Into the Fairylands: Chapter 8

Into the Fairylands

By J. R. Bennett

<Chapter VII~*~Chapter IX>

Chapter VIII

The call to arms

~*~

The group sat in the living room.  It had been long past breakfast and Alice, Zach, Travis and Ed were sitting about, watching the television, agreeing it was time for a lazy day.  The old tube television was glowing as it showed a rerun of a program called The Late-Night Variety Show.  A man named Louis Fitzgerald, danced about in front of them telling jokes and introducing the next act.  Suddenly, without warning the program was interrupted by a breaking news item.

            “We interrupt this program for an urgent bulletin from Bathill,” explained the news anchor that appeared on the screen, “where the Prime Minister, Samuel Holland, is about to make an announcement.”

            The image changed to outside of the parliament building in Bathill.  The prime minister stood outside of the big, iron gates with a sheet of paper in his hand.

            “It is with great regret,” said the politician, “that I, Prime Minister Samuel Holland, must announce that our great empire has been placed under threat.  As of midnight tonight, the Crown Island of the Gallan-Gallet and her colonies in the Deltic Empire will be at war.”

            Ed look mortified and before anyone could say anything about it, he had dashed to the kitchen for the telephone.  His hands shook as he tried to spin the number ring.  After several failed attempts, Ed finally put in the correct number.

            “Hullo… Kina? Oh, good.  I’m guessing you’ve heard the news.  Uh huh.  Li’l Dill will be jumping for the chance to test out his army…  I see.   When should I go?  …No, that’s fine.  What about the others?  I can’t just leave ‘em.  I’ll let you know when he can come.”

            Ed hung the phone back up.  He had not noticed that Alice, Zach and Travis had followed him to the kitchen.  Ed looked solemn at his friends.

            “Kina has given me orders to join Little Dill when he charges for the Manookoo cloud.”

            “What about us?” asked Zach.

            “Your safety can’t… it can’t be promised.  Kina has arranged for Bug-a-boo to take you all home before it is too late.”

            “We can’t just leave you.” piped Alice.

            “I don’t want to lose any of you.” Ed explained.  “I would rather, send you three home and have you all safe than having you all killed.”

            “But you could die doing this.” cried Travis.

            “I guess I’m a fool for not wanting to have people, who mean a lot to me, get hurt in a war they have nothing to do with.”

            “Then I guess we are fools too for not wanting to leave.” said Zach.

            Ed looked at his friends.  He did not have to say anything, Alice, Zach and Travis knew exactly what he wanted to say.

“So you are all going,” concluded Bug-a-boo.

            “That’s the plan,” said Ed.

            “Good.  I just want you to know… those three care about you.  They’re willing to face hellfire and ice for you.  People like that are rare in quality so treat them well.  Like a flower, give them light through encouragement and water in the form of loyalty.  Alice is your encourager, Travis your confidant, Zach is your judge.  Don’t take them for granted.”

            “I won’t.” Ed promised.

            “Good.”  Bug-a-boo was about to draw smoke from his pipe when he paused.  “Before I forget, remember what I told you that night at the house, do not cause your lack of awareness be your downfall.”

            “I won’t.”

            “This is no joke.  A premonition was passed to me from an important source.  This premonition showed you blind with red ray casting from your sockets.  I do not understand its meaning, but you were alone.  I won’t have you forced to face death alone, I won’t able to bring you back here for good.  What I am trying to say is whether you make it out of this unscathed; I just want you to understand… I will do anything within my power to ensure you and your friends are together.”

            Before Ed could say a word, the wizard became consumed in the smoke and was gone.

The group made their way to a small hamlet located next to a wider part of the Tashford River called Kelton.  They were met by Kina, who had hired a boat for their voyage.  Little Dill and his army of brownies were busy loading the boat with supplies, which included non-parishable foodstuffs, weapons and a radio so they could track the progress of the Deltic Army against the cloud.

            “Good luck you four,” said Kina.  “Bloom tells me that the warship Pedigree is already out to sea and keeping watch for the Manookoo.   I advise to reach there as quickly as possible.  Bloom will send word through the Ministry of War’s channels of your arrival.  Wire the Order once you have arrived at the Pedigree and leave only when you have received orders from me or by forces beyond our own.”

            Ed shook hands with Kina. The old professor leaned towards Ed’s ear and whispered: “Try not to get yourselves killed.”

As Ed, Zach, Alice and Travis journeyed across the Tashford River for the ocean and ultimately the imperial warship Pedigree, the government of the Deltic Empire were hard at work making the necessary preparations for the arrival of the Manookoo.

            In the office of the Prime Minister, Guthrie Bloom, General Blunt, Minister of War, and Prime Minister Samuel Holland sat around a large desk.

