The romance of the Canadian Pacific Railway

by R. G. MacBeth

Van Horne, therefore, went ahead. He attacked the problem from the great lake whose north shore he was going to iron down or fill up to a level roadway for the steel track. He decided, therefore, that for the most part he would not build far back from the shore even though tracklaying might be easier there, for he wanted to land supplies for the work by water transportation. This would be cheaper and would facilitate distribution. In order to carry out this plan he acquired the Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway, and thus made connection between the East and the Lake at Owen Sound. From that point he had steamers to carry the supplies and land them at certain distances along the North Shore. When the winter set in, these supplies were distributed by horse and mule teams and even by dog-trains, where the snow and the ice on the little lakes off the main shore permitted. With the advent of the summer, small boats on these little lakes, and wagons elsewhere, were used to distribute endless loads of material along the right of way.

Though supplies were thus on hand, it was 1884 before tracklaying on the North Shore was regularly in operation. We get some idea of the immensity of the work and the tremendous energy that had to be put forth to complete it when we find a great host of 12,000 men and 5,000 horses at work on this section as well as a tracklaying machine to relieve the gangs, who found it almost impossible to do track labour in the ordinary fashion, on account of mosquito-infested swamps encountered here and there. Van Horne imported this machine from Chicago. It was new to the French-Canadian track-layers, and its almost human action seemed to them rather uncanny; but they soon adapted themselves to its operation and found it a valued ally. There was an enormous amount of blasting to be done, and to lessen the cost and the danger of importing the high explosives necessary, three dynamite factories were erected to produce the supply for distribution to near-by points. Despite every possible care exercised in this regard, it was inevitable that in such an army of men there would be a good deal of danger in the handling of explosives in the ordinary course of their duty. They knew the danger, but they went on steadily with their work. In consequence there was such considerable loss of human life along that wild section of the railway that those who now enjoy the pleasure and the profit of travel and traffic by the picturesque inland fresh-water sea of Superior, ought to recall that the splendid road-bed was laid, not only at vast cost in substance, but with much sacrifice of that infinitely greater thing, human life. And “if peace hath her victories no less renowned that war,” there is no real reason why we should unfairly discriminate between men who have, in the course of duty, given their lives in the one or the other sphere. And there is no reason why we should not value equally the possessions that have come to us by the sacrifice of men in the ways of necessary industry or in the struggles of unavoidable war.

As the work proceeded on the North Shore, some new methods were introduced rather unexpectedly. We say unexpectedly, because there had been very little work done before that time in Canada over similar territory. The process of levelling rocks down was found to be practically impossible, on account of the great expense and time involved in the effort. So the plan of levelling up was tried with excellent results. Wooden trestles were built in a great many places between the rocks. Then the construction trains came over and dumped broken stone until the space below was filled up with the best possible material out of which to make a safe and durable road-bed. In order to get the material for this process, great quarries were opened up all along the line, whence crushed rock was taken to find the new and excellent use just mentioned.

Of course all this tremendous expenditure of labour and capital on the North Shore gave the critics of the whole Canadian transcontinental railway idea a new opportunity. Capt. Palliser’s report as to the impracticability of a railway across the continent on British soil, Mackenzie’s idea in regard to using the water stretches for transportation as links in a trans-continental system, as well as the early Stephen-Hill plan of linking up with Hill’s line at Sault Ste. Marie, and thus having traffic between East and West in Canada go for some few hundred miles through the States—all these arguments were brought out to support the statement that Canada would be ruined by such wild schemes as building a railway section across the barren waste of rock on the North Shore. These persistent endeavours to block the work of construction were having their pernicious effect in sowing the seeds of discontent throughout the Dominion. And, what was much more serious, these statements, sown broadcast in the Old Country, made London centres of finance dubious in regard to the judgment of the railway directors who would undertake such an exceedingly difficult piece of work. This means that the raising of money in London was practically impossible. British investors have always been venturous enough and will, when Empire interests are in the balance, be ready, for patriotic motives, to take some special hazards. But in this case they were being told by mischief-makers, not only that the North Shore section was outrageously expensive, but that, according to the honest opinion of as great an authority as Sandford Fleming, it should not be constructed with the hope of making running expenses until the West had a population of three millions. It had then not many thousands. And the British investors were being also informed by opponents and rivals of the Canadian Pacific that no Imperial interests would suffer if the North Shore construction was postponed indefinitely and traffic allowed to go through the States according to Hill’s suggestion. Even the contractors and the men on the North Shore began to lose heart, as men will who are being made to feel that they are engaged in a work that is not only dangerous and unnecessary, but likely to prove unprofitable should the Company become insolvent through the terrific expenditure. And these men began to lose even the incentive to endeavour when they were also told that they were engaged in a task which resembled the mythological case of Sisyphus, who was condemned to roll a great stone up a hill only to have it always slip at the top and roll down again. No man likes that endless and fruitless prospect in his work. Nor does he like working on a tower which will have to be left uncompleted for lack of means.

