On the Trail 1939 Lunch Menu

Posted on by December 29, 2023
Reply

On August 21, the day after yesterday’s menu, whoever collected these menus must have enjoyed lunch from this card. The photograph, which appears to be colorized, features an unlikely scene of Indians standing by their horses and a teepee high in the Rocky Mountains. I can imagine the Blackfeet hunting in that area, but I can’t see them dragging a teepee along with them.

Click image to download a 245-KB PDF of this menu.

As seems to have been usual for the lodge, the lunch menu offered a greater selection of entrées than the dinner. This one includes bacon and eggs; halibut; hamburg steak; lamb stew; roast ham; chicken salad; and cold salmon. These came with an appetizer, a choice of three soups (compared with two on the dinner menu), veggies and potatoes, a choice of five desserts (same number as the dinner menu), and beverage.

Columbia Icefield 1939 Dinner Menu

Posted on by December 29, 2023
Reply

On August 20, 1939, someone enjoyed dinner from this fine menu at Jasper Park Lodge. The photo shows the Columbia Icefield, which had been made accessible by a road from Jasper not long before this menu was issued. We’ve previously seen 1948 Jasper Lodge menus featuring the Columbia Icefield, but they used different photographs.

Click image to download a 242-KB PDF of this menu.

The unpriced menu offers a choice of six entrées, including pickerel, lamb chops, t-bone steak, beef sirloin, roast turkey, or cold ham & capon. These came with honey dew melon or shrimp-and-crab cocktail, cream of chicken or turtle soup, veggies, potatoes, salad, dessert, and beverage.

1937 Jasper Lodge Menu

Posted on by December 29, 2023
Reply

Most of the previous Jasper Lodge menus we have seen have been cards, but this one is a folder. As the cover shows, the menu was used at conference of the Sun Life insurance company, so it may be that lodge management used folders for conferences and conventions and cards for ordinary people. The image on the front cover appears to be a colorized version of a black-and-white photo.

Click image to download an 471-KB PDF of this menu.

Sun Life must have been doing well despite the Depression. In 1933, it completed construction of a new, 26-story headquarters building that at the time had the most square feet of floor space of building in the British Empire. Continue reading →

Jasper Park Lodge in 1936

Posted on by December 29, 2023
Reply

Whether due to the Depression or some internal cost-cutting measure, this booklet isn’t as fancy as the 1934 booklet presented here yesterday. That booklet included several paintings in beautiful colors by Canadian fine artist Charles W. Simpson. Today’s booklet has two color illustrations — I wouldn’t call them fine art — on the back cover (shown below), one of which is cryptically signed “ALY.”

Click image to download an 11.3-MB PDF of this 24-page booklet.

The missing Simpson paintings were replaced with, well, nothing. The text has been slightly edited and most of the photos in the 1934 edition are also in today’s, though many are larger (as they deserve to be). Beyond that, there is more white space. White space sells, say advertisers, but not as well as full-color landscape paintings or photographs. Continue reading →

Jasper Park Lodge in 1934

Posted on by December 29, 2023
Reply

This booklet is beautifully decorated with four full-color paintings by Charles Walter Simpson, whose work we have seen before for both Canadian Pacific and Canadian National. The cover painting (which is on the back cover) was obviously commissioned by the railway as it prominently shows Jasper Park Lodge and surrounding bungalow cabins.

Click image to download a 10.1-MB PDF of this 24-page booklet.

I suspect that Canada’s community of fine artists much appreciated Canadian National and Canadian Pacific’s patronage of their work while it lasted. Four-color printing became feasible in the mid-1920s and gorgeous landscapes appeared in booklets and brochures issued by both railroads. While the above cover painting verges on commercial illustration rather than fine art, most of the paintings used in CN and CP booklets were truly fine artworks. Unfortunately for the artists, color photography was perfected in the late 1930s and replaced fine artworks in booklets. Artists continued to make posters for the railroads but they were mostly commercial rather than fine art. Continue reading →

Tourist’s Map of Canada from 1931

Posted on by December 29, 2023
Reply

Though the cover claims this is a map of Canada, it doesn’t include any of the northern territories or even the northern parts of Canada’s major provinces. It does show all of the 48 states and (in an inset) most of Alaska. Canadian National rail routes are emphasized by thick red lines, CN steamship routes by thick red dashes, and other railroads and steamship routes are in thinner black lines and dashes.

