Chapter IX: Crossing the Prairie

In 1882, when Van Horne began to swing his cohorts of contractors and their men into the struggle to build a half-thousand miles of railway westward beyond Winnipeg, the Red River went on an angry rampage and flooded out the city and the surrounding country. This was somewhat of a damper at the beginning and, as the sequel proved, it clipped a few miles off the anticipated record. But a record was made notwithstanding. Experienced railway contractors were required, and Van Horne brought Langdon & Sheppard from St. Paul and gave them the work of building from Oak Lake in Manitoba straight across the plains to Calgary. This was a large order, and the contractors evidently knew it, for they startled the community by advertising for an army of three thousand men and four thousand horses. Those who recall conditions at that time will readily concede that there was no unemployment problem abroad in those busy days. No one worth while needed to be unemployed when Van Horne was forcing an undertaking to completion. And to make quite sure that things would be properly completed, this railway building enthusiast organized a large gang of men under his own orders who would follow up the contractors and give the finishing touches after the aforesaid contractors had complied with the literal requirements of their agreement to lay the steel. One can readily see that this flying column of Van Horne’s would keep the contractors moving ahead rapidly, lest the flying column should be treading on their heels and remarking on their tardiness. And one can see also that this follow-up work would lead to the soundness of the road-bed for which this pioneer railway was noted from the beginning. Construction was amazingly rapid, but there were no chances taken in regard to the safety of the road.

And so these thousands of men and horses were feverishly, but systematically, at work on the plains, where not many years before the buffalo had roamed with earth-shaking tread. The ploughs and scrapers of this great constructive army were making their way through the buffalo wallows and casting up a high grade where once the Red River cart had worn deep ruts in the rich black mould. Some of us recall busy days on the farms or the hayfield, riding and working on the plains, and, as boys, we had sometimes a feeling that the time of labour was unduly prolonged. Hours of work were not limited in those days, except by darkness and dew at either end of the day. But Mr. Van Horne’s army became unlimited as to time, because there were relays working in the night, building bridges and culverts and laying track when conditions allowed—a sort of sleepless army that moved on without cessation. In this way some three miles a day were finished enough to allow the construction trains to follow up with their gigantic loads of material and food for men and horses. In the spring-time there was not much grass for the horses, and all grain had then to be imported to a country which is now the greatest grain-exporting region in the world. Trainloads of stuff were constantly passing over United States roads all the way from the New York seaport, and hundreds of checkers reported on their whereabouts every day, so that they could be counted on by a certain time. All this matter of material was in the wonderfully capable hands of Mr. Shaughnessy, whose brain worked with such unerring activity and precision that supplies were kept up to the minute. Shaughnessy’s office in Montreal was as great a hive of industry as was Van Horne’s moving army on the plains. And men learned, as they had never learned before, that brain and brawn were both necessary to the carrying on of the world’s business and that these are mutually dependent on each other. Capital, labour and management are the inseparable three in the material success of great undertakings, and when the world discovers how these can co-operate and share the results in proper proportion, we will have industrial peace and progress on the earth. That vast army of road-makers on the plains would have been helpless without the directing minds of the men who were the brain centres that kept all in active movement, and the converse is equally the case. And a certain nation that has recently experimented in a new social order by destroying or exiling its men of brain is the outstanding warning of our time against such suicidal folly.

During this period of prairie construction there was something almost uncanny in the way in which Mr. Van Horne seemed to be everywhere. Now in his office in Winnipeg and now on the plains, riding on flat cars or hand cars or in cabooses or, where the rails were not laid, in wagons and buckboards over the prairie. He knew railroading from the ground up and did not hesitate to ventilate his views forcibly if necessary. He would discharge, off-hand, men who were indifferent to their work or who were disposed to shirk carrying out his orders. He sometimes ordered the impossible; but he expected men to try the impossible without question. And yet there was, withal, a heartiness, enthusiasm, magnetism and energetic competency about the big chief that commanded the admiration of the men. They admired his courage and nerve in going on inspection trips, where, despite his weight, he walked ties and trestles at dizzy heights and did other daring things. His practiced eye could calculate what was dangerous or otherwise. One day he asked an engine-driver to go across a ticklish-looking place and the driver demurred. Van Horne, who could drive an engine as well as anyone, said, “Get down and I will take her over myself,” and the engineer had such faith in Van Horne’s judgment that he said, “If you’re not scared I guess I aint,” and over he went to the other side.

