The romance of the Canadian Pacific Railway

by R. G. MacBeth

The Canadian Pacific Railway was and is a triumph of constructive endeavour in the days of peace. We have spoken of the army of men at work, from the turning of the first sod, all through the grading, the tracklaying and the operation of the road, as a peaceful mobile army which moved with tireless tread in the march of civilization. It was the business of these men to build and not to destroy, to gather together and not to scatter abroad, to conserve and not to dissipate the natural assets of Canada. In doing this work the Railway would be performing a great task in relation to the stability of human society and would send coursing through the arteries of commerce that national and international trade which has so much to do with the calm health of the world. But, alas! there are times when the peace of the earth is rudely interrupted by some megalomaniac who kicks the anthill of the world’s population and sends the inhabitants into wild confusion. In such times it becomes necessary to resist and subdue the disturber, if need be, by force. Pacifism is a high ideal if all would seek to work it out together; but, changing to another figure of speech, we all know that it is useless to reason with a mad dog running amuck on the world’s thoroughfare. Hence there are occasions, unhappily, when the peaceful have not only to stand on the defensive but to carry war into the enemy’s country, so as to compel the inciter to war to remember that other people have a right to life and liberty and happiness on this round globe. On such occasions the machinery of traffic has to be temporarily diverted, in some degree, from its accustomed employment and swung into the conflict for ultimate peace.

In this regard the great railway of which we are writing has done its startlingly large share at home and abroad. It will be remembered that the road was not finished over the North Shore of Lake Superior when Mr. Van Horne, who had, months before, offered help in such a possible emergency case, transported troops to the scene of the Riel outbreak on the North and South Saskatchewan. We spoke specially of the North Shore in relation to bringing troops from the Eastern Provinces, but we must also bear in mind that troops were rushed from Winnipeg westward with pronounced effect. Those were my student days in Winnipeg, but it was my privilege to be one of the Winnipeg Light Infantry which was specially raised and rushed on the new road by troop train to Calgary. This was an exceedingly important movement, because the massacre at Frog Lake, down the North Saskatchewan from Edmonton, had taken place and the Indian tribes were very restless all over the vast area from the boundary line away to the north. We left some companies at points in what is now Southern Alberta where the war-like tribes of the Blackfeet, Piegans, Bloods and others had their habitat. Their great chief, Crowfoot, befriended in the early days by the Mounted Police, was loyal, but young braves under the prevailing excitement might break away and were none the worse of seeing a few red-coats in the locality. From Calgary the rest of our regiment, along with the 65th of Montreal, and a few splendid Mounted Police and Scouts, marched north to Edmonton. We passed through some tribes that were very much agitated by Riel’s runners, and on to Edmonton, which, but for the timely arrival of our column, would have shared the fate of Forts Pitt and Victoria, not far away, which had already been looted and burned by the Frog Lake and other Indians under Big Bear and Wandering Spirit. Similarly, were troops rushed westward from Winnipeg to Swift Current, whence they marched for the relief of Battleford, which was beleaguered by Indians, and farther east others went on the railway till they came to the point nearest Batoche, where Riel and Gabriel Dumont were at the centre of revolt. Riel had sent his runners out in all directions, saying to the Indians that there were only a few Mounted Police in the country and that the Queen’s soldiers could not reach the Far West. My own recollection is that the Indians amongst whom we came were positively amazed at the suddenness of our appearance in their remote districts. Prevention is better than cure, and there is no doubt at all but that the effect of the inflammatory appeal of Riel was headed off by the swift arrival of soldiers. But for this the whole prairie might have been overrun by maddened Indians, who would have made many massacres like that of the nine unfortunate white men whose mangled bodies we buried on the Frog Lake Indian Reserve. After the rebellion was crushed, the Government at Ottawa took many Indian Chiefs to the Eastern Provinces in order that these Indians might see the strength of “the Queen’s people.” This trip was an effective deterrent on any more uprisings and not the least of the influences for peace were the “fire wagons” that drew trains along steel trails with such swiftness that the Indian ponies were left hopelessly behind. The Riel outbreak was not a great war, but it might have led to massacre, pillage and ruin only for the demonstration of power made possible by the railway transport before the flame of revolt got fairly started. For that service, of enormous value to Canada and the Empire, we who knew the situation will always be grateful for the work of the Canadian Pacific in a critical hour. The swift suppression of the Riel revolt put the all-Canadian railway conspicuously on the map of the Empire as a new element of power in her far-flung battle-line.