Click image to download a 7.1-MB PDF of this brochure.

The non-map side has panels on Canada’s Atlantic provinces, Quebec, Ontario, Jasper, Canada’s Pacific Coast, and Alaska. A seventh panel titled “An Open Door to Canada” makes it clear that this map is aimed at potential tourists from the United States, as it talks about Canada providing “the fascination of travel in a foreign land.” Continue reading →

Through the Mountains to the Atlantic Coast

Posted on by December 29, 2023
Reply

Canadian National and its subsidiary, Grand Trunk, had a line from Montreal to Portland, Maine, including about 160 miles in New Hampshire and Maine. Via its subsidiary, Central of Vermont, CN had another line from Montreal to Windsor, Vermont, including about 130 miles in Vermont. This 1930 booklet encourages Canadians to take one of these two lines to mountain and coastal resorts in the Green Mountains of Vermont, White Mountains of New Hampshire, and beaches of Maine.

Click image to download a 6.1-MB PDF of this 12-page booklet.

Seven pages of text and photos are followed by two pages of tiny print listing hotels, camps, and golf courses reached by Canadian National trains in these three states. While interesting, it seems like the beaches of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia could match those of Maine. However, Canadian mountains more impressive than New Hampshire’s White Mountains were at least 3,000 miles away from Montreal.

Canadian National 1930 Children’s Menu

Posted on by December 29, 2023
Reply

This menu is 16 pages long, but only the centerfold has the actual menu. Ten pages are dedicated to pictures and little poems parents could use to entertain their children. The inside front and inside back covers credit the poems and the menu to the “Sleeping & Dining Car Department,” a message so important it had to be repeated.

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

The menu itself offers four meals each for breakfast, dinner, and tea. Prices range from 35¢ (US$4.60 in today’s money) for a boiled egg, a slice of bread and butter, a sliced orange, and milk or cocoa for tea to 85¢ (US$11.25 today) for soup, fish, potatoes, stewed tomatoes, fruit salad or pudding, and milk or cocoa for dinner. While most of the meals came with milk or cocoa, just one came with malted milk. Continue reading →

Canadian National 1921 Maritimes Menu

Posted on by December 29, 2023
Reply

This menu dedicated to the Maritime provinces — which the back cover explains are Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island — has a painting of eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century sailing ships on the front cover and an industrial port scene, with what appears to be an oil refinery, on the back cover.

Click image to download a 1.2-MB PDF of this menu.

Unlike yesterday’s Prairie Provinces menu, both of the paintings on this one are signed McLean. That would be Thomas Wesley McLean (1881-1951), who was born in Kendal, Ontario. He studied art in Toronto and painted scenes in Algonquin National Park. His interest in the park attracted other artists who together formed the Algonquin School of Art. Continue reading →

CN 1921 Prairie Menu

Posted on by December 29, 2023
Reply

At first glance, this menu appears to be in the same series as the ones shown in the past three days, but it does have a couple of differences. Like the others, it has a front-cover painting of a historic scene — Fort Garry, Manitoba, the forerunner of Winnipeg — and a back-cover painting of a contemporary scene — wheat harvesting on the prairie with a steam-powered tractor. Unlike the other menus, neither of these paintings are signed, and the back cover one is particularly crude, so I’m pretty sure they were done in house.

Click image to download a 1.1-MB PDF of this menu.

The other difference is that a small painting inset on the front cover breaks the precedent of dedicating the front cover exclusively to historical scenes in favor of advertising the Fort Garry Hotel, Canadian National’s hotel in Winnipeg. CN didn’t bother advertising Ottawa’s Chateau Laurier on the Ontario menu, so it seems a bit crass that they added this ad to this menu. Continue reading →