            “What is the current state of our military?” the Prime Minister asked.

            Blunt stood to attention with the same attitude reminiscent of his days as a private in the imperial army.  “Our war ship, the Pedigree, is making head way toward the Nimbian[1] coast.  The Empress and the Leviathan, are holding a blockade in the area of predicted path of the cloud.  My associates in the militant department have air guns planted in every major city and trains set up to keep the flow of supplies going.  The air force has arranged a series of squadrons to patrol the skies for the cloud.  I can say that we have put everything we’ve got available into this fight.”

            Holland turned to Bloom.  “What would you have done when you were prime minister?”[2]

            Bloom looked at his successor with a look of grimace.  “I'd do the same bloody thing.” was his reply.  “If we do not act fast in this confrontation, the entire empire is lost.”

            Across from Bathill, and high above, two pilots were on patrol of the skies.  Captain Smith-Blake and his co-pilot “Blinky” Rogers looked about them in their normal military fashion, with two cups of cocoa to lift their spirits.

            They weren't the only ones about.  As Blunt had explained, the Imperial Air Force, had been dispatched to watch the clouds for the Manookoo.  The mighty airship Avolare served as a floating base, providing a location for wireless messages to be relayed and as a place for pilots to rest between watches.

            Smith-Blake and Blinky had only been sent out a few hours ago on their plane, the Neon Gypsy.  The pair had only their cocoa and a few snacks Blinky and Smith-Blake had smuggled aboard from their mothers' care packages.

            “Cheese and crackers!” cried Smith-Blake.

            “What cap'n?” asked Blinky.

            “I thought I squashed the cheese and crackers,” replied the captain.

            “Oh,” replied Blinky.  “I hope the jam wasn't damaged, my mother travelled all the way to Little Picking to-”

            “OH HAM!” shouted Smith-Blake.  “Look!”

            There in the distance was a massive cloud.  From left to right it seemed endless, its purple hue making it look larger.  The mass was moving close to the surface of the Periculosus Ocean.

            “Radio to base.” called Smith-Blake to the radio.

            “This is base,” replied the clerk on the other end.  “What’s your status? Over.”

“This is Smith-Blake.  We see a tottie[3] straight ahead, over.”

            “How fast is the tottie moving?” asked the clerk.

            “I estimate twenty minutes from the cork[4].

            As the message of the Manookoo's location, a large and massive creature began to come from the cloud.  It was some sort of dragon, large, massive, deformed and black.  It was this moment, as Smith-Blake sent his final message to warn of the creature, that it was realized that the war for the Deltic Empire had begun.

---

^[1]Pronounced: Nim/bee/an

^[2]Author's note:  Holland is referring to Bloom's 10-year period as Prime Minister (1980-1990).  A period in which the empire faced near collapse and antagonism from both within and outside of the empire.

^[3]Tottie: Deltic military term for a specific target.

^[4]Cork: Deltic military term for allied ships and planes.  Enemy navel and aerial vehicles are crudely referred to as “stones.”

Twitch Plays in the Neighbourhood

                Hello Neighbour!  Right now, Twitch is showing all 886 episodes of the beloved children’s program Mister Roger’s Neighbourhood.  I honour of that I want to share a special post on the importance of this show and why you should support your local PBS station.

When I was a kid, I grew up watching episodes of Mr. Rogers.  Each episode, Mr. Rogers would enter his home, change into his sneakers and cardigan, and sing the opening song.  Mr. Rogers taught children the importance of imagination, emotions, and the beauty of everyone’s uniqness. He was a person I looked up to because of those virtues and is still someone I admire.

I know people like to call Mr. Rogers creepy.  I don’t see it.  Fred Rogers, the host and creator of Mister Rogers’ Neighbourhood, fervently believed that children deserved to see quality programing and shouldn’t be treated like fools.  It was this earnest faith that allowed Rogers to convince Congress in 1969 not to cut PBS’s budget. While Senator Pastore seemed gruff and impatient, Mr. Rogers was calm and passonate showing to Congress that childhood education is something that shouldn't be short changed.  He was just as sincere off the camera as he was on TV.

In an age where Donald Trump demeans the spirit of the human condition and makes ignorance something acceptable, we need more Fred Rogers.  We need to celebrate and care for one another.  As Mr. Rogers would say “there is only one you” and for that reason we should be working together, not crying racism and sexism for acknowledging differences or calling others “snowflakes”.  Ignorance only breeds more ignorance and fear and hate.  Be a do-er of good, let someone else commit bad things.  Love is so much loader and so much more spreading when ever one joins in.

