strew roses in front of him as he walked, there was some danger of the eager throngs submerging both the little girls and the charming ceremony in anxiety to get close to him.

The crowd in Parliament Square during the ceremonies of Wednesday, September 24th, was prodigious. From the hotel windows the whole of the great green space before the Parliament buildings was seen black with people who stayed for hours in the hope of catching sight of the Prince as he went from one ceremony to another.

It was a gathering of many races. There were Canadians born and Canadians by residence. Vivid American girls come by steamer from Seattle were there. There were men and women from all races in Europe, some of them Canadians now, some to be Canadians presently. There were Chinese and Japanese in greater numbers than we had seen elsewhere, for Victoria is the nearest Canadian city to the East. There were Hindus, and near them survivors of the aboriginal race, the Songhish Indians, who lorded it in Vancouver Island before the white man came.

And giving a special quality to this big cosmopolitan gathering was the curious definitely English air of Victoria. It is the most English of Canadian cities. Its even climate is the most English, and its air of well-furnished leisure is English. Because of this, or perhaps I should say the reason for this is that it is the home of many Englishmen. Not only do settlers from England come here in numbers, but many English families, particularly those from the Orient East, who get to know its charms when travelling through it on their way across Canada and home, come here to live when they retire. And this distinctly English atmosphere gets support in great measure from the number of rich Canadians who, on ceasing their life's work, come here to live in leisure.

Yet though this is responsible for the growing up in Victoria of some of the most beautiful residential districts in Canada, where beautiful houses combine with the lovely scenery of country and sea in giving the city and its environments a delightful charm, Victoria is vigorously industrial too.

It has shipbuilding and a brisk commerce in lumber, machinery and a score of other manufactories, and it serves both the East and the Canadian and American coast. It has fine, straight, broad streets, lined with many distinguished buildings, and its charm has virility as well as ease.

IV

The Prince made a long break in his tour here, remaining until Sunday, September 28th. Most of this stay was given over to restful exercise; he played golf and went for rides through the beautiful countryside. There were several functions on his program, however. He visited the old Navy Yard and School at Esquimault, and he took a trip on the Island railway to Duncan, Ladysmith, Nanaimo and Qualicum.

At each of these towns he had a characteristic welcome, and at some gained an insight into local industries, such as lumbering and the clearing of land for farming. On the return journey he mounted the engine cab and came most of the way home in this fashion.

The country in the Island is serene and attractive, extremely like England, being reminiscent of the rolling wooded towns in Surrey, though the Englishman misses the hedges. The many sea inlets add beauty to the scenery, and there are delightful rides along roads that alternately run along the water's edge, or hang above these fjords on high cliff ledges.

In one of our inland drives we were taken to an extraordinary and beautiful garden. It is a serene place, laid out with exquisite skill. In one part of it an old quarry has been turned into a sunken garden. Here with straight cliffs all round there nests a wilderness of flowers. Small, artificial crags have been reared amid the rockeries and the flowers, and by small, artificial paths one can climb them. A stream cascades down the cliff, and flows like a beautiful toy-thing through the dainty artificial scenery.

In another part of the grounds is a Japanese garden, with tiny pools and moon bridges and bamboo arbours—and flowers and flowers and flowers. And not only does the maker of this enchanted spot throw it open to the public, but he has built for visitors a delightful chalet where they can take tea. This chalet is a big, comely hall, with easy chairs and gate tables. It is provided with all the American magazines. In a tiny outbuilding is a scullery with cups and saucers and plates and teapots—all for visitors.

The visitors take their own food, and use these articles. The Chinese cook at the house near by provides boiling water, and all the owner asks is that those who use his crockery shall wash it up at the sink provided, and with the dish-cloths provided, and leave it in readiness for the next comer.

That generosity is the final and completing touch to the charm of that exquisite place, which is a veritable "Garden of Allah" amid the beauties of Canadian scenery.

Another drive was over the Malahat Pass, through superb country, to a big lumber camp on Shawnigan Lake. Here we saw the whole of the operations of lumbering from the point where a logger notches a likely tree for cutting to the final moment when Chinese workmen feed the great trunks to the steam saw that hews them into beams and planks.

Having selected a tree, the first logger cuts into it a deep wedge which is to give it direction in its fall. These men show an almost uncanny skill. They get the line of a great tree with the handle of their axes, as an artist uses a pencil, and they can cut their notches so accurately that they can "fall" a tree on a pocket-handkerchief.

