Kicking Horse Pass Menu

Posted on by January 19, 2022
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We’ve previously seen that this colorized photo of a train in Kicking Horse Pass appeared on two slightly different menu covers: one with a script font and one with Bodoni font. The copy of the script font menu I previously showed was from someone else’s collection, but I’ve managed to obtain one of my own.

Click image to download a 1.6-MB PDF of this menu.

Inside is an a la carte menu that could have been used for any meal. The menu is undated but the prices match menus we’ve seen from 1939, so I would date it to that year give or take a year.

The Chateau Frontenac in 1937

Posted on by January 19, 2022
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Canadian Pacific hotels weren’t just places for tourists to stay. Most of them also had facilities for large conferences and conventions. This booklet is specifically aimed at attracting convention business to the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec.

Click image to download a 6.6-MB PDF of this 16-page booklet.

The booklet has a distinctly more modern, or perhaps business-like, appearance than booklet Canadian Pacific used to advertise the hotel to tourists. For example, this 1937 booklet from the Chung Collection emphasizes Quebec’s long history. In contrast, the second word on page 2 of the convention booklet is “modern.” (The Chung Collection, incidentally, also has a 1935 edition of the convention booklet.) Continue reading →

Canadian Pacific Hotels in 1937

Posted on by January 19, 2022
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We’ve previously seen booklets advertising Canadian Pacific’s chain of hotels from 1947, 1949, and 1957. This one is from 1937.

Click image to download a 4.7-MB PDF of this 24-page booklet.

The postwar booklets all list the hotels in geographic order from east to west. This has the unfortunate result of including the company’s most thrilling facilities, Banff Springs and Lake Louise, in the back. The 1937 edition lists those two (and other Rocky Mountain resorts) first, and then goes west to east with the remaining lodges. Continue reading →

Chief Kian Totem at Ketchikan Dinner Menu

Posted on by January 19, 2022
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Chief George Kian (sometimes spelled Kyan) was born in the 1880s and died in 1955. At some point, he commissioned this pole which consists of a crane on top, a thunderbird in the middle, and a brown bear — his personal crest — on the bottom. The pole is mentioned in a 1915 book on totem lore and still stood in Ketchikan in 1936 when an artist drew the picture on this menu cover. The aging pole was replaced with a replica in 1964 and again in 1992, so its third incarnation can still be seen in Ketchikan.

Click image to download a 2.2-MB PDF of this menu.

The signature on the cover picture is M.S. Osborne, who also drew the totem pole portrayed on the lunch or tiffin menus used aboard Canadian Pacific steamships. After some searching, I’ve determined that M.S. is Milton S. Osborne, an American architect. Continue reading →

Banff Springs Hotel 1936 Lunch Menu

Posted on by January 19, 2022
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Here’s a menu featuring the Banff Springs Hotel on the cover that was actually used at the Banff Springs Hotel. As far as I can tell, this particular menu cover was used exclusively at the hotel and not on Canadian Pacific dining cars or steamships. Though I try to focus on menus that would be used on dining cars, I really like the warm, colorful cover painting. Unfortunately, it is unsigned but the presence of the mountie makes me think it was done by a CP illustrator rather than a fine artist.

Click image to download a 1.0-MB PDF of this menu.

The menu is dated August 4, 1936, and offers both table d’hôte and a la carte lunches. The table d’hôte side offers nine entrées: club steak, veal sauce, curried turkey wings, pork and beans, prime rib, cold chicken and ham, fresh spinach with eggs Hollandaise, scrambled eggs with peas, and a fruit salad. For $1.50 (about $22.50 in today’s U.S. dollars), any of these were available with an appetizer, soup, whitefish, vegetables, salad, dessert, and beverage. Priced separately on the a la carte side, this meal would have cost more than $3.00. Continue reading →

Royal York Dining Car Menu

Posted on by January 19, 2022
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This menu advertises Toronto’s Royal York Hotel, the largest in the CP hotel chain and, in fact, the largest in the British Empire at the time. The menu was used in the dining car of CP’s premiere passenger train, the Dominion.


