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Canada by Canadian Pacific: 1952

Posted on March 15, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 19, 2022

This booklet has photos and descriptions of sights along the Canadian Pacific from Nova Scotia to Victoria. But what makes it most interesting is that, unlike booklets with the same name from 1957 and 1959, this one was issued before the Canadian began operating, and the eight interior photos show what life was like on CP’s pre-streamlined trains such as the Dominion.

Click image to download a 6.1-MB PDF of this 24-page booklet. Click here to download a PDF of the wraparound cover.

In contrast to the vivid colors shown in Hedley Rainnie’s illustrations of the Canadian interiors, the interiors of the pre-streamlined trains look dark and somber, either lined with wood veneers or painting institutional green or brown. To be fair, Rainnie probably exaggerated the brightness of the colors in his interior paintings, using pink for salmon and bright yellow for a darker yellow. But in comparison to the trains that preceded it, the Budd-built streamliners must have seemed like a whole new world. Continue reading →

Dominion Atlantic Buffet Lunch Menu

Posted on March 14, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 19, 2022

Dominion Atlantic is the company that created Evangeline Park, which is now part of the Grand-Pré National Historic Site. Most of the history there was invented by the railroad taking advantage of a popular Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem. Though Dominion Atlantic was wholly owned by Canadian Pacific, it operated its own trains and buffet cars in order to take advantage of its local identity as a Nova Scotia railway.

Click image to download a 538-KB PDF of this menu.

The menu is undated, but prices are consistent with other menus that came with it that were dated around 1949 and 1950. The menu has breakfasts for 50¢ and 75¢ and luncheons for 75¢, $1.00, and $1.50. If indeed the menu is from 1949, multiply the prices by about ten to get today’s U.S. dollars.

Skiers in Assiniboine Provincial Park

Posted on March 13, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 19, 2022

A few days ago we had a menu with a black-and-white photo of horseback riders in Assiniboine Provincial Park. Today we have a color photo of skiers in the same park. The previous menu was probably from before 1935, meaning before Kodachrome film was introduced. This one is from 1949, by which time Canadian Pacific had fully embraced color photos in its advertising. In fact, I wonder if the solid colors it briefly used on its menu covers — yellow, cyan, magenta, blue, green, and grey — were meant to celebrate or enhance the use of color photos.

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

This particular menu is one we haven’t seen before. The back cover encourages people to visit Assiniboine, Lake Louise, and Banff either as summer resorts or as ski areas. It doesn’t say so, but apparently the first ski lodge in the Canadian Rockies was not in Banff but in Assiniboine Provincial Park. Continue reading →

Kicking Horse Pass Menu

Posted on March 12, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 19, 2022

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 March 11, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 19, 2022

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 March 10, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 19, 2022

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 March 9, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 19, 2022

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 March 8, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 19, 2022

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 March 7, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 19, 2022

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 March 6, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 19, 2022

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 →