Demand for travel to Europe declined in the winter, and apparently that was especially true for the first-class travel provided by Canadian Pacific empresses. CP continued to serve wintertime Canada-England travelers with its cabin-class ships, while in 1924 it began using its empresses for winter cruises to the West Indies, Mediterranean, and around the world.
Click image to view and download a PDF of this booklet from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
The 1924 round-the-word cruise was on Canadian Pacific’s finest ship at the time, the two-year-old Empress of Canada. Despite the name, the cruise didn’t quite go all the way around the world. Later CP round-the-world cruises would start and finish in New York City, but this cruise started in New York and ended in Vancouver. Cruise fares covered rail travel from Vancouver to New York, and presumably people who lived in, say, Los Angeles or Denver would get an adjustment on those fares.
From New York, the ship headed to the Mediterranean, stopping in ports such as Gibralter, Monaco, and Naples. Then it went through the Suez Canal and visited several Indian cities, including Bombay and Calcutta. After stopping in several other Asian cities including Singapore, Manilla, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Yokohama, it crossed the Pacific to Honolulu and Hilo and then went to Victoria and Vancouver.
The entire trip took about 115 days (plus rail travel time), generating hundreds of potential souvenir menus. However, Mr. Chung (who didn’t go on the cruise but years later collected items from it and other cruises) collected only four menus from this cruise, which I’ll present here tomorrow.
Click image to view and download a PDF of this booklet from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
The above booklet notes that the cost of the tour started at $1,600, which is about US$20,000 in today’s money. Discounts were available for children and servants; however, the full fare would be charged to servants who went on all of the side tours that were included in the fare.
Passengers could also take various side tours that were not included in the fare. These included overland trips across India, Japan, and other places. The ones in this booklet ranged in price from $55 to $350 ($700 to $4,400 in today’s U.S. dollars). This meant that a family of four could easily spend well over $100,000 in today’s money.
In normal service, the Empress of Canada had a capacity of more than 1,500 passengers, most of which were in third class. The world cruise, however, was limited to 500 people, which would fill all of the first-class cabins and a few second-class ones.
Click image to view and download a PDF of this booklet from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.
The above booklet lists the “members” of the cruise, the term making it seem as though the cruise was some kind of exclusive club — which, in a very real sense, it was. The list included Mr. & Mrs. Stephen Clement of Buffalo, plus their two daughters and young son who was accompanied by a nurse whose name wasn’t important enough to include on the list. Clement was the president and part owner of several banks and other businesses in Buffalo.
Mr. & Mrs. L.M. Rubens of Joliet, Illinois were accompanied by three daughters, who must have been old enough to take the trip without a nurse or governess. Rubens owned the Great States Theatre Corporation, which operated several movie theaters in Joliet including the Rubens Rialto Square Theater, which was the first in Joliet to play a “talking” movie.
One especially prestigious member was Sir Augustus Nanton, who was accompanied by his wife, Lady Ethel Nanton. In helping to finance much of the development of western Canada from his office in Winnipeg, Nanton was known for his “scrupulous honesty.” Among other things, he sat on the Canadian Pacific board of directors. When the Great War began, he dedicated half his fortune to the war effort and in particular to helping dependents of soldiers sent overseas, leading to his being knighted by King George V. He “worked himself into an early grave,” says Wikipedia, dying at the age of 64 just one year after taking this world cruise and eight months after becoming president of Dominion Bank, one of Canada’s largest.
Given that only the wealthiest people could afford to take this cruise, it isn’t surprising that many of them can be found in on the internet today. Based on my quick searches, it seems likely that at least half the adult men and many of their children can be found in Wikipedia or elsewhere on line.