Tag Archives: Grand Trunk Pacific

Grand Trunk Pacific Railway stations

Lucerne (GTP railway point)

4 miles west of the Yellowhead Pass on the Canadian National Railway
Grand Trunk Pacific Railway station built in 1912

“Presently a gigantic mirror flashed through the trees. We were rounding the eastern arm of Yellowhead Lake, which from its idyllic situation, clear, transparent hue, and reflection of snow-capped battlements and pinnacles, may be aptly described as the Lucerne of British Columbia.” So wrote Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot [1880–1924] of his trip through the Yellowhead Pass in 1910, comparing the grandeur with that of Lucerne, Switzerland.

Talbot travelled with a party of Grand Trunk Pacific Railway executives, including Robert Chamberlain Westover Lett [1870-1957], passenger and colonization agent. The railroad laid its track north of Yellowhead Lake in 1912. A G.T.P. train ticket from 1914 shows Lucerne as a stop.

Between Edmonton and the Yellowhead Pass the Canadian Northern Railway and GTP built virtually parallel lines. Lucerne was CNoR division point, and at one time had a Second Class depot. With nationalization and the combining of the CNoR and GTP lines, Lucerne lost its status as a terminal and the depot was removed.

During the Second World War, about 100 Japanese nationals were interned at camps at Lucerne, Rainbow, Moose River, Fitzwilliam, and Red Pass. As forced labor, they cleared a new right-of-way on sections of the Yellowhead Highway. In different groups they cut the timber off much of the road toward Tête Jaune Cache and along the river toward McBride on the one hand and toward Blue River on the other. As a diversion from their other activities, they built a tea house in the Lucerne camp and for several years it remained as a curiosity shown off by the few local people.

The Lucerne Station post office was open from 1914 to 1926; less than ten cancellation marks are known in collections. A post office was also open at Lucerne from 1942 to 1945; no cancellation marks between those dates are known to exist.

Swift (railway point)

Alberta. Railway point and former settlement
Near current site of Jasper
52.8992 N 118.0666 W GoogleGeoHack
Not currently an official name.
21 miles east of the Yellowhead Pass on the Canadian National Railway
This railway point and former settlement appears on:
Talbot’s GTP map 1910
Lewis Swift. Photo by Mary T. S. Schäffer Warren, 1908

Lewis Swift. Photo by Mary T. S. Schäffer Warren, 1908
Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies

Lewis John Swift [1854–1949] appears to have been first white man to settle in what is now Jasper National Park.

Two miles and a quarter below Maligne River, on the west side of the Athabasca, a piece of land has been taken up by Mr. Swift, who has demonstrated that the country is capable of producing wheat, potatoes, and various kinds of vegetables. On September 2 he had harvested a crop of two kinds of wheat and his potatoes were of good size and quality. A great part of the Athabasca valley would make good farming land, the higher ground, however, would require irrigation.

— McEvoy 1900

Somewhere in there we passed a place with a board that said, “Athabasca House,” and another was, “Henry House.” All we could see of that was a kind of square where the logs had been rotted or burnt, but one of them showed the remains of an old fireplace made out of clay. Then we travelled about eight or ten miles and came to Swift Creek. There was an old squaw man there name of Swift. He had married an Indian woman and they had four or five children and a ranch — a little farm there.

— McDonald 1907

List of photographs:
#91 – Swimming the Athabaska [1908]
#92 – [(Lewis Swift)? 1908]
#93 – The Swift Family [Mrs. Lewis Swift and four children 1908]
#94 – [Mrs. Lewis Swift and four children in front of their home, 1908]
#95 – [One of the Swift children, 1908]
#96 – [Mrs. Lewis Swift and four children, 1908]
#97 – Swift’s mill for flour [1911] / [Byron Harmon]
#98 – Cows at Swifts’ [1908]
#99 – Looking toward Yellowhead Pass Athabaska River – Miette Valley 1908] (p.302)

— Schäffer 1907

But those nineteen days to the Yellowhead were crowded full of unique experiences as well as hard labor. We purchased provisions at the Big Eddy, Prairie Creek, Moberlies and Swifts.

