The Canadian National menu series page lists this as a “missing menu.” Fortunately, Brian Leiteritz was able to fill in the gap.

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

The menus in this series — British Columbia, western Canada, Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes — all appear to have been used in 1948 and 1949. This one is dated 1948. As an a la carte menu, it doesn’t offer much new information about on-board dining. It is worth noting that only this menu and the one for western Canada show a CN steam-powered passenger train in the background.

We’ve seen these menu covers before, but they came with the breakfast menus presented here yesterday so I’m showing them here since the interiors are different. Like yesterday’s menus, these were used during wartime, so they provide a contrast with CN’s Alaska steamship menus during peacetime.

Click image to download a 506-KB PDF of this menu.

The first difference is that the peacetime menus generally had a music programme on the left side of the menu, but these (and other wartime menus we’ve seen here previously) do not. Apparently, many of the musicians who played on board CN steamships before the war had been called up to service. In place of a musical programme, these menus printed a notice that due to “government regulation” CN had discontinued afternoon teas and night suppers aboard its steamships. Continue reading →

Describing Canada’s army as “the dagger pointed at the heart of Berlin,” this menu lauds the “Ram,” a tank designed and produced in Canada and pictured on the menu cover. “The Ram is a 31-ton fortress armed with a tank-killing cannon, machine guns, bomb thrower, and smoke generator,” says the back of the menu. The menu doesn’t say so, but the tank had a railroad connection as it was manufactured by the Montreal Locomotive Works.

Click image to download an 1.3-MB PDF of this menu.

The reality was less impressive than the description on the menu. Although more than 2,000 Ram tanks were built, they were never used in combat because they were considered inferior to the U.S.’s Sherman tank (which was manufactured by, among others, Lima, Baldwin, Alco, and Pullman). Not only did American assembly lines turn out Shermans faster than Canadians could make Rams, the Sherman “was undoubtedly a better operational tank,” admits an official history of Canadian armament production. Most of the Ram tanks produced were used exclusively for training and never saw a day of combat. Continue reading →

During his royal tour of Canada, King George VI unveiled a memorial to soldiers fallen in the Great War. The two-decade tardiness of this memorial suggests that its real purpose was to bolster Canadian support for the newest war that was then brewing in Europe. The memorial was dedicated in May 1939; World War II is considered to have begun in Europe in September.

Click image to download a 1.8-MB PDF of this menu, which was provided by Brian Leiteritz.

While World War II killed far more people worldwide, Canadians suffered 42,000 deaths compared with 61,000 in World War I. Today, the National Memorial serves as a memorial to Canadians who fell in all military conflicts. Continue reading →

The haunting photo on the cover of this menu is made even spookier by tilting it parallel to the diagonal borders rather than perpendicular to the vertical borders, which means all the water should be running off to the left. We’ve seen this design before on a 1938 Tonquin Valley menu. Today’s menu is also dated 1938.

Click image to download a 1.8-MB PDF of this menu, which was provided by Brian Leiteritz.

The back cover says nothing about Maligne Lake but instead describes the railroad’s streamlined 6400-class locomotives. These were introduced in 1936 and operated until 1960. Locomotive 6400 itself is preserved in an Ottawa museum. Continue reading →