Pacific coast. Anticipating the day when bales of silk would soon be arriving from China and Japan, the city fathers hung silken banners on the engine and ordered a fifteen-gun salute. As the smoke-belching train drew slowly out of Dalhousie Square station, bound for Port Moody, Van Horne heard the guns of the Montreal battery boom and the loud cheers of the assembled crowd echo around him.
Already, however, Van Horne knew that massive repairs were needed on many sections of the trans-Canada railway. In June 1885 George Stephen had confidently told the CPR shareholders that the CPR’s main line would be completed and in perfect condition by the spring of 1886 — that it would exceed the standards fixed in its contract with the government. But construction had proceeded so rapidly that the company had resorted to using many temporary structures. Whenever Van Horne went out on the line, he realized that it had been merely slapped down in places and that, for hundreds of miles, it consisted of little more than ties and the two rails that lay across them with a row of telegraph poles along one side. On the Prairies the line had little or no ballast, and in more rugged country, particularly in the western mountains, it skirted many minor obstructions instead of barrelling through them. North America’s first true transcontinental railway was therefore crooked in places and full of curves. To further complicate matters, the railway trestles that had been built of timber instead of masonry or iron were so rickety that trains had to crawl across them. Moreover, many a station, loading dock, or warehouse also needed to be rebuilt or enlarged.
Van Horne therefore had to set to work immediately to supervise the huge task of rebuilding long stretches of the line. Since this required additional money, he had to lobby for funds from a disgruntled government to complete the work. He also had to wrestle with the fallout from disputes and litigation with contractors on the Lake Superior section, and with the government on the rugged Fraser Canyon section that had been built by the American contractor Andrew Onderdonk.
As always, countless little details that related peripherally to the running of a railway competed for his attention. There was a steady stream of inquiries about employment opportunities and a barrage of requests for free passes. Notable among these were endearing queries from Father Albert Lacombe, who sought reduced fares and the use of a car for a priests’ excursion. Van Horne had first met the renowned missionary to the Blackfoot Indians at Rat Portage, when the rugged priest was attending to the spiritual needs of hundreds of drinking, blaspheming, fighting railway construction workers. This first meeting with Lacombe made a profound and lasting impression on Van Horne. Later, both he and the CPR would owe a huge debt of gratitude to “his special friend” for doing much to ease relations between the Blackfoot and the company during construction on the Prairies. Of course his requests had to be granted.
One excursion stood out above all the others for Van Horne — the journey taken in July 1886 by Sir John A. Macdonald and his formidable wife, Agnes, to the West. Pressure of business had prevented the prime minister from travelling on the first scheduled transcontinental train trip, and this one would be the only visit he ever made to the Great West. Van Horne provided the best, as he outfitted a private car for Sir John’s party with fine-meshed window screens to keep out the dust and the mosquitoes. He also arranged for most of the travelling to be done by night to allow the honoured guests ample time for rest and the opportunity to see scenery along the entire line by daylight. Lady Macdonald made the most of it, as she rode on the exposed locomotive cowcatcher for almost all the journey between Canmore, Alberta, and Port Moody — a distance of nearly six hundred miles.
That same July, Van Horne embarked on the first of his annual inspection tours from Montreal to the West coast. Usually he was accompanied by a few CPR co-directors and personal friends, and occasionally by Bennie and other family members. These trips became noted for their good company and good cheer, much of it supplied by Van Horne himself. He often treated his guests to boyish practical jokes, assisted by Jimmy French, his incomparable black porter. A short, thickset man with a highly mobile face and a quick wit, French was devoted to the CPR, Van Horne, and his family. When Addie was ill in 1891, for instance, he repeatedly visited their Montreal home to inquire about her health and to recommend a reviving trip under his care in the Saskatchewan — Van Horne’s private car.
Once the transcontinental railway was constructed, George Stephen focused almost exclusively on financing and large policy questions, and he left the day-to-day management of the CPR to his vice-president, Van Horne. With full operational control, Van Horne turned most of his attention to developing traffic, for only if there was sufficient freight and passenger business could the railway earn enough to meet its staggering financial charges. In the next few years he diversified the company’s operations by acquiring grain elevators, flour mills, express and telegraph operations, port facilities, maritime fleets, agricultural and timber lands, and numerous tourist services, including hotels. In terms of actual rail operations, he not only continued the policy of acquiring a network of rail lines in the settled industrial regions of eastern Canada, but he also strove to develop rail links to established markets in New England and the American Midwest.
In the grand vision entertained by Van Horne and George Stephen, the CPR was more than just the first pan-Canadian corporation — it was part of an integrated transportation network that would girdle the globe. “Canada is doing business on a back street,” Van Horne once observed. “We must put her on a thoroughfare.”
To put the CPR on a thoroughfare, he arranged for the company to operate steamships on both the Pacific and the Atlantic coasts. In 1886 the company presented a formal tender to the British government to provide a first-class, subsidized mail service between Hong Kong and Vancouver: it would charter steamships for the following year and use its own ships in 1888. After long and complicated negotiations between the CPR and the British and Canadian governments, the company finally won a formal contract for the mail service. No sooner was this done than the CPR ordered three liners in 1889 to maintain the monthly service — the Empress of India, Empress of Japan, and Empress of China. Van Horne named all three vessels, choosing the designation “Empress” to reflect the ships’ superiority over all anticipated competition. He also designed the red and white checker-board house flag that was flown on all Canadian Pacific ships for the next eighty years. Efficient to operate, mechanically sound, aesthetically pleasing, and well upholstered, these vessels earned a reputation that other lines found difficult to equal.
Van Horne swelled with pride on April 28, 1891, when the graceful, clipper-bowed Empress of India docked in Vancouver. The first of the majestic Empress liners to be completed, she had sailed from Liverpool for the Pacific by way of the Suez Canal. More than a hundred first-class passengers had booked passage for what would be the closest thing to a world cruise that had yet been offered. When the liner docked at Vancouver, Van Horne and some of the company directors were on hand to welcome her. As part of the welcoming ceremonies, a grand banquet and ball were staged at the Hotel Vancouver. However, since Van Horne disliked large, formal functions, he departed for Montreal that very afternoon.
In these same years, Van Horne hired New York society architect Bruce Price, who had designed Montreal’s Windsor Station, to design the Banff Springs Hotel and Quebec City’s Château Frontenac. The CPR’s vice-president also immersed himself in immigration schemes, continued to sponsor artists and photographers to capture CPR landmarks, and invented numerous catchy slogans to lure tourists to Canada. The picturesque mountain hotels designed by Price and Thomas Sorby were all part of Van Horne’s grand scheme to generate traffic for the railway and to make the line’s costly mountain section pay for itself. “Since we can’t export the scenery, we’ll have to import the tourists,” he reportedly said as he contemplated the stunning mountain views. He advertised the Rockies as “1001 Switzerlands Rolled into One.” And, to attract tourists to this part of the world, he set out to provide first-class travellers with excellent ship and train service and superior hotels that commanded the choicest mountain views.
Banff Springs Hotel, the most celebrated of the CPR’s mountain hostelries, owed its construction indirectly to the discovery of several natural hot springs on the flanks of Sulphur Mountain. Van Horne