PBS has always been the home of Mr. Rogers and so many other programs.  Whether it was Zoom, Liberty’s Kids, Nova, Masterpiece Theatre, or Bill Nye the Science Guy, PBS has strived to provide quality programs for all ages.  While its future has always been on a cliff, everyone has always supported PBS and it has made it through.  Now, Trump want’s to vaporise PBS, cutting millions off from quality programming and educational information.  Please give to your local PBS station and support this institution.

To support your local PBS go to: http://www.pbs.org/about/support-pbs/

Twitch's Mister Roger's Neighbourhood marathon can be found here: https://www.twitch.tv/misterrogers

The Sweet Escape: How the Paracosm connects with Escapism

Escapism and literature are two entities that intertwine more often than we realize.  A reader is easily pulled away into a different word and enthralled by the many adventures they take in the Paracosm (fictional world); these little trips can also serve as an escape for both the reader and the characters as they explore far off lands like C. S. Lewis’ Narnia or the Rev. W. Awdry’s Island of Sodor. While both books differ from one another, the former about a magical land of talking animals and the later an island of talking locomotives, both paracosms provide a place of escape for the protagonists and even the writer.

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

            C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe takes a different approach to the paracosm in how Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie react to the imaginative world of Narnia.  In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lewis uses the events of his own time to support this idea of escapism.  The bombings across Britain during the Second World War left destruction in major cities across the island, damaging and destroying “over [three million five hundred thousand] homes, killed at least sixty thousand civilians, and injured more than [eighty-six thousand] people” (Miller 272).  The British government instituted a strategy called “Operation Pied Piper” to evacuate “[four] million children and accompanying adults from [Britain’s] largest industrial cities to the countryside” (Miller 272), these waves occurred again in 1940 with the beginning of the London Blitz and a third in 1944 (Miller 272).

In the first chapter of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the reader sees that the Pevensie children have been sent to live with an old Professor in the English countryside in order for them to be safe from the air-raids in London during the Battle of Britain (3).  In this setting, they are seen as unable to fight and in need of protecting, even holding this label in the Professor’s house by the house maid:

Mrs. Macready was not fond of children, and did not like to be interrupted when she was telling visitors all the things she knew.  She said to Susan and Peter almost on the first morning (along with many other instructions), “And please remember you’re to keep out of the way whenever I’m taking a party over the house. (Lewis 52)

Here the reader can see that the Pevensie children are still seen as something that can get in the way.  The children have been sent to the countryside from London as they were seen as a risk and as something that could get in the way and this value still applies to them as while in safety.

            This labelling changes once the children are in Narnia.  Here they are no longer valued as something that needs protecting.  When Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy are with Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, they learn from Mr. Beaver of the prophecy foretelling their arrival to Narnia:

…“Down at Cair Paravel… there are four thrones and it’s a saying in Narnia time out of mind that when two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve sit on the those four thrones, then it will be the end of not only the White Witch’s reign but of her life… if she knew about you four, your lives wouldn’t be worth a shake of my whiskers!” (Lewis 82)

This except is empowering for the children.  While in the real world of wartime Britain they are seen as something in need of protecting, in Narnia they are needed.  In this paracosm, the Pevensie children are told by the adults that they need to stay out of the way and to leave it the grown-ups, they are instead told that they are needed, that they have the ability to save the paracosm from its greatest threat, the White Witch.

            In her article “Ghosts, Gremlins, and ‘the War on Terror’ in Children’s Blitz Fiction”, Kristine Miller points out that it is through escaping into the paracosm that the reader can gain a better understanding of what is going on in their own world:

… [Children’s] fiction presents fantasies of magical heroes who fight passionately for good in epic battles against and therefore emphasizes the relationship between the individuality of the hero and the community of shared experience.  By locating this complex relationship within a safe and separate environment, children’s war literature creates a way of understanding – rather than a means of escaping – the realities of a child’s life within an embattled nation. (Miller 275)

Here Miller is explaining that the paracosm in children’s literature is designed to help the child understand the situation that they are in.  This is apparent in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when the Pevensie children leave the real world of Britain in 1940, which is at war, for the paracosm of Narnia, which is also at war.  The battle in Narnia is an archetypical battle with forces of good represented by Aslan’s army, led by Peter, and evil represented by the White Witch’s forces.  At the end of the chapter, the White Witch reaches her demise at the hand of Aslan (Lewis 177-178).  Through fighting in this battle, the Pevensie children are able to see that the reason behind the Second World War is to protect their land from a dangerous force.  Rather than having them fight against the armies of Nazi Germany, Lewis has the children fight against an evil witch who threatens all of Narnia to make this point.  By applying Miller’s argument, one can conclude that in experiencing Narnia at war, the Pevensie children are able to understand the experience of combat in the Second World War.

