Like yesterday’s menu, this one from my own collection is based on a lantern slide used by Sylvester Long for his slide shows promoting western Canada. However, the format of this 1927 menu is unlike any I’ve seen before. The picture below is actually the back cover. The front cover is a flap about half the width of the rest of the menu with the upper corner cut off at about a 45-degree angle. Unfortunately, it was damaged by being pasted in a scrapbook, but I’ve used Photoshop to repair as much of the damage as I can.

Click image to download a 1.7-MB PDF of this menu.

The front and back of the flap has a description of “Indian medicine practice” written by Long, the man who falsely claimed to be a Blackfeet Indian chief. While his description may be generally accurate, he doesn’t specifically identify the person in this photo. Continue reading →

Today’s Canadian Pacific city menus from the Chung collection fall into two groups: two have a portrait orientation and three have a landscape orientation. Two of the landscape menus continue with the archway theme that was found in several of the previous city menus.

Click image to download a 2.2-MB PDF of this menu. Click here to go to the web page for this item.

The first menu today features Winnipeg. Although the main illustration shows the Canadian Pacific rail yards in Winnipeg, they really could be anywhere. Smaller images show the interior of CP’s Royal Alexandra Hotel and the provincial capital. The art nouveau decoration around the archway might actually be found in a window somewhere in the world, though probably not in Winnipeg. Continue reading →

In the mid-1920s, Canadian Pacific began to issue a series of menus apparently commemorating major cities (or in some cases, pairs of cities) along its route. In fact, they are actually not-so-subtle ads for Canadian Pacific operations in those cities. Most are dated 1926, but they can be from 1925 through 1928. Several use the same designs as others, but there seem to be several different basic designs. Even if the designs vary, they all seem to be part of a thematic series. The Chung collection includes a dozen menus in this series.

Click image to download a 2.2-MB PDF of this menu. Click here to go to the web page for this item.

With the black background and the subject painting appearing as if through a window frame, today’s three menus clearly go together. The first one shows the canal between Lake Superior and Lake Huron near Sault St. Marie, the namesake for Canadian Pacific’s subsidiary, the Soo Line. Continue reading →

Today we have four more menus from the Chung collection that don’t appear to be a part of any series. The last two, however, do resemble one another, but it is probably a coincidence rather than by design.

Click image to download a 3.5-MB PDF of this menu. Click here to go to the web page for this item.

The first menu has a black-and-white cover photo that shows a lake in Quebec’s Laurentian Mountains. This was a dinner menu on the Dominion; though I can’t find a date, the UBC Library thinks it was from 1927. Putting a black-and-white photo, especially one not taken by Canadian Pacific photographers, on the cover was quite a departure from the color paintings that graced most CP menus around this time. Continue reading →

We start today with what may be the oldest menu in the Chung collection, one showing “Canadian National Park.” Banff National Park was created in 1885 and, according to Wikipedia, was originally called Rocky Mountains National Park. But this dining car menu appears to call it “Canadian National Park.” The menu is undated but the UBC Library thinks it is from sometime between 1890 and 1899.

Click image to download a 2.2-MB PDF of this menu. Click here to go to the web page for this item.

Inside, the left side of the lunch menu is a la carte, while the right side has a list of wines, ales, and other drinks. A cup of coffee was 10¢ while a pint of beer was 20¢ to 25¢. Continue reading →