Across Canada

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Across Canada on the Canadian National Railways

On Canada’s Coat-of-Arms is a Latin inscription. Its English translation reads “From Sea to Sea”. These words sum up the colossus that is Canada, a nation spreading over 4,000,000 square miles and seven time zones, from the coastal headlands of Newfoundland to the coastal mountains of British Columbia. It is a little larger than the United States, a little smaller than Europe. Over 18,000,000 people live in its 10 provinces.

Spanning the 4,000 miles between our Atlantic and Pacific shores are the tracks of Canadian National Railways, largest rail system in North America. More than 100,000 employees operate its far-flung passenger, freight, express, communications, hotel and steamship services.

Canadian National hotels make ideal business and vacation headquarters. They are located in St. John’s, Charlottetown, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton and Vancouver. CN operates Jasper Park Lodge in Alberta’s Jasper National Park. Each of these Hotels of Distinction offers first class facilities, from coast to coast.

On Canada’s east coast, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick form the Atlantic Provinces. One and three-quarter million people of English, Scottish, Irish, French and German stock live here. Canadian Confederation was contemplated at Charlottetown, capital of P.E.I. Until Newfoundland became our tenth province, it was Britain’s oldest colony. The inventor of radio, Marconi, received the first trans-Atlantic wireless signal in the capital city of St. John’s. Grand Pré, in Nova Scotia, is the site of the saga of the Acadians, immortalized in Longfellow’s poem “Evangeline”. Crumbling battlements of New France’s vanquished fort of Louisburg still stand on Cape Breton Island. One of Canada’s great steel plants is in Sydney, and the beautiful Bras d’Or Lakes and Cabot Trail are only short miles away. Halifax is Nova Scolie Scotia’s capital, an ice-free, year-round port and Royal Canadian Navy base. Moncton, N.B., is headquarters of Canadian National Railways’ Atlantic Region, and cross-roads of these provinces’ transportation network. Through here move many of the products of maritime mining, fishing, agriculture and manufacturing industries.

New Brunswick borders on Quebec, a province of four and one-half million people and cradle of French Canadian culture, About 26 percent of its residents speak English and French. CN tracks parallel the St. Lawrence River, over which explorers like Cartier and Champlain once sailed. As it broadens out and flows toward the Gulf of St. Lawrence, its waters wash up on the shores of the picturesque Gaspé Peninsula. This province leads the nation in water power resources and forest land. The latter asset ranks Quebec as Canada’s biggest pulp and paper producer. Shipments of copper concentrates are now moving along a new, 294-mile CN line in northern Quebec. It extends from Barraute to Chibougamau to St. Felicien. Provincial capital is Quebec City, scene of a battle, in 1759, that resulted in British possession of New France. To the northwest is the Saguenay River country and Lake St. John district. The former is a producer of much hydro-electric power. IS Montreal, Canada’s most cosmopolitan city, is about 200 miles south of Quebec, on the St. Lawrence River. This second-largest, French-speaking city in the world is a deep-sea port, 800 miles from the Atlantic Ocean,. Near Montreal is the busy textile manufacturing area of the Eastern Townships.

Ontario is our most populous and industrialized province. It has an area of 400,000 square miles, about five and one-half million people and is touched by four of the five great lakes. The 2,000-mile St-Lawrence Seaway passes through parts of it and Quebec. The Windsor area of southern Ontario is on the same latitude as northern California.

This province was once part of New France, but was ceded to Britain in 1763 after the Seven Years’ War. Half of Canada’s manufacturing jobs are here, with the majority of that portion to be found in the populous centres of southern Ontario. Toronto, Canada’s largest English-speaking city, is the provincial capital. Two other notable provincial attractions are Ottawa, Canada’s national capital, and majestic Niagara Falls.

Ontario is also the country’s prime mineral producer. Rich copper, gold and nickel ores are mined mainly in the north. CN’s main line stretches through the mineral and timber terrain of the Canadian Shield. Above the shoreline of Lake Superior is the Clay Belt, 20 million acres of mostly uncultivated farmland. To the north is huge Hudson Bay, an inland sea of 472,000 square miles. To the south are the Great Lakes, containing half of the earth’s freshwater supply. Westward are the prairie provinces, one of the globe’s great granaries.