C. S. Lewis
(1898-1963)

            Lewis also used Narnia as a way to escape from his own personal issues that were occurring at the time of writing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, as A. N. Wilson points out in his biography on Lewis.  Life for Lewis after the Second World War saw a decline in what had been a time of social and academic excellence previously.  After the publication of his book Miracles in 1948, Lewis was met with a debate on topic of the spirit, which was covered in the third chapter of the book (Wilson 213).  The debate at the Socratic Club against Elizabeth Anscombe had left Lewis exhausted and humiliated among his academics (Wilson 220). 

J. R. R. Tolkien
(1892-1973)

            At the same time, Lewis’ friendship with J. R. R. Tolkien and fellow members of the academic group The Inklings had become strained and growing distant.  Tolkien’s readings of his own excerpts from Lord of the Rings were met with groans of disinterest – even prompting Hugo Dyson to grunt: “Oh fuck, not another elf (Wilson 217)!”  Tolkien was even extremely critical towards Lewis’ own excerpts, especially in Lewis’ contributions to Oxford History of English Literature, a volume entitled English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama (Wilson, 217).  While Tolkien had been apologetic about the matter (citing though right in his criticism, he regretted the damage it had caused), the event marked the beginning of the slow decline in the friendship of these two Oxfordian academics.

            Lewis was able to “leave behind the world of squabbles and grown-ups” and re-entered “the world which with he himself never left, that of childhood reading” (Wilson 220).  In this way, one can see that Lewis is putting himself in Narnia along with the Pevensie children by finding an escape from his (in his own view) crumbling reality through Narnia, much like his own characters.  Both the author and the child hero in this case are trying to escape from the real world and enter one where they have purpose.

            Much like Lewis’ Narnia, the Rev. W. Awdry’s children book series The Railway Series tell the misadventures of the Northwestern Railway.  Originally just stories for children that were about steam engines with personalities just working hard to earn the praise of the stern but loving Fat Controller, the books soon developed into a capsule of a bygone period where steam locomotives thundered from large metropoles to distant lands.

Stepney the "Bluebell" Engine

           Midway through the series, an overarching narrative of the past clashing with modernization began to develop.  Throughout the 1960’s, Britain’s nationalized railway (named the Other Railway in the series) began to push for a modern approach to railways, axing branch lines and replacing steam engines with diesel traction (Sibley, 280).  This narrative, though noticed in earlier books, began to become apparent in Stepney the “Bluebell” Engine.  In the opening story – “Bluebells of England” – Percy the small engine paints a stark image of Britain’s modernization process:

“…engines on the Other Railway aren’t save now.  Their Controllers are cruel.  They don’t like engines anymore.  They put them on damp sidings, and then,” Percy nearly sobbed, “they… they c-c-cut them up (Awdry, Stepney the “Bluebell” Engine, 6).”

Percy's vision of what happens on the Other Railway

This image is coupled with a grim image of rusty engines looking frightened as they see a cutter preparing for their demise.  With the rise of dieselization on the Other Railway and news of controllers scrapping many steam engines, the engines on the Northwestern Railway are beginning to fear if this new practice will find its way to the Island of Sodor.

Enterprising Engines

          This grim image reinforced in a later volume entitled Enterprising Engines.  Here Gordon the big engine mentions to the Fat Controller his fears of the changing state of the world.

            “Cheer up Gordon!” said the Fat Controller.
            “I can’t, sir. […] I keep thinking about the Dreadful State of the World, sir. Is it true, Sir, what the diesels say?”
            “What do they say?”
            “They boast that they’ve abolished Steam, Sir.”
            “Yes, Gordon. It is true."
            “What, Sir!  All my Doncaster brothers, drawn the same time as me?”
            “All gone, except one.” (Awdry, Enterprising Engines, 6)

Gordon’s revelation that he may be one of the last of his build sparks a great deal of melancholy upon him.  The possible threat of extinction in the Diesel Age is something that becomes very real for the characters when Gordon faces the fact that all his Doncaster A3 class siblings are possibly lost pits the engines against the progress of the brave new world of post-war Britain.

Preparing to get Oliver to Sodor.

            Sodor becomes a place to escape in the appropriately named story “Escape” where Oliver a Great Western 14XX class engine escapes with his coach Isabel and a break van named Toad.  The little engine’s courage inspires Douglas to help after discovering Oliver hiding and out of steam.

            …“Who’s there?” [Douglas] asked.
            A whisper came.  “Are you a Fat Controller’s engine?”
            “Aye, and proud of it.”
            “Thank goodness! I’m Oliver.  We’re escaping to your railway, but we’ve run out of coal, and I’ve no more steam.”
            “Is it scrap ye’re escaping?”
            “Yes.”           
“Then it’s glad I’ll be to help ye; but we maun wurrk fast.”(Awdry, Enterprising Engines, 34-36)

Oliver, Isabel, and Toad in hiding.