— Kinney M200 1909

After packing up we went about a mile to Mr. Swift’s tiny ranch and farm. It is customary to stop over a day at Swift’s, as this is the last of civilization. But alas for Swift! his big day is now past; for the coming of the railroad brings a change over all the old ways and good old days of the pack trail.… During the afternoon while stayed in camp and did some cooking, Mr. Kinney went out and picked enough wild strawberries for supper. The next morning, after getting a few supplies from Swift and a couple of pecks of potatoes, we started westward and camped early at Caledonia Creek, the first tributary of the Miette River.

— Kinney and Phillips 1910

Planned another attempt.… Set out from Edmonton on August 1, 1908, with John Yates as packer… engaged Adolphus Moberly at Swifts… our mapping included two beautiful lakes, Adolph, on the Smokey River side, and Berg Lake, on the Grand Forks side.

— Coleman 1910

Chapter 31. Swift and his neighbors. Our supplies were nearly done when we once more touched the Athabasca River, and we went down stream a few miles to Swift’s ranch, of which we had heard much from all travellers to and from Tete Jaune Cache. Swift is a most interesting character, a white man of some energy and resource who married a woman of the country, an Iroquois half-breed, many years ago, and had now a brood of wholesome -looking children playing about his log house. He had fenced and ploughed some fields, from which wheat and oats and barley had just been harvested, and had built a watermill on the stream that irrigated his farm to grind his wheat into flour, somewhat brown in colour, but making good bread ; so that, except for sugar, tea, and tobacco, he was as nearly independent as a man can be.He reached this valley in 1894, the year when we had mistaken the Miette for Whirlpool River, had seen our tracks and wondered at them, just as we had pondered over the big hoof -prints of his horses. It was strange that two parties of white men, one from Morley, the other from Edmonton, then only a fur -trading post, should so nearly have met at the sources of the Athabasca.

— Coleman 1911

Lewis John Swift was born February 20, 1854, in Cleveland, Ohio. He set out for the west as a young man, and worked in many of the early mining camps in the Denver area, spent some time in the Black Hills, and for a spell drove the stage from Bismark to Deadwood. After years in the mountain states, he turned up in the embryo Calgary of 1888 and soon moved to the less-crowded outpost village of Edmonton. There or at Lac Ste. Anne he met many of the natives from the Jasper area and in 1890 travelled west with the Moberlys, until he was once more in the mountains. But he was still on the move and before long passed west through the Yellowhead Pass to emerge in due course at Mission Creek in the Okanagan, where he appears to have spent the next two years. Swift was drawn to the Jasper valley and in 1893, bringing a six-inch grindstone and a supply of trade goods, he returned. For two years he lived in the only building that was left of old Jasper House which had been abandoned about ten years earlier. He studied thevalley for two years before he build a new home in the shadow of the Palisades on a piece of land which he thought would make a good divisional pount whenever the rumored second transcontinental railway would be built. He cultivated a little patch of soil and in due course, by irrigating some of it from the stream which flowed past his door, he grew potatoes, wheat for flour, and oats for his horses. He continued trading in a small way and on one trip to Edmonton brought out some cattle and loaded his pack horses with a few domestic chickens. In 1897, near Edmonton, he married the mixed-blood Suzette Chalifoux. Washburn met Swift. Before the coming of the railroad, all travellers passed his doorway, many in desparate need of the provisions which only he could supply. By 1909, Swift was an institution, and would remain one until his death forty years later.

— MacGregor 1974
References:

