Chemin de fer

Just so happened that I was bound for western Ontario on the weekend and decided that going by train would be the thing: it was that and more.

I have had the opportunity to travel the rails extensively throughout my life’s work. The train became a connecting metaphor for many of the places I have researched and written about for television.

The big steel rail has factored into the culture of our country, symbolic in many ways of how we needed something universal to bind the regions together. I picture a wine barrel that without the hoops, the staves would yield to gravity and tumble. So by the time that creating Canada was in the works and railway- building fever dominated the globe, the nation builders saw the opportunities the railway offered a new nation.

The railway would play a role in immigration, in shipping and manufacturing and farming. The railway affected just about everything, from architecture—rail stations, grain elevators—to the placement and layout of towns.

Local politics and businesses played the railway game like a monopoly board. As incentives to build rail lines, the rail investors were able to acquire extensive rights-of-way for very little money. The towns were expected to kick in also. If not, the place may find itself ‘railroaded’ as the next locale down the line anteed up to the bargaining table more readily. The winners were said to be ‘on the right track’.

The town of Dauphin, Manitoba moved overnight when it was discovered the railway was about to bypass it by 5 miles. A land grab ensued as buildings were literally winched down Main Street to a new site.

On October 8, 1871 a fire broke out at the O’Leary home on DeKoven Street in Chicago, Illinois. Dry conditions fuelled a resulting disaster. After burning for three days, the fire levelled 3.5 square miles of Chicago, leaving 100,000 people homeless. The Great Chicago Fire, as it came to be known, would also change the face of Ontario’s north. New rail lines, towns and shipping harbours would appear. The legendary J.R. Booth, the lumber baron of the Ottawa valley, pushed his railway through from the Ottawa River toward a site for a deep water harbour he planned for the Parry Sound area on Lake Huron. From there, he would ship huge lumber orders across the Lakes to rebuild Chicago.

When the news came out of Booth’s plans, speculators jumped at every piece of land within miles of Parry Sound waiting for the baron’s railway to come their way. It didn’t happen. Booth had previously bought up miles of shoreline along Lake Huron to build his shipping docks, out-manoeuvring his opponents. The remains of Booth’s boom enterprise are still visible at Depot Harbour today.

Riding with VIA westbound out of Toronto, this past Saturday was unlike any other. The Windsor-bound train climbed the high rise of the escarpment just beyond Burlington opening up a view of the Hamilton/Grimsby ravine in full colour and light. Through the surrounding landscape, the fallen leaves blanketed the forest floor, inviting the autumn light to play.

By the time the train reached Brantford the elevation had risen to 815 feet above sea level, three times that of Picton and five times the height of Niagara falls.

Those are the subtleties that one can experience by train. It was around Paris or Woodstock that the VIA attendant opened the back door of the passenger car for ventilation. Our car was at the tail end and the music of the open rail called me to the back deck. It was there, mile after mile, town after town, farm after farm on a warm November day that I relived the moments; the days; the years of venturing this country from sea to sea to sea. Wanderlust is still in my blood. Memories relived; images never forgotten.