 For Oliver fear of the cutter’s torch prompted the little engine to run away across England to reach Sodor.  Well aware of the risk, Oliver out smarted ‘Control’ and even hid out in an abandoned quarry for several days with diesels “baying and growling like hounds” (Awdy, Enterprising Engines, 40).  In the ever-modernizing world of British Rail, Oliver is just a relic that has no place in Post-War Britain; on Sodor, Oliver can start a new life and be welcome by “all who want to see, and travel, behind real engines” (Awdry, Enterprising Engines, 46).

Rev. W. Awdry
(1911-1997)

            Much like Lewis, the Rev. W. Awdry found his books as a way to escape from the ever-changing world.  In his lifetime, the Awdry witnessed two world wars, the first woman prime minister of Britain, the collapse of the British Empire, and the nationalization and reprivatisation of British railways, and – most of all – the abolishment of steam in 1968.  By the 1960s Awdry, much like the rest of his generation, was beginning to feel out of place.  The world of Sodor became both a pretend world for children full of talking trains but also a world where adults can escape from a world becoming strange (Sibley, 282).

            In closing, the world of the paracosm serves as a place of escape.  In both Sodor and Narnia, the characters found safety and usefulness in a world separate from reality; while both Awdry and Lewis found comfort from their own realities by escaping into writing about their fictional worlds.  In both cases, the paracosm served to provide safety, comfort and uncertainty. Therefore, escape into the paracosm is a source of comfort everyone can access.

Works Cited

Awdry, Rev. W. Enterprising Engines. London: Egmont, 2002. Print.

---. Stepney the “Bluebell” Engine. London: Kaye and Ward Ltd., 1971. Print.

Lewis, C. S. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. New York: Scholastic Inc., 1995. Print.

Miller, Kristine. “Ghosts, Gremlins, and ‘the War on Terror’ in Children’s Blitz Fiction.” Children's Literature Association Quarterly 34.3 (2009): 272-284. Project MUSE. Web. 11 Feb. 2014. <http://muse.jhu.edu/>.

Sibley, Brian. The Thomas the Tank Engine Man: The Story of the Rev. W. Awdry and his Really Useful Engines. Oxford: Lion Hudson Publishing, 2015. Print

Wilson, A. N. C. S. Lewis: A Biography. London: Harper Perennial, 2005. Print.

Pictures

http://ttte.wikia.com/wiki/Enterprising_Engines

http://ttte.wikia.com/wiki/Stepney_the_%22Bluebell%22_Engine

http://ttte.wikia.com/wiki/Wilbert_Awdry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion,_the_Witch_and_the_Wardrobe

https://srmg.org.uk/news-blog/2015/5/17/thomas-the-tank-engine-the-runaway-success-turns-70

http://hornes.org/mark/category/my-books/j-r-r-tolkien/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/10/the-odd-story-of-c-s-lewis-an-extremely-odd-man.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11597023/Thomas-the-Tank-Engine-the-runaway-success-turns-70.html

http://www.pegnsean.net/~railwayseries/rss-preamble.htm

 http://sarahcandersen.com/page/14

Puffing out West: A Profile of the CPR and its Relevance in the Canadian West

The Last Spike

           “A prairie farmer arrives home to discover his crops flattened by hail, his barn on fire, and his wife running away with the hired hand.  He looks up to Heaven, and shouts; ‘Goddamn the CPR!’”[1]  This anecdote demonstrates the relevance of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) to the Canadian West.  A connection goes back to the time of the National Policy from the 1878 Conservative government under Sir John A. Macdonald.  The railway was able to overcome obstacles in establishing the line in British Columbia, such as discontent landowners in Port Moody.  The Canadian Pacific even helped to improve the economy of the west in places such as the city of Winnipeg and Winnipeg beach.  The Canadian Pacific Railway played a significant role in the assertion of Canada’s sovereignty in the western provinces through the National Policy, developing its line in British Columbia and providing improvements to the western economy.

A Matter of Policy

Sir John A. Macdonald,
PM: 1867-73; 1878-91

            The Canadian Pacific was a major part within the National Policy of the conservative government of Sir John A. Macdonald.  At the time of the policy’s creation, Canada was in political and economic distress.  Populations were decreasing as people traveled to the newly opened west of the United States and weak economic conditions due to a mix of government debt from infrastructure projects and a weakening connection with the British market.[2]  Additionally, Canada was also facing an “expansionist American government [that] threatened to absorb the entire western half of the continent.”[3]

            In the election of 1878, Sir John A. Macdonald argued that the only cure for these issues would be his Conservative Party’s new National Policy;[4]  a policy that contained the use of higher tariffs to protect Canada’s manufacturing industries from any possible competition from the United States and to insure funds for the Canadian government’s expansion projects.[5]  These tariffs also served to encourage the movement of agricultural goods to the central Canadian markets.[6]

