In January 1921, when this menu was printed, Canadian National was barely 18 months old and consisted of a variety of bankrupt railroads. Obviously trying to find an identify for itself in face of competition from the mighty Canadian Pacific, this menu encourages people to use “the National Way” (as opposed to the Pacific Way, I suppose).

Click image to download a 1.5-MB PDF of this menu.

The front cover painting shows someone planting seeds in Ontario after viciously deforesting the native pine and maple forests. A back cover painting shows the eventual result of this environmental destruction as Ontario has been turned into a polluted wasteland, its rivers plugged up by dams to generate electricity for the industrial destroyers. Or, as it was known in 1921, Progress.

Both paintings are signed Thomas W. (for Wilberforce) Mitchell, who was born in Clarksburg, Ontario in 1879. After studying art in Toronto and Philadelphia, Mitchell became known for his landscape paintings in watercolors and oils and also was an illustrator for the Toronto Star, Macleans magazine (Canada’s version of Time), and Brigden’s (Canada’s version of Brown & Bigalow). He died in Barrie, Ontario in 1958. I suspect that these two paintings were fine artworks that Mitchell had already done and were not commissioned by CN.

This is actually an eight-page menu, with the actual menu on a separate piece of paper stapled inside the cover. The first page of the inner paper notes that “the equipment being purchased” for CN passenger trains “is the most modern obtainable,” with the newest cars being made of steel. CN in 1921, the menu says, had more than 100 dining cars and 250 sleeping cars “operating over 17,000 miles of territory,” which was far more than any U.S. railroad at the time.

Inside is an a la carte menu for an “evening meal” that manages to fill two pages even though only a few items are actually listed. Most of the details, such as the soups, fish, entrées, and roasts, were printed on a separate “special slip” that isn’t included with my copy of the menu.