  • McEvoy, James [1862–1935]. Report on the geology and natural resources of the country traversed by the Yellowhead Pass route from Edmonton to Tête Jaune Cache comprising portions of Alberta and British Columbia. Ottawa: Geological Survey of Canada, 1900. Natural Resources Canada
  • McDonald, Angus, and McDonald, Ervin. “Crossing Yellowhead Pass, 1907, with father Archie and brother Dan.” (1907)
  • Kinney, George R. B. [1872–1961]. Banff: Whyte Museum Archives. Alpine Club of Canada fonds, V14, M200 (1907)., George Kinney papers and photographs, ca.1907. Whyte Museum
  • Coleman, Arthur Philemon [1852–1939]. “Mount Robson, the Highest Point in the Canadian Rockies.” The Geographical Journal (London), Vol. 36, No. 1 (July 1910). JSTOR
  • Kinney, George R. B. [1872–1961], and Phillips, Donald [1884–1938]. “To the top of Mount Robson.” Canadian Alpine Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2 (1910):21-44. Alpine Club of Canada
  • Coleman, Arthur Philemon [1852–1939]. The Canadian Rockies: New and Old Trails. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1911. Internet Archive
  • Schäffer Warren, Mary T. S. [1861–1939]. Mary Schaffer fonds M79 / V527 (1907–1911). Whyte Museum
  • Young, T. C. “Lewis James Swift : first white man to settle in Jasper National Park.” Alberta Historical Review, Vol. 2 No. 1 (1954):31-32. Whyte Museum
  • MacGregor, James Grierson. Overland by the Yellowhead. Saskatoon: Western Producer, 1974. Internet Archive

Grand Trunk Pacific map 1919

Map from Grand Trunk Pacific timetable, August 1919. Stovel Co., Winnipeg

Map from Grand Trunk Pacific timetable, August 1919. Stovel Co., Winnipeg
Bohi, Canadian National’s Western Depots, p. 50

Map from Grand Trunk Pacific timetable, August 1919.
Stovel Co., Winnipeg

Oddly, does not include Dunster, but does include Raush Valley and Eddy.

References:

  • Bohi, Charles W. Canadian National’s Western Depots. The Country Stations in Western Canada. Railfare Enterprises, 1977, p. 50
Also see:

Snaring

Alberta. Railway point and locality
Between Interlaken and Henry House (CNoR) on Canadian National Railway
53.075 N 118.0783 W — Map 083E01 — GoogleGeoHack
Name officially adopted in 1956
Official in Canada
33 miles east of the Yellowhead Pass on the Canadian National Railway
Canadian Northern Railway station built in 1915
References:

  • Bohi, Charles W., and Kozma, Leslie S. Canadian National’s Western Stations. Don Mills, Ontario: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2002
Also see:

Jasper House

Alberta. Former fur trade post and railway point
34 km NE of Jasper on Canadian National Railway
53.1383 N 117.9806 W — Map 083F04 — GoogleGeoHack
Not currently an official name.
40 miles east of the Yellowhead Pass on the Canadian National Railway
Jasper House East Side Rocky Mountains
Paul Kane. Field sketch, November 7, 1847

Jasper House East Side Rocky Mountains
Paul Kane. Field sketch, November 7, 1847
Wikipedia

Also called ”Jasper’s House.”
References:

  • Kane, Paul [1810–1871]. Wanderings of an artist among the Indians of North America. From Canada to Vancouver’s Island and Oregon through the Hudson’s Bay Company’s territory and back again. London: Longman, Brown, 1859. Internet Archive

Albreda (Grand Trunk Pacific Railway)

British Columbia. Former railway point
Grand Trunk Pacific Railway between Mount Robson and Tête Jaune station
53.4608 N 119.3028 W GoogleGeoHack
Earliest known reference to this name is 1912
Not currently an official name.

On the 1912 map of Mount Robson by Arthur Oliver Wheeler [1860–1945] and a Grand Trunk Pacific Railway map from around 1912 there is an “Albreda” station between Tête Jaune Cache and Mount Robson.

The current Albreda railway point is on the North Thompson River.

Mount Cavell

Alberta. Railway point
Former name
52.8853 N 118.3803 W GoogleGeoHack
Not currently an official name.
5 miles east of the Yellowhead Pass on the Canadian National Railway

Former station name on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, between Geikie and Yellowhead Pass.

Undoubtedly related to British nurse Edith Cavell, namesake of nearby Mount Edith Cavell, which was named in 1916.

