CHAPTER XXIV.
THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY.
Rapid Construction—Travelling—Old and New—Beginning of Pacific Railway—Difficulties—Party Warfare—The Line North of Lake Superior—The United States Government—Mountain Passes—Soil and Climate—National Parks—Pacific Terminus.
Any one who, with the least attention, has followed the writer in his journey cannot fail to have observed the ease with which long distances on this continent in modern times are passed over. Within the last quarter of a century the whole system of travel has changed. With efficient railway carriages, possessing sleeping accommodation and accessories to personal comfort and with a restaurant car, making allowance for time and distance, the traveller may pass over half a continent with no greater difficulty than he meets in going from London to Liverpool. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company has shewn extraordinary energy in the construction of the work. The progress seems fabulous. Four hundred and fifty miles of main line, independently of collateral branches in the North-West, aggregating one hundred and forty miles, which they have completed in one summer. The railway now extends westerly from Port Arthur, Lake Superior, to the first range of the Rocky Mountain zone, thirteen hundred and ninety miles. It has practically reached the eastern boundary of British Columbia, in itself identical with the mountain crest forming the continental water-shed. The Canadian Government, in accordance with the contract, retained in its hands the construction of the line from Kamloops to Port Moody, 215 miles. The intervening distance of 300 miles remains to be constructed to complete the connection between Lake Superior and the Pacific.
North of Lake Superior the line is under construction easterly. During the present winter a force of 10,000 workmen have been continually engaged in the task of establishing the line between Port Arthur and Callander, 650 miles, at which last named point connection has been made with the railway systems of Ontario and Quebec.
By degrees these gaps will be closed, and in two or three years it is estimated that trains starting on the eastern seaboard will run on an unbroken line to the Pacific waters. Literally a new continent will be opened to the traveller; the tourist of other lands will be tempted to visit Canada by the care bestowed on his comfort and convenience, and by the moderate expense at which the journey can be accomplished.
During the last century travelling was the prerogative of the wealthy alone. The spirit of enterprise which leads to the examination of the institutions and the inner life of foreign countries was not general. The journey itself was marked with so much discomfort that it required no little love of adventure to face the ordeal. There was also the insular prejudice against the continent and what is still called foreign manners. Men of ancient families and of large ancestral acres frequently, during a long life, were known not to have extended their visits beyond the county town of their shire. The grand tour of the continent, it is true, was a portion of the education of the sons of noblemen and of men of large fortune, but it was enjoyed by few others. It was not simply a matter of money which imposed a limit to the number. Leisure was equally necessary for its enjoyment, and men in busy life could not give the time required. To pass from one locality to another, separated by long distances, even in England itself, was a matter of expense; and, although in their day the mail coach and the post chaise achieved wonders in the then standard of rapid movement, it was only the possessors of assured and ample means who could use those conveyances to any extent for a pleasure tour.
The wide influences which steam applied to motion, exercised upon life in all its forms was rapidly felt. When we consider the shortness of the period within which these changes have arisen, we recognise additional ground for astonishment, that in so limited a period so much has been done to mould us to a new condition of being. All the important departures from our old theories and habits have taken place within this century. It was but a few years beyond this limit when Johnson expressed the belief that one of the happinesses of life was to be whirled rapidly along in a post chaise. Only a few years previously, in 1762, Brindley commenced his first canals which, if they did not admit of speed, permitted intercommunication along their line, until the very traffic which they created led to the establishment of railways, in one sense, to supplant them.
The success of the locomotive and the rapidity of movement which it created, with the decreased cost of travel, were early suggestive of the modifications which would arise in thought, in manners, in the form of life and the political aspirations of modern times. The opening of railways in the early stages of the system established that the new mode of conveyance was one attended with less risk and danger than the old stage and mail coach, and by the control obtained over it applicable to all our wants. Moreover, it was of common utility from the extreme lowness of the charge which it exacted from those using it. It is no exaggeration to say that with the highest class of minds profound emotion was experienced in the changes which they saw would follow in the introduction of this new awakening of thought. It was to them an entirely new departure from old traditions. The ordinary mass of men saw but little beyond the excitement of the hour. Not a few feared trouble in its democratic developments, that something portentous and inevitable had come into being, the consequences of which could not be foreseen. It was felt that life henceforth would be turned into a new track. Men traced an analogy of feeling to that experienced by their fathers when America was discovered, when printing became a power, when the Reformation established liberty of thought and made inward conscience the guide of conduct. It was felt that new relations of life, new comforts, joys and sorrows had come upon us; that the institution of the railway seemed almost a special dispensation, the ends of which were inscrutable, and that the very form and colour of our being had been changed. There are numerous passages in modern literature to prove that in no way I exaggerate the anticipations which were formed, and doubtless which many can well remember.