Alexander Mackenzie
PM: 1873-78

            The policy also mentioned the installation of a rail line to the west, allowing for what was considered “a convenient and rapid transportation system” for the time.[7]  The rail line would also ensure trade across the country for the sake of both economic and political benefits by encouraging growth in the Canadian manufacturing industry.[8]  Construction of the Pacific Railway had been going on before the 1878 election but without proper funds, construction moved slowly as money trickled in from the 17.5 per cent tariff rates put in place by the Liberal government under Alexander Mackenzie.[9]  The lack of further funds meant that the line could not be completed and Canada risked losing British Columbia,[10] a serious issue because Macdonald had promised a railway to connect the British colony with the rest of Canada when it joined the Confederation, despite the colony only asking for a wagon road.[11]

            On September 17, 1878, the Conservative Party, led by Macdonald, won the election and were able implement the National Policy.[12]  Leonard Tilley, the appointed finance minister, took on the responsibility of implementing the new tariffs.[13]  In the first budget, he replaced the former Liberal tariff structure with new duties ranging from twenty to forty per cent and wide-ranging fees on imports from the United States.[14]  With the new tariffs in place the construction of the railway could continue.

The Moody Problem with Coal Bay

 

Map of Rupert's Land, granted to the Canadian government
 from the Hudson's Bay Company.

           On February 15 1881, the contract between the Canadian government and the Canadian Pacific Railway was given royal assent.[15]  The territory of Rupert’s Land acquired from the Hudson’s Bay Company –through political pressure and dealing from behind the scenes – would be granted to anyone wanting to invest in western development and railways.[16]  On August 4, 1883, William Van Horne, the general manager of the Canadian Pacific, arrived in British Columbia to inspect the site of the new terminus at Port Moody.[17]  Port Moody was a little village located on a narrow bank at the head of Burrard Inlet.[18]  Pierre Berton describes Port Moody at the time of Van Horne’s arrival to be “basking in the glow of optimism brought on by the unquenchable belief that it was to become the greatest metropolis on the Pacific coast.”[19]

William Van Horne

            Upon inspecting the Burrard Inlet, Van Horne found that the site would not be appropriate, as there was not enough room for a city in the area.[20]  The rail line would require “four hundred acres of level ground”,[21] which did was not available unless they reclaimed it from the tidal flats, which would cost approximately between two and four million dollars.[22]  Despite this hiccup, Van Horn found a solution to this issue when he travelled out by boat to the mouth of the inlet; he realized that there was more space in the area of Coal Harbour and English Bay.[23]  Van Horne would only need to persuade the provincial government to subsidize the continuation of the line and build the terminus at Coal Harbour.[24]

            As an agreement between the Canadian Pacific and the British Columbian government for six thousand two hundred seventy-five acres was being formed, Van Horne appointed Montague William Tyrwhitt-Drake to serve as the company’s local operative as he was considered reliable in his profession but also for his political connections.[25]   With Drake at the helm in British Columbia, Van Horne intended to shield the Canadian Pacific from any opposition in the provincial government.[26]  Despite the preparation, Van Horne was unable to protect the company from the harshest threat to railway construction, the angered property owners of Port Moody.

            These property owners sent petitions to the dominion government warning that seven hundred inhabitants and investors would be “utterly ruined” if the terminus was placed in Coal Harbour.[27]  Drake failed to alter a clause that stated that the extension would be part of the original portion of the Canadian Pacific.[28]  The original charter of 1881, known as the Canadian Pacific Railway Act, only recognized the planned construction of the Port Moody terminus and did not follow the general railway statute, the Consolidated Railway Act of 1879, which proclaimed that no railway can have the right to extend its line beyond the terminus mentioned in its special act.[29]  Rather than amending the Canadian Pacific Railway Act to allow the extension, Drake decided to defend the extension by claiming that it was a branch.[30]

            In August, the opponents to the railway applied for an interlocutory injunction, an order only amended through further court proceedings.[31]  In the trial of Edmonds et al. versus the Canadian Pacific Railway, the judge, Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie, ruled that the company did not have the right to purchase land or build any of its desired works.[32]  Drake tried to get an appeal from the Divisional Courts, but found himself unsuccessful in being granted an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.[33]

J. J. C. Abbot

            While the judicial proceedings were occurring, Van Horne searched for an alternative to the issue.  Rather than negotiating with the landowners, Van Horne had plans develop a bypass to cross the waterfront, a distance of six kilometers.^[34]  He planned to have a series of wooden trestle bridges built along the inlet to reach the terminus.[35]  In order to work around Begbie ruling that the Canadian Pacific had no power to “expropriate land for the extension”,[36] J. J. C. Abbot, the railway’s General Counsel planned to make an application to the Dominion Government “in the name of some individual asking for a lease”.[37]  This strategy was nearly successful but failed due to two issues.  Van Horne undermined the whole endeavor by hinting to newspapers that the plans had been sent to the Department of Railways.  Additionally, the trestles would collapse as soon as the teredos (shipworms) ate away at the wooden piers that they were to rest on.[38]

