Pacific Coast Tours

The left panel of the “cover” of this 1912 brochure shows the S.S. Princess Victoria, which served Canadian Pacific’s “triangle” between Vancouver, Victoria, and Seattle. The right panel shows Field, B.C., at the base of the one-time “big hill,” which had a 5 percent grade to the summit of the Rocky Mountains. Visible in the illustration is the large Mount Stephen House, which was originally a dining hall so CP would not have to dining cars over the steep grade, but was later expanded into a hotel. CP stopped operating it in 1918 and it was torn down in 1963.

Click image to download a 6.6-MB PDF of this brochure.

While “tours” is in the title of this brochure, it isn’t advertising guided tours but simply recommending some alternative routes and vacation spots. The routes include Crows Nest Pass between Medicine Hat and Revelstoke and taking the Canadian Pacific route from St. Paul through Crows Nest Pass to Spokane and Portland (no doubt listed to aggravate James J. Hill). The brochure also promotes all of CP’s hotels in the area, including Glacier House and the Sicamous Hotel. Like Mount Stephen House, these two didn’t last long; Glacier House was closed in 1925 and CP leased the Sicamous Hotel to other operators in around 1935.


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