When the Great War broke over the world so suddenly in 1914, the Canadian Pacific had, in the interval since Riel’s outbreak and the primitive line of that day, grown into the world’s greatest transportation system by land and sea. It is remembered now of course that the War took most people unawares, so that they acted in the emergency according to the attitude their manner of thinking had developed. It is a striking comment on the thinking of President Shaughnessy, of the Canadian Pacific Railway, that while others in various places hesitated he at once put the resources of the Company, with its world-wide system on land and sea, at the disposal of the Empire. This was all the more remarkable when we recall that he was foreign born and had only come to Canada when he had grown to man’s estate. The fact was that he had become intensely Canadian. It seems a law of human life that people come to love the cause for which they make sacrifices. Shaughnessy had sacrificed much for Canada and its progress. He had left his own country and his home at an age when these mean much and when for him certain promotion on well-established roads was within reach. He had come to a new enterprise in a comparatively new country with an uncertain future and he had passed through circumstances that imposed upon him, for some years, a mental strain which amounted to positive suffering. I do not suppose that either he or Van Horne ever became less attached to their native land to the south of the line, but the stupendous undertaking of Canada’s pioneer transcontinental railway so absorbed the intense devotion of all their energies that they became profoundly Canadian. They did not love the United States less, but the immense enterprise to which they gave the best years of their lives in Canada bound them with unmistakable loyalty to their adopted country. When the War broke out, Mr. Van Horne had retired from active service in the Canadian Pacific and was in poor health, but his heart was in sympathy with Canada and he exerted himself to do what he could. Shaughnessy, as we have said, wheeled the whole system into line to help win the War. The transcontinental trains had to be kept moving with precision, to transport troops and to rush to the front stores of food from the granary of the Empire on the Western plains. But the huge workshops were turned into shell factories and became hives of industry for the manufacture of the destructive enginery of war. Shaughnessy, at the request of the Home Government, loaned to the work of war transportation some of the ablest officials of the Company in that department. In an effort to reorganize the broken-down transportation of Russia, Shaughnessy sent to that strange land one of the keenest minded officials of the Canadian Pacific in the person of George Bury, who was knighted for the efforts he made there in a period seething with discontent and revolution.

Although it would not do to cripple the system at the home base, every facility was given to employees to enlist for military service abroad. I have seen with Mr. F. W. Peters, the popular and efficient General Superintendent of the Railway in British Columbia, a copy of the instructions issued by Shaughnessy and sent out to leading officials all over the system. It was intimated therein that to all employees who enlisted, their full pay would be continued for six months (many thought the war would be brief) and that places equivalent to those they had occupied when they enlisted would be given to those who returned. There were over eleven thousand enlistments and of these about eleven hundred were killed in action. So well was the promise as to re-employment kept that former employees to the number of nearly eight thousand were taken on again, and in addition some fourteen thousand other returned soldiers were given situations—a most remarkable showing. It is quite well known that the Company also did all it could for the dependants of those who did not return.

In tribute to the unreturning brave the Canadian Pacific erected permanent memorials in bronze and tablets all over the system in order that succeeding generations might not forget. Upon each bronze monument and each tablet are these fine words:

“To commemorate those in the service of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, who, at the call of king and country, left all that was dear to them, endured hardship, faced danger and finally passed out of sight of men by the path of duty and self-sacrifice, giving up their own lives that others might live in freedom. Let those who come after see to it that their names be not forgotten. 1914-1918.”

We have been thus far studying the war service of the Canadian Pacific with our minds principally upon the forces drawn from the land portion of the system. But there is in some respects a more wonderful record on the sea. Not that the men on the sea were more valorous than those on the land; but the men on the sea, being located in ships, were more easily followed than the men who in the land or the air forces were scattered in various localities on many battle fronts.

Almost every ship of the Canadian Pacific fleet went on war duty, and fifteen of these were lost by torpedoes or mines or other similar causes on the high seas. These lost vessels represented over a third of the tonnage engaged. Behind this simple statement are many tales of heroism of which there is no permanent record, and there are achievements of thrilling importance done in practically all parts of the world. It is possible for us to give only an outline which can be filled in with deeds of gallantry and valour by the imagination of any reader who knows the traditions of our British men on the high seas of the world.

“If blood be the price of Admiralty,

Lord God, we have paid it full: