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.

The menu offered table d’hôte breakfasts for 85¢, $1.10, and $1.35 (about US $8, $10, and $12.50 respectively), all of which came with bread and beverage. The least expensive meal was just fruit or cereal plus one egg. The next step was fruit or cereal and one of five entrées ranging from eggs to ham to wheat cakes. The most expensive was fruit and cereal, and a choice of nine entrées ranging from ham omelette to lamb chops.

The a la carte side listed six kinds of fish, a dozen red meats or poultries, and various egg dishes. Many of these were more expensive than the table d’hôte meals so didn’t seem like a good value.