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.