The back cover of this menu says that the attractive flowers on the front are Indian paintbrush and dog tooth violet. However, according to Wikipedia, dogtooth violet only grows in eastern North America. The yellow flowers in the painting are probably actually dogtooth fawn lily, which are closely enough related to dogtooth violets that someone from eastern Canada might mix them up.

Click image to download a 2.4-MB PDF of this menu.

This menu was used for the Rajah Temple Shriners during a trip from Vancouver to Minneapolis on June 18-24, 1929. The Shriners had held their national convention in Los Angeles in early June, so the train was returning Rajah Shriners to their home in Reading, Pennsylvania.

Although this menu is eight pages long, only two present actual menus. One was for dinner on June 23, while the second lists beverages and cigars. The unpriced dinner menu has a caviar appetizer, tomato soup, a choice of trout, filet mignon, or roast leg of lamb, potatoes and green beans, salad, dessert, cheese & crackers, and beverage. The beverages, which are priced, are all non-alcoholic, which is odd because Canada didn’t have prohibition and one reason to go through Canada from Los Angeles to Pennsylvania was to enjoy some alcohol. Alcoholic

Other pages are advertisements for Canadian National services: Jasper Park, a brag about how CN “is speeding the growth of a nation,” and steamships to Alaska. While this is a very pretty menu, it is also less subtle about its self-promotion than those of most railroads that served the western U.S. However, it is perfectly in keeping with the Canadian Pacific’s self-serving expression menus and booklets, which date from the same period.