But amid all this discouragement Van Horne remained doggedly determined to make an all-Canadian line and to build the railway on the North Shore. He doubtless used some strong language in regard to the hostile and the faint-hearted, but he pushed ahead with the stolidly unemotional will-power of his Dutch ancestry. As his ancestors in Holland had successfully dyked against the inroads of the ocean, Van Horne defied the seas of pessimistic and hostile criticism to inundate his life and put out the fire of his purpose. Then in the midst of this struggle an opportunity came his way. And his keen brain seized upon it with the swift precision of a steel-trap in action. One Louis Riel, who had stirred up a rebellion against Canadian authority in 1869, and had been hybernating in Montana for the intermediate years, began stirring up another revolt in the Saskatchewan country in 1884. Those guardians of the North-West, the Mounted Police, scattered over the vast area in small detachments, had notified the Canadian authorities ten months or so before the actual outbreak came in March, 1885. It seems now as if much of the information they gave was tied up in a bundle with red tape and pigeonholed by civil service officialdom in Regina. However, that is not part of our present story, beyond our saying that it looked at one time, to those of us who were on the ground, as if the whole Middle West, with its thousands of war-like Indians, would in a short time be swept by a prairie fire of rebellion which would leave ruin and desolation in its wake. It was vitally necessary that in such an event there should be, without delay, an overwhelming demonstration of force made by the Canadian authorities. Riel was sending his runners through the half-breed settlements and Indian camps, telling these primitive and uninformed people that if they all rose they could drive the Canadians off the plains and have these vast spaces for themselves and the wild game again.

Mr. Van Horne, who had been up and down the prairie part of his line frequently, had been watching the rising cloud of discontent amongst the half-breeds there. He did not worry over the political aspects of the situation, but he saw that if the Indians were to be drawn into revolt there would be a general devastation over the whole country. He at once saw the possibility of demonstrating to the country the value of the railway as a carrier of troops to the West, if necessity arose. He pointed out to members of the Dominion Government that the Company would in such a contingency have a strong claim on the Government for help in the financial crisis to which, by reason of the tremendous expenditure in construction, he saw the road to be swiftly and inevitably heading. A member of the Government told Van Horne that the possibility of having to send troops to the West would undoubtedly put a new face on any application by the Railway to the Dominion for a loan to tide them over their difficulties.

It was only the brilliant and marvellously resourceful work of Shaughnessy, in Montreal, in this period that was making the continuance of the work possible, and that was preventing impatient creditors from launching proceedings against the Company. Thinking “as if his brain were packed in ice,” this consummately cool and alert purchasing agent seemed to make a thousand dollars grow where there was only one before. The thousand dollar amount was not actually there, but he handled the situation as if it was visibly in existence. He promised and threatened alternately. He made partial payments and told creditors that if they pressed unduly the Company would do no more business with them. He gave notes and arranged collateral with such extraordinary skill that, so far as I can find, no claim for money due in the ordinary way was ever brought into court, and no note ever signed by the Company ever went to protest. But despite Shaughnessy’s masterly handling of the situation, things were desperate enough, although Stephen, Smith and Angus were pledging their private property and turning over their private investments to keep things in operation.

And now the mountain section had to be completed. More millions would have to be found somewhere. No one seemed to know where to replenish the empty treasury, and the mental strain on the members of the Board was terrible. The fight against rocks and swamps and mountains waged by the Company and contractors and men was fierce enough, but it was not to be compared with the constant battle that had to be waged by the Directors against heart-breaking and nerve-shattering financial conditions, for years after the signing of the original agreement with the Government of Canada for the building of the road. In the next chapter we shall study this particular phase of the subject for a space.

CHAPTER X
Battling for Life

We can say at once, in explanation of the financial struggles before mentioned, that the Canadian Pacific Railway was constructed to a finish across Canada in a period of monetary storm and stress. Leaving out of count the early years when the successive Governments were building short stretches here and there, in a way so leisurely that no financial difficulties occurred, beyond the ordinary impecuniosity which haunts all Governments, the period from 1881 to 1885 was pre-eminently a difficult time. During those years everybody was having what men on the prairies call “hard sledding”—an expression taken from the experience of travel with sleighs when the thaw has left bare patches on the plains. On those patches the sleigh runners catch with a disheartening tenacity and impede progress. At such junctures it is fortunate if there are several men travelling together, because by “doubling up” their teams, they can get over the otherwise impossible gap. Life is full of opportunities for mutual helpfulness, and the great railway which now spans the continent and bridges the oceans found itself more than once, in the construction period above mentioned, at the end of its resources and had to call on the Dominion Government for temporary assistance. It was a case where “doubling up” became necessary if the hard places were to be traversed. We are not sure that the Government was as willing and ready to assist as the ordinary good-natured and open-hearted teamster used to be on the prairie. But even a Government, which should be cautious because it handles trust funds for the people, may be brought to see when an unforeseen expenditure can be and must be made, in the interests of the people themselves. In this particular case of the Dominion Government and the Canadian Pacific Railway the Government would not and did not at any time give even a temporary loan till it had made the most exhaustive investigation into the whole problem. There are some facts so outstanding that even a superficial investigation could find, without much delay, why the Company required and deserved temporary assistance by way of loan during the construction period in a trying era.