Under this energetic and unquestioned leadership of Van Horne who, at the same time, saw that the men had abundant food of the best quality obtainable, there was record railway building accomplished on the plain in 1882, there being in one place a phenomenal register of twenty miles in three days. But the handicap of the Red River flood in the spring had delayed operations, and it began to look as if the promised 500 miles of road in 1882 would not materialize. Van Horne called the engineers and contractors together and, metaphorically speaking, read them the Riot Act and demanded that they get on with the work at a faster pace. They declared they were driving to the limit, but that the estimate could not be reached. Van Horne threatened to cancel their contracts unless they would bring in more men and horses and get ahead. This the contractors did and with the added equipment they worked till stopped by the winter cold. Even then Van Horne brought up his flying column and continued until nothing more could be done on the frozen prairie. Then on taking stock it was found that, counting sidings and a section on the South-western Branch in Manitoba, the estimate had been passed, although the actual work on the main line showed about 445 miles, with some more graded ready for the spring. The whole thing was looked on as phenomenal and all the railway world wondered. The Company Directors in Montreal were delighted, and they, in turn, delighted the Dominion Government by declaring that, instead of taking ten years as allowed by the contract, to complete the road from ocean to ocean, the Canadian Pacific would be in operation across the continent in little more than half that time. When one considers that the part of the road built up to the end of 1882, being across the plains, was the easiest section, and that the Laurentian rock wilderness around Lake Superior, as well as the ramparts of the vast mountains, had still to be attacked, the fearless optimism of the Directors and their whirlwind railway builder was amazing. But the work that had been accomplished showed the Government and the people of Canada that things of an unprecedented kind in railway annals were being done in their new country. And it also created in the hearts of people from sea to sea such a feeling of nationhood that they began to realize the illimitable possibilities of Canada. To such an extent was this true that when, later, a day came in which the Company needed the reinforcement of Government backing to carry through the project in the face of unexpected and gigantic obstacles, that temporary backing was finally given with the general approval of all but a few chronic opponents of the road. No thinking person now ever affirms that the Government was wrong in the emergent action taken at a crisis time in the history of Canada.

When the spring of 1883 opened Van Horne was facing the problem of building on the rocky North Shore, finishing the prairie section and then storming the bastions of the mountains which seemed to frown defiance against the invader of their sublime precincts. The North Shore came first of the new sections, as the prairie region could be left to the ordinary routine now that it had gone so far towards the foothills, and would proceed as a matter of course on into the mountains. It was not comforting in that anxious hour to the Directors of the Canadian Pacific and to Van Horne, who had declined to accept any alternative to the North Shore line, to find that, to head off help from financial men, both they and the people who would back them in their big undertaking were held up to ridicule by a Grand Trunk pamphlet issued in London, the money centre of the world. The famous pamphlet practically stated that to build, under the contract, a railway across the North Shore of Lake Superior, was a piece of madness, and hence that men of finance who backed it should be looked after by their friends. It was not comforting reading for the Canadian Pacific men at that particular juncture, but it was a good answer later on to those politicians and agitators who talked as if the Canadian Pacific had despoiled the Dominion in order to build their transcontinental road. The Grand Trunk pamphlet said that the country north of the Lake was a perfect blank even on the maps of Canada. All that is known of the region, it said, is that, “It would be impossible to construct this one section for the whole cash subsidy provided by the Canadian Government for the entire scheme.” Thus out of the mouth of a hostile witness there is evidence that the Canadian Pacific Railway subsidy, as outlined in the contract, was considered utterly inadequate, even by men who were making special study of railway undertakings.

In reality the Grand Trunk pamphlet was, in so far as the cost of construction was concerned, based upon a pretty sound conjecture. The cost of the North Shore was terrific and, doubtless, there and at other places, many a contractor discovered that unexpected difficulties had upset his calculations. It is worth while to say here, as applicable to the whole undertaking, that, though the contractors did not know it during the period of their work, the Canadian Pacific, on discovering that a contractor had lost seriously, began investigation with the desire to give a square deal. If they found that the contractor had taken reasonable precautions with his estimates and calculations, but had met with conditions and obstacles beyond his power to have foreseen, or to control when they arose, the Company, without any ostentation, took steps to save deserving men from loss as far as possible. No company in commercial life can be a benevolent association in the ordinary sense, nor can it be reckless with the funds of shareholders who have invested their money in its undertakings. But from the beginning, the Canadian Pacific, while bearing all that in mind, made a reputation for dealing with men, in all matters, in a big way, till, with the passing of the years, there was built up a tradition which made mean and small things a positive contradiction of the Company’s policy.

Mr. Van Horne did not require to read the above-mentioned Grand Trunk pamphlet to learn about the difficulty of building on the North Shore of Lake Superior. He knew all that a great deal better than the pamphleteer. The North Shore was a big problem. But as Sir Charles Tupper, the war-like minister of Railways, once said of this railroader: “No problem that ever arose had any terrors for him.”

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.