Grand Trunk Pacific Railway map central British Columbia ca. 1918

Central section of British Columbia shewing the county served by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, 1911

Central section of British Columbia shewing the county served by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, 1911
University of Toronto Library


Central section of British Columbia shewing the county served by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, 1911 (detail)

Central section of British Columbia shewing the county served by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, 1911 (detail)
University of Toronto Library

[1007]
Map of the Central Section of British Columbia
Shewing the Country Served by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway.
2,000,000 ACRES AGRICULTURAL LAND

Promotional map showing land available for agriculture, hunting and fishing, fruit, and gold along the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway line, printed in red over a base map is copyright 1911 by Poole Bros., Chicago. The railway overlay was added after 1916, when the station at Knole was renamed Rider, but before 1920, when the Grand Trunk Pacific was absorbed into the Canadian National Railway, joining the Canadian Northern Railway.

Fitzhugh

Alberta.
Former name of Jasper
Earliest known reference to this name is 1912
Not currently an official name.
18 miles east of the Yellowhead Pass on the Canadian National Railway
Messrs. E.H. Fitzhugh, Alfred W. Smithers, W.D. Robb, Charles M. Hays, H. Deer, A.B. Atwater and W.E. Davis, 1910

Messrs. E.H. Fitzhugh, Alfred W. Smithers, W.D. Robb, Charles M. Hays, H. Deer, A.B. Atwater and W.E. Davis, 1910
Charles Melville Hays Collection / Library and Archives Canada


Fitzhugh before the arrival of the railroad, ca. 1911

Fitzhugh before the arrival of the railroad, ca. 1911
Alberta on Record

Near the end of 1910 the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway established a divisional point at mile 112 (as measured from the McLeod River), near a plateau between the Miette and Athabasca Rivers. It was called Fitzhugh after the vice-president and general manager of the railway, Earl Hopkins Fitzhugh Jr. [1853–1930].

By 1911 the Canadian government had decided to make Fitzhugh the administration center for Jasper National Park. The town survey completed in 1913 was approved one year later. Development of the town began in earnest during the summer of 1913. The first change was to rename the town Jasper, the name by which it is known today.


The spring of 1912 [Donald Phillips] built his corrals and a shack in Fitzhugh (which was changed to Jasper the fall of 1913) right in the middle of what is known as Pyramid Drive now.

The trail from Fitzhugh to Maligne Lake is a good one, built by the Otto Bros, last spring. Ten miles out from Fitzhugh is Buffalo Prairie, which is on a low bench along the Athabaska River and through which several streams flow which head on the mountain

— Wilkins

Early in September, 1911, we swam our horses across the Athabaska River below Fitzhugh in the Jasper Park, on the line of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway.

The trail from Fitzhugh to Maligne Lake is a good one, built by the Otto Bros, last spring. Ten miles out from Fitzhugh is Buffalo Prairie, which is on a low bench along the Athabaska River and through which several streams flow which head on the mountain.

— Phillips

Fitzhugh, named after vice-president of the Grand Trunk Railway, is, owing to its central position at the junction of the three valleys, bound to become an important centre. There is plenty of room for it to grow and expand in the park-like situation that has been chosen.

— Wheeler

References:

  • Ermatinger, Edward [1797–1876]. Edward Ermatinger’s York Factory express journal, being a record of journeys made between Fort Vancouver and Hudson Bay in the years 1827–1828. Ottawa: Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, 1912. Internet Archive
  • Wilkins, Bert. Jasper: Jasper Yellowhead Archives. “What Curlie told me regarding his climb of Mt. Robson” (1909).
  • Phillips, Donald [1884–1938]. “Fitzhugh to Laggan. Report by Donald Phillips to A. O. Wheeler, Director of the Alpine Club,Canada.” Canadian Alpine Journal, Vol. 4 (1912):83-86. Alpine Club of Canada
  • Wheeler, Arthur Oliver [1860–1945]. “The Alpine Club of Canada’s expedition to Jasper Park, Yellowhead Pass and Mount Robson region, 1911.” Canadian Alpine Journal, Vol. 4 (1912):9-80. Alpine Club of Canada
  • Archives Society of Alberta. Jasper Yellowhead Historical Society Fitzhugh photograph collection. 1911–1927. Alberta on Record
Also see: