hotel facilities were incorporated in the grand chateau style stations themselves. Both historic structures still survive.
Railway tourist facilities were not always large or luxurious. In 1923 the CPR supplemented its grand chateau hotels with what it called “bungalow camps.” The best preserved example lies along the French River south of Sudbury where the summer station now serves as a private residence. One of its more famous visitors was the legendary Marilyn Monroe.
The Palliser Hotel in Calgary, the Royal Alexandra in Winnipeg (demolished), and the Hotel Vancouver in the city of the same name, were all built by the CPR. The Fort Garry in Winnipeg, the Royal York in Toronto, the Château Laurier in Ottawa, and the Bessborough Hotel in Saskatoon, erected by predecessors of the CNR, are other examples of railway hotels that have achieved architectural acclaim.
The “chateau” period of station architecture greatly influenced many of these hotels such as the Fort Garry, the Chateau Laurier, and the Bessborough. In a few cases such as McAdam (New Brunswick), Medicine Hat, and the second Moose Jaw station, all chateau-esque, the railways built the hotels right in the stations themselves.
In an era when most travel was by train, hotels were essential. Travelling salesmen, entertainers, indeed any visitor, relied upon this form of accommodation. “Drummers,” as the salesmen were called, often used their hotel rooms to display their latest line of wares to prospective purchasers and encourage clients with gifts of cigars or whisky.
With the elimination of passenger service along most lines, the hotels were either demolished or converted to other uses, such as apartments, taverns, or stores. In the ghost towns of Alberta and Saskatchewan, many sit empty, paint peeling, and their shutters banging in the prairie wind.
Names
While railway companies commonly named stations after their railway executives, nearby towns or geographical features, they also employed a degree of imagination in their names. The CPR, for example, in southeastern Saskatchewan opted to name a string of stations after famous poets, Lampman, Browning, Wordsworth, Service and Parkman appeared in a line, while other stations celebrated royalty: Monarch, Empress, Duchess and Consort all showed up along what was called the “Empress” line, while a string of military names were given to Major, Ensign, Federal and Hussar.. The National Transcontinental line across northern Ontario and the prairies named stations alphabetically from east to west.
The Fort Garry Hotel in Winnipeg was one of many grand hotels built by the railways in Canada’s larger cities. Photo by author.
Such opportunities were more limited in eastern Canada where more often than not the towns existed before the rail lines arrived although Schreiber, Englehart, Hornepayne and Collingwood, all in Ontario, do reflect the names of prominent railway men. Acronyms too were common such as Canora SA, an abbreviation for the CAnadian NOrthern RAilway. The T&NO’s Swastika, Ontario, raised hackles in the lead-up to World War Two when politicians lobbied for a name change to Winston. The local populace quickly reminded the critics that they owned their name long before the Nazis appeared on the scene and that the name and symbol actually meant good luck.
Less visible, but equally as significant, was the influence that stations had upon community names. In eastern Canada, where the railways often passed near existing towns and villages, the railway companies usually named the station after the town. When the railway created a separate satellite settlement, the company simply added the word “station” to the town name. As a result, there are more than two hundred communities in eastern Canada with “station” as part of their names.
But in western Canada, where the railways created the communities, they exercised a free and often imaginative hand in the naming of their stations. Originally, stations were simply numbered, but as soon as a post office was proposed, a proper name became necessary. Although it was the practice of all railway companies to name stations after their more prominent officials, some went farther. During the First World War, employees who had been decorated for their war service were rewarded by having a station named for them. Heskith, Kirkpatrick, Thrasher, and Unwin were all named after decorated railway officials.
The Grand Trunk Pacific named their new communities alphabetically from east to west, such as Atwater to Zelona and Allan to Zunbro. Acronyms were also popular. Kenora, Ontario, was named after KEewatin (a nearby town), NOrman (the first postmaster), and RAt Portage, the community’s first name. Near the Alberta–Saskatchewan border, the rationale for the acronym “Alsask” is self-evident; not so, however, for the next station on the line, “Mantario.” Apparently the company wished to offend no one.
Humour occasionally influenced the naming of stations. To avoid duplication, the letters of a name might be reversed or rearranged. For example, Leonard became CPR’s “Draneol,” Ontario, and Sullivan became “Vinsulla.” In northern Ontario, the CPR named its station at “Bonheur” after a turn-of-the-century female French artist who wore trousers and smoked cigars. Her significance to the CPR, however, remains a mystery to this day.
Not all station names were universally accepted. When the Algoma Central Railway decided to use the Native names “Ogidaki,” “Mashkode,” and “Mekatina” for three of their stations north of Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, the Sault Star derisively remarked that the names were “devised by a Welshman who talks Russian with the Aberdeen inflection.” It added, xenophobically, that the names were “designed to keep the coming Scandinavians at home.” Nevertheless, the names were retained and remain in use.
The landscapes created by the stations are vastly different now. The wholesale station demolition of the 1960s and 1970s left a hideous hole in the heart of small-town Canada. Often in place of the sturdy stations and their gardens are vacant and weedy station grounds, dusty parking lots, or unkempt storage yards. The water tanks and the coal tipples are gone, as are most of the cattle yards and many of the grain elevators. The railway houses have been resold, re-sided, and remodelled — although the characteristic rows and shapes remain unmistakable. The satellite station settlements at the fringe of the larger towns have now been swallowed by faceless urban sprawl. On the prairies, the wide main streets that ended at the station are still lined with simple storefronts and still end at the railway track or its abandoned roadbed. But the vacant view down that street now seems strangely empty, for the heart of the community is gone. Sometimes only the name survives.
TOP: Canada’s railways offered up a variety of imaginative station names such as Owlseye, Alberta. Photo by author. BOTTOM: Swastika’s name raised hackles during the Second World War but the residents resisted a name change. Photo by author.
Ghost Towns
One of the more unusual station landscape legacies is the ghost town. Across the prairies region, the railways created towns by the thousands. Most were within a dozen kilometres of each other offering elevators, stations, water towers, hotels and retail and institutional services. By the 1960s the modernization of railways and grain shipment rendered most of these communities redundant and many became ghost towns.
Saskatoon’s Bessborough Hotel was completed by the CNR in the 1930s. Photo by author.
It is a heritage however that the few remaining residents are eager to celebrate. A few exceptions do stand out. Heinsburg in Alberta calls itself Alberta’s “liveliest” ghost town”
