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Published: September 11th 2012
We woke up this morning to a beautiful prairie sunrise! Yes, it was a bit of an early awakening for two girls who didn't get to bed until after 2 am, but it was too exciting to miss it. Due to being off schedule, they served brunch instead of breakfast and lunch this morning. We shared a delicious omelet and crab eggs benedict around 10:30. Then we went back to bed and slept for another three hours! Feeling almost normal at this point.
We are stopped at the moment in a small town, Melville, SK. We're supposed to be in Winnipeg around 9 pm tonight.
Yes, I am writing this from the train! We’ve had a cell signal pretty consistently every time we’ve checked since leaving last night, but this is the first time I’ve tried tethering with the computer. It seems to be working fine so far.
Last week when we took our neighbors to Heritage Park, we took a two-hour tour of the antique rail cars they have on the park. It was fascinating, with tons of information about the settling of western Canada. The rail line was completed in 1886, something like 1-2 decades
after Prime Minister Alexander MacKenzie promised a cross-country rail line in order to persuade British Columbia to join the country. CP nearly went bankrupt building it and was then faced with the need to generate revenue from it. One tactic was creating the national park system and bringing tourists out to visit the parks. Another was persuading people to buy a parcel of the land CP got from the government as part of the bargain to build the railway, and come out and homestead.
A lot of ridiculous promises were made by the railway company about what a paradise it was out here (there will be peach trees on every homestead). Often the huisband came out first to build a house, then sent for his wife and children. But when they got out here, there were no trees, so they had to build sod houses. The women and children spent 5 days in railway cars with wooden benches, and a kitchen the size of a small closet in which the families had to take turns cooking each day’s food for their families. At night, they converted the wooden seats into wooden beds — no mattresses unless you brought your
own! Probably three quarters of the people on the train were small children. Can you imagine what that must have been like? Such a contrast with the experience we are having today, with comfortable beds, excellent food, and several dome cars to choose from when we get tired of our little roomette. And then when they got off the train they discovered they would be spending the winter (and probably the next few years) living in a one-room soddie that leaked in wet weather and offered a warm shelter to lots of bugs and mice!
Life is good on the train.
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kathryn
non-member comment
howdy
I have enjoyed reading your first 2 blogs and seeing the pictures, especially Roberta's intense studying of th menu. The train station on Wpg was designed by the same architect that built Grand Central Station in New York City. My Grandmother used to clean the station during the depression to try to support her 5 children at home. Across the street from the station ( that would be main street) there is a large avenue (Broadway ) that makes a T intersection in front of the station. Now when you are standing outside looking in that direction on the left hand side is the remains of Upper Fort Garry. It is now just a stone gate, but it was the first white settlement in Manitoba. There you have a little bit of info to make the stop in the 'peg more interesting. chat with you again.