Here are four menus used the 1924 Empress of Canada world cruise that Wallace Chung happened to collect. The cruise left New York City on January 30 and arrived in Gibralter on February 10. In anticipation, the dinner menu card for February 9 featured Gibralter on the top.
Click image to view and download a PDF of this menu from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
It’s possible that this is a lunch menu, which might help explain why it is a card instead of a folder. But it certainly looks filling. It features what is potentially a seven- or eight-course meal, including hors d’oeuvres, two soups, two kinds of fish, five hot meats plus grilled quail, three cold meats, salad, and potentially four different settings of post-meal desserts. Not everyone would eat every course, but no one would go hungry.
Click image to view and download a PDF of this menu from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
On April 2nd, the ship was scheduled to cross the equator, which was traditionally the date of a Neptune’s Party. People making their first crossing of the equator were lightly hazed and given certificates of their feat, and the meal listed several imaginary seafoods, including Amphitrite, Hippokamus saddle, roast Lohengrin’s swan with Neréid sauce, and mermaid fancy. Most of these were probably pretty ordinary, but I wonder if sea-lion slices were real sea lion or something else.
Click image to view and download a PDF of this menu from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
On April 14, the ship arrived in Hong Kong where it stayed for three full days before leaving on the 18th. On the evening of the 14th, Canadian Pacific arranged for a special dinner at Yee Woo Restaurant in Hong Kong. The menu is in both English and Chinese and includes such local delicacies as sharks fin, boiled birds net, pigeon eggs, and Li Hung Cheung Chap Shin, whatever that is.
Click image to view and download a PDF of this menu from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
The Empress of Canada docked in Victoria on the morning of May 24 and passengers were taken to the Empress Hotel restaurant for lunch. During the meal, the ship’s band played fox trots, waltzes, and one steps to entertain guests as they ate their final meal of the cruise. The menu itself is rather sparse: one soup, and one fish, one entrée. The only choice was between Strawberry Romanoff or assorted cakes for dessert.
From there, they went to Vancouver, though I’m not sure whether they went by the Empress or the Canadian Pacific ferry that left Victoria at 2:15 pm. In Vancouver, they had plenty of time to catch the Imperial Limited, which left for Toronto and Montreal at 8:15 pm. Some members might take the Vancouver Express, which left for Chicago at 7:45 pm.
They probably arrived too late to take the all-Pullman Trans-Canada Limited, which left Vancouver at 4:00 pm. (The Trans-Canada was a summer-only train, but it was probably running by May 24.) Many U.S. members headed south on the Great Northern International, one of which left Vancouver at 4:30 pm (probably too soon for cruise ship passengers considering the GN station was about 1.5 miles away from CP docks) and the other at 8:30 am.
Your posts are always fascinating, including the wealth of old menus you dig up (not to mention timetables)!
Thanks to the same Chung Collection, we have good information about trains in the summer of 1924. Forgive me for the data below, but I got carried away. 🙂
According to the March 1st CPR Western Lines timetable, the Trans-Canada Limited began service on May 18th, though it’s not clear whether that was from Montreal only, or both Montreal and Vancouver. At any rate, it would have been in service in both directions by May 24th, with train #8 leaving Vancouver at 5 pm (according to the June 22nd system timetable).
Also according to the June 22nd timetable, Train 1–the Imperial, downgraded from the Imperial Limited with the launch of the Trans-Canada Limited circa 1919–left Vancouver for Montreal at 8:15 pm, as you noted. Train 4–the Toronto Express, the eastbound equivalent of #3, the Vancouver Express–left Vancouver for Toronto at 8:30 am. The train for St Paul and Chicago was #14, the Mountaineer, which left Vancouver at 7:45 pm–half an hour after the scheduled arrival time of the steamship from Victoria.
As for the Great Northern (thanks to the GN-NP Joint Archive), the Cascade Subdivision employee timetable dated June 1st, 1924 had trains departing Vancouver for Seattle at 8 am, 3 pm, and 12:01 am. (It also shows Canadian Northern’s train #2 leaving Vancouver at ~9:50 pm…who knows if anyone would have caught that train instead!)
Granted, all of these times could have been different in late May since they were under previous timetables, but the railroads would have already been operating on their summer schedules since April-May.
Correction: Canadian *National’s* (not Northern’s) train #2 left Vancouver around 9:50 p.m. The merger forming CN had already come into effect by then.
Another self-correction: GN’s Cascade *Division,* not Subdivision. (The CPR, however, *did* have a Cascade Subdivision: the main line from Vancouver to North Bend.) Sorry!