Manitoba, with a population of 910,000, was formed in 1870, following the largest land deal in world history. Canada bought a million and one-half square miles area from the Hudson’s Bay Co. for $1,500,000. Though Manitoba is a prairie province, only one-third is prairieland. Over 60 percent of its wealth is earned from manufacturing. Agriculture is mainly devoted to grain growing, cattle raising and dairying. La Vérendrye, the French explorer, was the first white man to come here – in 1738. Scottish Selkirk settlers arrived in 1812.

Nickel, copper, zinc and gold are mined in the province’s north, in places like Flin Flon, The Pas and Lynn Lake. Winnipeg is the provincial capital and Manitoba’s largest city. Churchill is its deep-sea port on Hudson Bay.

“Saskatchewan” is a corruption of the Cree Indian expression for “swift current”. About 16,000,000 of its acres grow wheat… making it Canada’s greatest wheat producer. Dairying and sales of beef cattle are good sources of farm income – half of the province’s 900,000 people live on farms. Manufacturing production has more than doubled since 1946.

Below Saskatchewan’s soil are rich deposits of oil, gas and coal, many of which are in production. The province’s north is well watered and is thick with timber. Base metals and uranium also enrich the region. A principal city of this agricultural area is Saskatoon. Wheat and grain are its main business, as is indicated by its huge banks of grain elevators. CN has extensive facilities in this city of over 70,000.

Most populated province of the prairies is Alberta. It has unlimited oil and gas reserves, large coal resources, plenty of hydro-electric power and timber. Though agriculture is still the leading industry, mining and manufacturing are very prominent. Most northerly farm settlements in Canada are in the province’s Peace River district.

Alberta’s oil is now pumped through the world’s longest pipeline (1772 miles) to Ontario. Another pipeline was laid across the mountains to Vancouver. Natural gas is piped to British Columbia, the western U.S. and eastern Canada. The province’s petro-chemical industries are prospering.

A million and a quarter people live in Alberta. Edmonton is its capital and also the nation’s oil centre. Both the Hudson’s Bay Co. and the Northwest Company helped open up the territory generations ago. French explorers came this way after 1731; Scots like Thompson and Mackenzie explored here some years later. It came into Confederation in 1906.

The Canadian Rockies rise in Alberta and reach into British Columbia. CN trains travel within sight of many stately peaks in Jasper National Park, site of Jasper Park Lodge, our famed summer resort. In B.C., our tracks pass the base of Mount Robson, tallest peak in the Canadian Rockies. Flowing past this and other mountains in Alberta and B.C. are rivers like the Athabaska, Thompson and Fraser.

British Columbia is about 400 miles wide and nearly 800 miles from north to south. It is also Canada’s third-largest and third most populous province. Three-quarters of its people live in five percent of its area. Half its wealth comes from manufacturing, an industry supported by great forest and mineral resources. Numerous plants s plants on the Pacific Coset process its rich salmon Cae One of the world’s principal hydro-electric power projects, for aluminum smelting, is at Kitimat on the north coast. Capital of British Columbia is Victoria, on Vancouver Island. Vancouver, Canada’s third-largest city, is B.C.’s commercial centre and a terminus for CN’s trans-continental lines.

Spaniards, Englishmen, Russians and Americans have shared in this province’s history. Its most colorful era was when gold was discovered on the banks of the Fraser River in 1858. Vancouver Island and the mainland were united as a Crown Colony in 1866. British Columbia joined Confederation in 1871.

Four thousand miles separate the coasts of British Columbia and Newfoundland. But in both provinces, and across the wide land between, Canadian National provides a tie that binds city to city, province to province, Canadian to Canadian. Its presence is truly felt “From Sea to Sea”.

Canadian National Railways
Passenger Agencies in Canada and United States

Passenger Sales Headquarters
935 Lagauchetiere Street West,
Montreal, Quebec.