The Immigrant Route

I'm on my way home from Halifax, retracing my outbound route of a few days ago.  (read about it here: Tracking Our History ).  So why the title?  In Halifax, there's a museum devoted to the immigration experience which has done so much to make Canada what it is.  The museum is housed in Pier 21, which was the official port of arrival of thousands upon thousands of immigrants throughout much of the last century.

Pier 21 is directly adjacent to the railway station, so the immigrants could simply walk to the trains that would take them to their destinations.  Many of those trains went west by the same route followed today by VIA Rail's The Ocean.

Although I've ridden The Ocean down to Halifax three times, this is the first time I have also returned westwards by the same train.  This led me into the kind of train of thought (pardon the pun) that you might expect from a historian.  It's interesting to me that I find myself trying to view this country from the perspective of a newly-arrived migrant from Europe.  Almost as soon as the train rolls away from Bedford Basin it plunges into the middle of a country of rocky hills, lakes, streams, swamps and forests which looks very familiar to anyone who knows the Canadian Shield but which must have looked frighteningly foreign to the new arrivals from the Old World. 

Later, farmlands begin to appear, but well spread out -- contrary to European tradition, the houses don't all cluster into tight-knit little villages surrounded by fields.  When the train approaches the head of the Bay of Fundy and the Tantramar salt marshes, the migrants who arrived from the Low Countries (including in that term the northern coast of France) must have felt their spirits rise -- this was a landscape they could understand and relate to.  (The low tide picture was taken just over a year ago; the high tide picture was taken this week in a location very near the same spot.)

But this was not their destination.  In the twentieth century, most immigrants were bound farther west than this -- to Montreal, to Toronto, to the Prairies, perhaps all the way to Vancouver.  The overnight journey from Halifax to Montreal was just the first stage for most of them.  And as that journey continued to unfold, they must have felt daunted by the length of time it took for the train to roll through the miles of forest in New Brunswick, a province which on the map manages to look very compact but in reality covers a lot of ground.

So as I contemplate my feeling of "enough-is-enough" following one night of less than ideal sleep on a train, I have to admire the stoicism and endurance of those who journeyed for five, six, seven, even as many as ten nights -- because the immigrant trains often had the lowest traffic priority on Canada's single tracks and had to wait on sidings even for the slowest freight trains.

There's not a lot more to say about the westbound experience that I haven't already covered.  I did spend more time in the scenic dome on the westbound trip, enjoying the attendant François and his informative, witty commentary about the history of his people, les Acadiens, a history which is shamefully little known in the rest of Canada.  I had a good time chatting with fellow passengers in the dome car, an environment that encourages this kind of socializing.  I also managed to catch a few more good pictures which had previously eluded me.  Here's a good clear shot of the entire 19-car train pulled by two locomotives rounding a bend in the Tantramar area.

Much farther north, and hours later, we had some glimpses of a spectacular sunset over the placid waters of the Bay of Chaleur, with the mountains of Quebec's Gaspe Peninsula in the background.

The next morning was bright enough, in spite of the early hour, to get a very good look at the Quebec Bridge as we crossed to Sainte Foy and back.  It was also early enough for your undaunted reporter to push the wrong button at the wrong time, and get a lovely 90-second video of the seats in the dome car, followed by putting the camera on pause for the entire crossing of that majestic bridge.  Sigh.  No question about it, I should have had the first cup of François' coffee before trying to fire up the camera!  Shortly after leaving the bridge, you get this view as the train crosses the rock-strewn Chaudiere River at Charny.

Later on, after stopping at Drummondville and Saint Hyacinthe, the train passes the imposing Mont Saint Hilaire beside the Richelieu River.

And then the train rolls across the lengthy Victoria Bridge into Montreal.  If you're lucky, the train uses the south approach where you can see the front end of the train rounding the bend onto the bridge proper ahead of you.

Even here, of course, most of those immigrants I am recalling to mind would do no more than break their journey for a few hours, until their next train was due to leave.  It's a sobering reminder of the vastness of Canada when you realize that the 22-hour journey of The Ocean hasn't done much more than complete the first one-fifth of a coast-to-coast rail trip.

The only other significant differences in the westbound journey concern meal times.  Dinner has not two but three different sitting times:  at 5:00, 6:30, and 8:30 pm.  This helps to accommodate the passengers who board at various communities in New Brunswick.  And breakfast begins, not at 7:00 am but at 6:00 and ends shortly after 8:00 to allow for final cleanup before arrival into Montreal, scheduled at 9:18.  Also, of course, you get to set your clocks back one hour as compared to having to set them ahead one hour on the eastbound trip.  Every little bit helps!  That early arrival time makes it easy to connect onto VIA trains going to either Ottawa or Toronto.

I'll close with the same observations I've made before about The Ocean.  The modern sleepers are compact but workable, and very pleasant.  The meals are very good, considering that the food is loaded aboard and then reheated and plated in the galley.  I actually had the same crew as on the eastbound trip several days earlier, but the dining room servers were now working as room attendants in the sleepers and vice versa.  One and all are friendly, efficient, and show distinct pride in giving excellent service to their customers.  For those who can't afford the full show of The Canadian running all the way to the west coast, The Ocean gives you a briefer taste of overnight life aboard VIA Rail and a truly delightful tour through some really beautiful Canadian landscapes.