Newcastle Island is located in the Georgia Strait near Nanaimo. Coal was discovered there in 1849 and the island became a source of fuel and the site of limestone quarries. In 1930, the coal was mostly exhausted and Canadian Pacific bought the entire island to turn into a resort in order to promote its steamship business.
Click image to download an 895-KB PDF of this menu.
CP built a dance hall, bath house, soda fountain, and picnic shelters. It docked a succession of old steamships on the island as floating hotels for those who wanted to extend their stay. In 1955, CP sold the island to the city of Nanaimo to become a public park. Since 1960 it has been a provincial park.
The cover of this 1951 menu shows crowds of tourists enjoying the island. The inside front cover has illustrations of seven CP steamships advertising trips to Alaska, between Vancouver Island and the mainland, and up the West Coast of Vancouver Island. The menu itself is table d’hôte featuring fish, baked macaroni with ham, veal cutlets, and Bombay curry. All meals were $1.25, equal to about US$10 today.