            Over the course of the legal battle that occurred during the summer and fall of 1886, Drake was steadfast to his argument of ignoring the extension stated in the British Columbian agreement.[39]  Drake claimed that the extension was only a branch line, which the Canadian Pacific was allowed to lay.[40]  He only acknowledged that Port Moody was mentioned in the Canadian Pacific Railway Act, but argued that it was “not formally designed”.[41]  Drake’s opponents argued that “Section 17 of the [Canadian Pacific Railway] Act required the application of the [Consolidated] Railway Act, including its restriction on extension from the terminus”.[42]  To ensure that the company could get an appeal, Abbot arranged to have Charles Major, a landowner who supported the Canadian Pacific, file a suit against the company.[43]  The judge ruled, like in the previous trials, that the railway had violated the Consolidated Railway Act of 1879.[44]  With this result the Canadian Pacific was able to appeal the matter to the Supreme Court in Ottawa.[45]

            In Ottawa, Abbot appointed Christopher Robinson to act as senior council of the case.  Robinson argued Drake’s construction of the acts while Senator Thomas R. McInnes, a supporter of the Port Moody terminus, argued that the Canadian Pacific was ignoring the decision of the British Columbian courts by making their appeal.[46]  The court ruled in favour of the Canadian Pacific, and in a vote of five to one overturned the decisions of the British Columbia courts.[47]  To avoid being taken to the Judicial Court of the Privy Council in Britain, the railway secured an act from the dominion (federal) government that gave them “explicit legislative authority for the extension”.[48]

This land is my land, resold a double the price

Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1880 (approx.)

            The Canadian Pacific Railway provided economic improvements to the west.  During the time of the railway’s construction in the west, the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba experienced an economic boom, the principal cause of which being speculation.  Van Horne had sent an advertisement to Winnipeg newspapers, warning the public against “buying lots at prospective station along the line until he had officially announced their locations”.[49]  This was over shadowed by advertisements from the papers, promoting real-estate near the unofficial sites.

            In June of 1881, the boom began with an opening sale in Brandon, Manitoba, with the value of its lots had tripling by January 1882.[50]  Soon Winnipeg was hit with the excitement of the boom.  Winnipeg had only a population of sixteen thousand people and only three hundred real-estate dealers, within a year its population doubled and its assessment tripled.[51]

            The use of buying on margin gave individuals the ability to purchase large lots of land with limited amounts of money, The Hudson’s Bay Company for example, required only a fifth of the total cost as down payment.[52]  As these properties changed hands, the down payment began to increase in price and soon those wanting to buy property had to turn to less valuable land, thus causing the surge of buying on margin to begin again in another part of Winnipeg.

            Newcomers were astonished by how people would buy the lots at auction one day and sell the land the following day at an increase of ten per cent.[53]  An increase in population from people from outside the city to buy land led to a “floating population” during the winter of 1881 and 1882,[54] which resulted in new hotels being opened on a daily basis.  However, by early summer of 1882, the real-estate boom collapsed,[55]  leaving a total value of the buildings being 1,710,850 dollars and the population of Winnipeg around twenty-five thousand.[56]

Canadian Pacific Railway
travel poster

            By the turn of the century, the railway had taken an interest in the tourist trade and had opened such markets in Banff, Victoria and Quebec City for both North American and European travellers.[57]  The use of local railway development opened opportunities to create regional excursion points that would be accessible to “middle-class patrons”.[58]  A motivation for this project was the drive to beat out the Canadian Pacific’s rival the Canadian Northern, which had partially completed its line to Delta Beach on the southern shore of Lake Manitoba.[59]  Since 1899, the Canadian Pacific had had interests in the southern shore of Lake Winnipeg and had found success in sending excursionists to the beach through the use of its Selkirk branch line and the City of Selkirk steamer.[60]

            In 1901, the Canadian Pacific Railway announced their plans to build a line connecting Winnipeg city with Winnipeg Beach.[61]  The Canadian Pacific had intended the resort to be aimed at upper and middle class residents of Winnipeg.[62]  The railway expected to run only one train daily with eventually adding excursion and picnic trains in addition to building cottages, a dance pavilion and a hotel.[63]  The railway’s chance to add a hotel came in 1908, when Edward Windebank was developing a hotel for the beach known as the Empress Hotel.[64]  Windebank had fallen short on funds during the hotels construction and offered to mortgage the hotel to the railway if they advanced the money to him so he could complete the project.[65]  The railway’s plan for only one train per day and dancing on weekends were greatly changed to regular evening excursions and by 1906, thirteen trains a day on busy holiday weekends.[66]  In 1920, up to fifteen thousand people traveled by train to Winnipeg Beach for the July first weekend with nightly dances held in the pavilion.[67]