Click image to download a 1.0-MB PDF of this menu.

The menu is undated, but we have two clues. First, the back of the menu lists 17 Canadian Pacific hotels. As I discovered for another menu, the only years in which CP owned 17 hotels were 1931 to about 1935. Continue reading →

Banff Springs Hotel Architectural Notes

Posted on by January 19, 2022
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The Banff Springs Hotel is an incredible place. It’s chateau-style architecture would look completely out of place in a U.S. national park, but somehow it fits in Canada’s Rocky Mountain National Park (later called Banff). This booklet describes many of the special architectural and interior decorating features of the building.

Click image to download a 3.0-MB PDF of this 8-page booklet.

William Van Horne, the president of the Canadian Pacific who conceived of the hotel, was a Dutch-American, but the financiers who started the railway — George Stephen, Donald Smith, and others — were Scot-Canadians, so Van Horne had the hotel designed to resemble a Scottish castle. Some of the interior beams and flooring used the same techniques found in such castles, while some of the furniture is either from the 16th century or replicas of 16th-century tables and desks. Many of the paintings and other decorations are also replicas from that era. Continue reading →

Trail Riders of the Canadian Rockies

Posted on by January 19, 2022
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The description of trail riding on the back of this menu doesn’t say so, but the mountain on the cover is Mount Assiniboine, which would place these riders in the British Columbia provincial park of that name, which was created in 1922. The photo was taken by the same H. Armstrong Roberts who took the photo of the Lake O’Hara Bungalows on the cover of yesterday’s menu.

Click image to download a 1.6-MB PDF of this menu.

This menu is undated, but it was probably issued at about the same time as yesterday’s, which I dated to 1934. The menu is a la carte, with English on the left and French on the right. This means it was probably used on a train in Quebec or between Quebec and Toronto, as menus used in western Canada were not yet bilingual. The fact that the only printer code is “Que.-5” seems to confirm this. If the 5 referred to train #5, that went from Newport, Vermont to Quebec City, having connected at Newport with a Boston & Maine train that had come via the New Haven from New York City. The train arrived in Quebec after 8 pm, allowing plenty of time for dinner in the dining car.

The Golfers’ Paradise

Posted on by March 4, 2022
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Although the front of this menu effectively advertises the golf course associated with the Banff Springs Hotel, the text on the back says nothing about golf. Instead, it claims that Scottish fur traders who first came to the Canadian Rockies found them similar to Scottish highlands, which seems ridiculous as they are nothing alike. The text then implies that those fur traders named Banff after a Scottish highland town, when in fact the name was selected by CP financier and president George Stephen, who did name it after his birthplace in Scotland. Golf’s Scottish heritage isn’t mentioned.

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

The photo itself is credited to “Associated Screen News.” As noted a few days ago, Associated Screen News was created by the Canadian Pacific in 1920 to promote Canada through newsreels and other films. Continue reading →

Lake O’Hara Bungalows Menu

Posted on by January 19, 2022
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H. Armstrong Roberts (1883-1947) was an American photographer who started Retrofile, one of the first stock photo companies. Today, his photos are owned by Getty Images. Roberts apparently spent a few days at Lake O’Hara and Getty has posted several of his photos of the Canadian Pacific bungalow camp there. I didn’t find this one in the Getty system but (although the menu doesn’t say so) it is also Lake O’Hara.

Click image to download a 1.4-MB PDF of this menu.

This is a breakfast menu for an unspecified train. A printer code says “13-14 M.J. 16 – 34.” This menu is probably from the early 1930s, so 34 may indicate the year. I don’t have a 1934 CP timetable, but a 1943 timetable indicates that trains 13 and 14 were the Canadian Pacific numbers for the Soo-Dominion, so it is possible this was used on that train. The 13 & 14 numbers were only used between the U.S.-Canadian and Moose Jaw, in which case “M.J.” may stand for “Moose Jaw.” Continue reading →