Karl was invited to Port Moody from Vancouver for a day to be the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Tays, formerly of Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia. Mr. Tays drove the stagecoach for 22 years between Shubenacadie and Sherbrooke, and he had some exciting experiences getting acquainted with many people from different parts of Nova Scotia.
Karl writes: “Every Nova Scotian, almost that I ever heard of, Mr. Tays could tell me all about, where they lived, and when they died, if dead. I know more about our Province than I did six months ago by about 200 percent, getting into conversations with “old timers” from “down East”. It might be interesting to ‘News’ readers among whom are a great many who were acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Tays to know that they are doing well in this new country.”
Port Moody is about 13 miles east of Vancouver. During the fur trade, the Hudson’s Bay Company used Port Moody to bring supplies to Fort Langley. However, in 1881, as the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) built the 3200km track across Canada, Parliament decided that the Western Terminus would be Port Moody.
The advertisements then marketed travel from the “Pacific to the Atlantic between Port Moody, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Halifax, St. Paul, Chicago and All Points in Canada and the United States”. The ads highlighted the newness of the railway, and the highest class of sleeping and dining cars were described as “luxurious”, with the 1st and 2nd class coaches being “marvels of comfort”. The cuisine in the dining cars was touted as “unequalled, every luxury of the season is served in them”, and the train runs the “whole gamut of the Grandest Scenery in the World, mountains, lakes, streams and prairie.”
On July 4th, 1886, the first passenger train arrived at the Port Moody Station from Montreal after a 139-hour (about 6-day) duration for the 4,655 km trip. This original station was demolished in 1961. However, a second railway station was built in Port Moody in 1908, and today, that station has been transformed into the Port Moody Museum, colloquially known as the POMO Museum.
Around Karl’s arrival, Port Moody was originally a mill town, full of smoke and the noise of cutting lumber, with some private homes for those who worked in the town and for the CPR. Today, I’d catagorize it as “suburbia”, a place full of families, with lots of parks, splashpads, bike trails, walking paths and areas to launch boats. I spent a lot of my time at POMO looking at maps of the old town — noting where the candy shop and the shoe repair shop were located — and the old photos depicting the town's appearance during Karl’s visit.
Of note, dear reader, these images include familiar faces, our friend on this journey, Mr. William Van Horne*. As this was the terminus of the CPR, I suspect this would be the last encounter we would have on this journey.
We first met him in Karl Chronicles #19, "Horsepower and Megawatts," where Karl described a construction project at Grand Falls involving Van Horne, President of the Canadian Pacific Railway (C.P.R.). In Karl Chronicles #21, "Sidetracked at Minister’s Island," we explored Van Horne's estate in New Brunswick, showcasing his experience in the design of Château Frontenac in Quebec City (Post #31, "Behind the Scenes at Château Frontenac"). Karl sent a telegram on the CPR paper in Post #44 “Texting in 1899”. In Post #67, "Portage La Prairie," we encountered Van Horne’s former railway car, "Le Rideau," which he used extensively while completing the railroad west of Winnipeg. Then post #182, “We Meet Again Mr Van Horne” at the Elko train station.
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