Journey by James A. Michener Read Free Book Online Page B

he spoke of that massive republic lying just to the south he expressed ambivalent feelings: “Man would be an ass not to recognize the accomplishments of those energetic people. Remarkable, really. Fine cities and all that, but you must remember we got them off to a flying start during the hundred and fifty years we guided them. But I’m sure their effect on Canada has been destructive.”
    Carpenter, laughing at his friend’s reluctance to accept Canada for what it was, said: “Evelyn! On this train you’re enjoying a luxury not surpassed anywhere in Europe. Relax. Enjoy it,” and Luton raised his glass: “To Canada, such as it is!”
    Tim Fogarty was having a less opulent trip, for he was riding in what the new railway called a Colonial Car, an ingenious affair containing many little alcoves consisting of facing double seats, with between them enough space for the wooden table which when needed could be dropped from its resting place upright against the wall and returned there when the picnic-style meal was finished. But what pleased the Irishman most were the arrangements for sleeping, for he had soon tired of the endless vistas of lakes and trees his window afforded of the land north of the Great Lakes.
    At night the space between the seats was filled in with a structure that also came down from the wall, thus forming, with the facingseats, a fine, level bed, upon which two passengers could sleep in relative comfort, especially if they had been forewarned to bring blankets of some kind. And that wasn’t all. If four people occupied an alcove, the sleeping accommodations for two more were arranged for by an invention which simply delighted Fogarty and which he occupied even during daylight hours.
    From a spot high up on the walls came strong link chains which supported the outer edges of bedlike platforms. These were thus suspended, as it were, from the ceiling and passengers could climb onto them with the aid of a little ladder. There, high above the others, they could stretch out, adjust their blankets if they had any, and sleep their way across the continent. What made these upper ledges especially homelike was the fact that in the rear of the car stood a well-designed wood-burning stove on which the travelers could cook such food as they had either brought with them or purchased at one of the many station halts. This meant that there was throughout the car, especially near the ceiling, a constant odor of the normal family kitchen.
    The only drawback that Fogarty could detect was that the seats were upholstered in the hardest, shiniest, most unforgiving mock leather, only slightly more resilient than a board, and after even one day’s travel, this unrelenting hardness began to tell.
    The trip from Montreal to Edmonton traversed an awesome distance broken into four distinct segments: Montreal to Fort William at the head of Lake Superior, 995 miles in 32 hours; Fort William to Winnipeg, capital of western Canada, 427 miles in 14 hours; Winnipeg to the interesting frontier town of Calgary, 840 miles in 30 hours; and Calgary due north to Edmonton, 192 miles in 11 hours. The trip would thus cover 2,454 miles in 87 hours, without allowance for time in the station, time for refueling and taking on water. Since passengers were eager to avail themselves of hotel or inn accommodations at the terminal points of each segment, the journey took at least six days. This was fortunate, because it enabled Canada to introduce itself by conditioning stages; to have thrown the Englishmen direct from French Montreal to frontier Edmonton would have been too disorienting. To break the journey at little Fort William was advantageous, and the Englishmen noted that in a sense the gold rush began here, for this was the beginning of the western reach of the national railroad, and to it had come prospectors from all parts of Canada and especially from the little feeder railroads that came into Canadafrom the United States. Here also the big