Two men follow this expert. They cut smaller notches in the tree, and insert their "boards" into it. These "boards" have a steel claw which bites into the tree when the men stand on the board, the idea being both to raise the cutters above the sprawling roots, and to give their swing on the saw an elasticity. It is because they cut so high that Canada is covered with tall stumps that make clearing a problem. The stumps are generally dynamited, or torn up by the roots by cables that pass through a block on the top of a tree to the winding-drum of a donkey-engine.

When the men at the saw have cut nearly through the tree, they sing out a drawling, musical "Stand aw-ay," gauging the moment with the skill of woodsmen, for there is no sign to the lay eye. In a few moments the giant tree begins to fall stiffly. It moves slowly, and then with its curious rigidity tears swiftly through the branches of neighbouring trees, coming to the ground with a thump very much like the sound of an H.E. shell, and throwing up a red cloud of torn bark. The sight of a tree falling is a moving thing; it seems almost cruel to bring it down.

A donkey-engine mounted on big logs, that has pulled itself into place by the simple method of anchoring its steel rope to a distant tree—and pulling, jerks the great trunks out of the heart of the forest. A block and tackle are hitched to the top of a tall tree that has been left standing in a clearing, and the steel ropes are placed round the fallen trunks. As this lifting line pulls them from their resting-place, they come leaping and jerking forward, charging down bushes, rising over stumps, dropping and hurdling over mounds until it seems that they are actually living things struggling to escape. The ubiquitous donkey-engine loads the great logs on trucks, and an engine, not very much bigger than a donkey-engine, tows the long cars of timber down over a sketchy track to the waterside.

Here the loads are tipped with enormous splashes into the water to wait in the "booms" until they are wanted at the mill. Then they are towed across, sure-footed men jump on to them and steer them to the big chute, where grappling teeth catch them and pull them up until they reach the sawing platform. They are jerked on to a movable truck, that grips them, and turns them about with mechanical arms into the required position for cutting, and then log and truck are driven at the saw blade, which slices beams or planks out of the primitive trunk with an almost sinister ease.

Uncanny machines are everywhere in this mill. Machines carve shingles and battens or billets with an almost human accuracy. A conveyor removes all sawdust from the danger of lights with mechanical intelligence. Another carries off all the scrapwood and takes it away to a safe place in the mill yard where a big, wire-hooded furnace, something like a straight hop oast-house, burns every scrap of it.

The life in the lumber camp is a hard life, but it is well paid, it is independent, and the food is a revelation. The loggers' lunch we were given was a meal fit for gourmets. It was in a rough pitch-pine hut at rough tables. Clam-soup was served to us in cylindrical preserved meat cans on which the maker's labels still clung—but it lost none of its delightful flavour for that. Beef was served cut in strips in a great bowl, and we all reached out for the vegetables. There were mammothine bowls of mixed salad possessing an astonishing (to British eyes) lavishness of hard-boiled egg, lemon pie (lemon curd pie) with a whipped-egg crown, deep apple pie (the logger eats pie—which many people will know better as "tart"—three times a day), a marvellous fruit salad in jelly, and the finest selection of plums, peaches, apples, and oranges I had seen for a long day.

I was told that this was the regular meal of the loggers, and I know it was cooked by a chef (there is a French or Belgian or Canadian chef in most logging camps), for I talked with him. To live in a lonely forest, in a shack, and to work tremendously hard, may not be all the life a man wants, but it has compensations.

I understand that just about then the lumbermen were prone to striking. In one place they were demanding sheets, and in another they had refused to work because, having ordered two cases of eggs from a store, the tradesman had only been able to send the one he had in stock.

While we were in this camp we had some experience of the danger of forest fires. We had walked up to the head of the clearing, when one of the men of a group we had left working a short distance behind, came running up to say a fire had started. We went back, and in a place where, ten minutes before, there had been no sign of fire, flames and smoke were rising over an area of about one hundred yards square. Little tongues of flame were racing over the "slashings" (i.e., the débris of bark and splintered limbs that litter an area which has been cut), snakes of flame were writhing up standing trees, sparks blown by the wind were dropping into the dry "slashings" twenty, thirty and fifty yards away and starting fresh fires. We could see with what incredible rapidity these fires travelled, and how dangerous they can be once they are well alight. This fire was surrounded, and got under with water and shovelled earth, but we were shown a big stretch of hillside which another such fire had swept bare in a little under two hours. The summer is the dangerous time, for "slashings" and forests are then dry, and one chance spark from a badly screened donkey-engine chimney will start a blaze. When the fire gets into wet and green wood it soon expires.

These drives, for us, were the major events in an off time, for there was very little happening until the night of the 28th, when we went on board the Princess Alice again, to start on our return journey.