Conclusion

            In conclusion, the Canadian Pacific was significant in the development of Canada establishing itself in the west.  The need for a railway in MacDonald’s National Policy led to the development of a market between the west and central Canada.  The Canadian Pacific had to overcome discontent from landowners in Port Moody and the difficulty of the courts in British Columbia, who ruled against the railway in its plan to build its terminus in Coal Harbour.  The railway was able to stimulate economic growth in the city of Winnipeg and through tourism at Winnipeg Beach.  Therefore, the Canadian Pacific was able to assist Canada’s journey in establishing its sovereignty in the west.

Bibliography

Argyle, Ray. Turning Points: The Campaigns that Changed Canada 2004 and Before. Toronto: White Knight Publications. 2004.

Barbour, Dale. "Winnipeg Beach by Moonlight." Manitoba History no. 63 (Spring2010 2010): 2-13. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 27, 2012).

Bell, Charles N. "The Great Winnipeg Boom." Manitoba History no. 53 (October 2006): 32-37. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 27, 2012).

Berton, Pierre. The Last Spike: The Great Railway, 1881-1885. Toronto: Anchor Canada. 1971.

Leonard, Frank. "'Diplomatic forces of the new railroad': Transcontinental terminus entry at Vancouver and Seattle." Journal Of Transport History 28, no. 1 (March 2007): 21-58. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 29, 2012).

---. "So Much Bumph" CPR Terminus Travails at Vancouver, 1884-89." BC Studies no. 166 (Summer2010 2010): 7-38.Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 29, 2012).

Lotz, Jim. Canadian Pacific. London: Bison Books Limited. 1985.

Rollings-Magnusson, Sandra. “Necessary for Survival: Woman and Children’s Labour on Prairie Homesteads, 1871-1911”. In Nation and Society: Readings in Post-Confederation Canadian History, 2nd ed., edited by Margret Conrad and Alvin Finke, 114-130. Toronto: Pearson Canada Inc. 2004.

---

[1] Jim Lotz, Canadian Pacific, (London: Bison Books Limited, 1985). 6

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ray Argyle. Turning Points: The Campaigns that Changed Canada 2004 and Before (Toronto: White Knight Publications, 2004), 73

[5] Ibid.

[6] Rollings-Magnusson, 115

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Argyle, 79

[10] Ibid.

[11] Lotz, 6

[12] Argyle, 89

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Pierre Berton, The Last Spike: The Great Railway, 1881-1885 (Toronto: Anchor Canada, 1971), 6

[16] Rollings-Magnusson, 115

[17] Berton, 302

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Berton, 304

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Frank Leonard, "'Diplomatic forces of the new railroad': Transcontinental terminus entry at Vancouver and Seattle", Journal Of Transport History 28, no. 1 (March 2007): 21-58, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 29, 2012), 25

[26] Ibid.

[27] Leonard, “Diplomatic forced of the new railroad, 26

[28] Ibid.

[29] Ibid.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Ibid., 30

[32] Ibid.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Ibid.

[36] Leonard, “Diplomatic forces of the new railroad”, 30

[37] Ibid.

[38] Ibid.

[39] Frank Leonard, “‘So Much Bumph’ CPR Terminus Travails at Vancouver, 1884-89”, BC Studies no. 166 (Summer2010 2010): 7-38, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 29, 2012), 32

[40] Ibid.

[41] Ibid.

[42] Ibid.

[43] Leonard, “So Much Bumph”, 36

[44] Ibid.

[45] Ibid.

[46] Ibid.

[47] Ibid.

[48] Leonard, “Diplomatic Forces of the new railroad”, 31

[49] Berton, 52

[50] Ibid.

[51] Ibid.

[52] Charles N Bell, “The Great Winnipeg Boom”, Manitoba History no. 53 (October 2006): 32-37, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 27, 2012), 33

[53] Ibid., 34

[54] Ibid., 35

[55] Ibid., 37

[56] Ibid

[57] Dale Barbour, “Winnipeg Beach by Moonlight”, Manitoba History no. 63 (Spring2010 2010): 2-13, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed February 27, 2012), 3

[58] Ibid.

[59] Ibid.

[60] Ibid.

[61] Ibid., 4

[62] Ibid.

[63] Barbour, 4

[64] Ibid.

[65] Ibid.

[66] Ibid.

[67] Ibid.