Programmes Aboard the Empress of Scotland

Posted on by March 26, 2025
Reply

The person who collected all of the Empress menus we’ve seen in the past few days also kept two of the daily programmes issued to passengers to help them relieve the boredom of being on a boat surrounded by ocean for days on end. The cover illustrations on both 4-1/2″x6″ programmes are signed Kay Stewart.

Click image to download a 573-KB PDF of this programme.

Little is known about Stewart other than she was English and did posters for a variety of ocean liner lines, including the French Line and British India. Her most impressive and most popular poster shows three French Line ships side-by-side whose reflections in the water magically become images of the Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower. Continue reading →

The Last and the First

Posted on by March 30, 2025
Reply

Today we have the last menu used on the April 27-May 3 voyage of the Empress of France and the first menu used on the May 24-May 31 voyage of the Empress of Scotland. Steamship arrival times were probably a bit more unpredictable than train times, so Canadian Pacific timetables specify departures from Montreal at 11:00 am and from Liverpool at 6:30 pm, but don’t specify arrival times.

Click image to download an 855-KB PDF of this menu.

The arrival of the Empress of France in Liverpool was late enough that the crew planned for and served “dinner au revoir” that evening. I count just over 40 items on the menu, a few more than on the previous night’s menu. The menu featured the Empress of France itself on the cover, a cover image we’ve seen before on a 1956 menu that was used on the same ship. Continue reading →

Final Empress of France Menus

Posted on by February 5, 2025
Reply

Here’s an April 30 menu featuring Katy’s Cove, a private beach for guests at the Algonquin, Canadian Pacific’s hotel in St. Andrews-by-the-Sea, New Brunswick. We’ve previously seen a menu with this cover that was used on the Empress of Scotland. So far I haven’t found any menus with this cover used on dining cars or in hotels.

Click image to download a 776-KB PDF of this menu.

I have barely the faintest idea what some of the items on these menus are. Salade Japonnaise? Potage Egyptian? Ormskirk brawn? One that I recognize that I’ve always loved is salad Nicoise, a combination of lettuce, tuna, hard-boiled egg, potatoes, and a few other things that are usually served side-by-side instead of mixed tougher. Continue reading →

More Empress of France Menus

Posted on by February 5, 2025
1

Today’s Yoho Valley lunch menu was used on April 29, 1957, the fourth day of the Empress of France‘s voyage from Montreal to Liverpool. The menu has the usual amazing range of foods.

Click image to download a 768-KB PDF of this menu.

I am particularly intrigued by Mexicorn for an hors d’oeuvre, Scotch barley broth for soup, Irish stew with dumplings for an entrée, puree of turnips as a vegetable, endive salad, and cherry pie a la mode for dessert. I hope the ship had some exercise rooms because otherwise people would end up gaining 10 pounds on the journey. Continue reading →

Lunches & Dinner Aboard the Empress of France

Posted on by February 5, 2025
Reply

The Empress of France was scheduled to leave Montreal at 11 am, and this menu offered lunch just an hour later. We’ve seen the photo on this menu cover at least twice before, both on 1954 Empress of Scotland lunch menus.

Click image to download a 791-KB PDF of this menu.

Today’s menu offered three juices, nine hors d’oeuvres, three soups, two fish, eight entrées, two grills, nine items on a cold buffet, six salads, and four desserts plus several ice creams. I am particularly tantalized by a Bangalore fruit curry with patna rice and Boston cream buns. Continue reading →

Canadian Rockies 1957 Lunch Menu

Posted on by February 5, 2025
Reply

On April 26, 1957, someone left Montreal on a seven-day trip to England on the Empress of France. After staying in England for about 20 days, they returned on the Empress of Scotland, arriving in Montreal on May 31. Along the way, they collected well over a dozen lunch and dinner menus from Canadian Pacific steamship service.

Click image to download a 786-KB PDF of this menu.

We’ve already seen the covers of most of those menus and I’ll be presenting them in groups of two and three over the next few days. But I’m showing this one, dated May 2, out of order because it is one I have never seen before. The cover image looks a little like a painting but I’m pretty sure it is a photo, which means it was probably taken by Nicholas Morant, a “special photographer” for Canadian Pacific who took more than 12,000 images of its trains. Continue reading →

Breakfast Aboard the Princess Helene

Posted on by February 5, 2025
Reply

Although it is possible to drive from St. John, New Brunswick to Digby, Nova Scotia, thanks to the Bay of Fundy which separates them, the trip is nearly 400 miles and takes nearly 6 hours. The same trip is only 50 miles across the Bay of Fundy and takes around 2-1/2 hours by ferry.

Click image to download an 850-KB PDF of this menu.

In 1930, the SS Princess Helene was built in Scotland for Canadian Pacific ferry service on this route. Despite the shortness of the journey, CP ordered the ferry to be outfitted as well as one of its Duchess ocean liners, complete with 43 state rooms. When the ship passed Canadian Pacific’s Digby Pines Hotel, bell boys would dip the hotel flag and salute. Continue reading →

Cruise Canadian Pacific to Alaska and the Yukon

Posted on by February 5, 2025
Reply

This booklet is from the era when Canadian Pacific’s graphics artists hadn’t figured out how to use the four-color process to print more than four colors for things other than photographs. As a result, all of the print and many of the graphics in this booklet that aren’t black are cyan, yellow, or magenta. CP issued other booklets like this from about 1948 through 1953; this one is dated 1952.

Click image to download a 7.6-MB PDF of this 16-page booklet.

In that year, CP cruises from Vancouver to Skagway went aboard the Princess Kathleen, a ship that (the booklet promises) “is as modern as she is sleek in appearance.” In fact, the Kathleen had been built in 1924 and made her maiden voyage in 1925. Though she had been refitted at least once since then, calling her “modern” was something of a stretch. Continue reading →

La Ville de Québec Lunch Menu

Posted on by February 26, 2025
1

Although the front cover of this menu is labeled “the city of Quebec” in French, the photo mainly shows the part of Quebec that Canadian Pacific most cared about, the Chateau de Frontenac. This hotel, the back cover explains, was “key” to the historical and social contrasts found in “North America’s most famous historical landmark” that is “just overnight from fifty million people!”

Click image to download an 758-KB PDF of this menu.

The Canadian Pacific menu series page documents well over 100 CP color photo menus, mostly from the post-war era and mostly used on dining cars. This is the first new such menu that I’ve seen in many years. The muddy and poorly framed front cover photo is probably the reason why I haven’t found examples of this menu before now as CP probably didn’t make many of them. Continue reading →

1948 Northern Bounty Breakfast Menu

Posted on by January 19, 2025
Reply

We’ve seen menus from the Royal Alexandra Hotel before, at least one of which featured an image of the hotel on the cover. Today’s menu looks more like one that might be found on a dining car with a photo over a white or yellow background — this particular menu being faded enough that it isn’t clear what color it was originally.

Click image to download a 791-KB PDF of this menu.

The photo shows someone displaying the “bounty of the northland,” that bounty being lynx and skunk furs, which would no longer be environmentally favored today. The back cover identifies the trapper as Isaiah Clark, a Cree Indian from the vicinity of Norway House, a trading post nearly 300 air miles north of Winnipeg. At the time this menu was issued, neither a highway nor air service had reached Norway House, and its connection with the rest of Canada was via a steamboat on Lake Winnipeg. Continue reading →