The National dream : the great railway / Pierre Berton

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: Toronto, Canada : McClelland and Stewart, c1970Description: xiii, 439 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmISBN:
  • 771013264
Subject(s): LOC classification:
  • HD 2810.C2 .B47 1970
Contents:
ONE -- 1. An act of "insane recklessness" -- 2. The dreamers -- 3. "Canada is a corpse" -- 4. The struggle for the North West -- 5. The land beyond the lakes -- 6. Ocean to Ocean -- 7. The ordeal of the Dawson Route -- TWO -- 1. Poor Waddington -- 2. Sir Hugh Allan's shopping spree -- 3. The downfall of Cartier -- 4. George McMullen's blackmail -- THREE -- 1. Lucius Huntington's moment in history -- 2. Scandal! -- 3. The memorable August 13 -- 4. The least satisfactory Royal Commission -- 5. Battle stations -- 6. Macdonald versus Blake -- FOUR -- 1. "Hurra! The jolly C.P.S.!" -- 2. The bitter tea of Walter Moberly -- 3. Ordeal in the mountains -- 4. "That old devil" Marcus Smith -- FIVE -- 1. Lord Carnarvon intervenes -- 2. "The horrid B.C. business" -- 3. The Battle of the Routes -- SIX -- 1. The first locomotive -- 2. Adam Oliver's favorite game -- 3. The stonemason's friends -- 4. "Mean, treacherous coward! -- SEVEN -- 1. Resurrection -- 2. "Get rid of Fleming -- 3. The Strange Case of Contract Forty-two -- 4. Bogs without bottom -- 5. Sodom-on-the-Lake -- EIGHT -- 1. Jim Hill's Folly -- 2. "Donald Smith is ready to take hold -- 3. Enter George Stephen -- 4. A railway at bargain rates -- 5. The Syndicate is born -- NINE -- 1. "Capitalists of undoubted means -- 2. Success! -- 3. The Contract -- 4. The Great Debate begins -- 5. The "avenging fury? -- 6. Macdonald versus Blake again -- 7. The dawn of the new Canada.
Summary: It is New Year's Day, 1871, the year in which Canada will become a transcontinental nation, and in most of British North America it is bitterly cold. In Ottawa, where it is 18 below, the snow, gritty as sand, squeaks eerily beneath the felted feet of morning church-goers. A cutting wind, blowing off Lake Ontario, is heaping great drifts against the square logs of the Upper Canadian barns, smothering the snake fences and frustrating the Grand Trunk's Montreal-Toronto passenger schedule. On the St. Lawrence, in front of Quebec City, that annual phenomenon, the ice bridge, is taking form. In the harbor of Saint John, the rime hangs thickly upon the rigging, turning schooners and barquentines into ghost ships. Only at the colonial extremities is New Year's Day a green one.
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Item type Current library Home library Collection Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode
Books Books National University - Manila LRC - Annex Relegation Room Gen. Ed. - COE GC HD 2810.C2 .B47 1970 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) c.1 Available NULIB000005687

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ONE -- 1. An act of "insane recklessness" -- 2. The dreamers -- 3. "Canada is a corpse" -- 4. The struggle for the North West -- 5. The land beyond the lakes -- 6. Ocean to Ocean -- 7. The ordeal of the Dawson Route -- TWO -- 1. Poor Waddington -- 2. Sir Hugh Allan's shopping spree -- 3. The downfall of Cartier -- 4. George McMullen's blackmail -- THREE -- 1. Lucius Huntington's moment in history -- 2. Scandal! -- 3. The memorable August 13 -- 4. The least satisfactory Royal Commission -- 5. Battle stations -- 6. Macdonald versus Blake -- FOUR -- 1. "Hurra! The jolly C.P.S.!" -- 2. The bitter tea of Walter Moberly -- 3. Ordeal in the mountains -- 4. "That old devil" Marcus Smith -- FIVE -- 1. Lord Carnarvon intervenes -- 2. "The horrid B.C. business" -- 3. The Battle of the Routes -- SIX -- 1. The first locomotive -- 2. Adam Oliver's favorite game -- 3. The stonemason's friends -- 4. "Mean, treacherous coward! -- SEVEN -- 1. Resurrection -- 2. "Get rid of Fleming -- 3. The Strange Case of Contract Forty-two -- 4. Bogs without bottom -- 5. Sodom-on-the-Lake -- EIGHT -- 1. Jim Hill's Folly -- 2. "Donald Smith is ready to take hold -- 3. Enter George Stephen -- 4. A railway at bargain rates -- 5. The Syndicate is born -- NINE -- 1. "Capitalists of undoubted means -- 2. Success! -- 3. The Contract -- 4. The Great Debate begins -- 5. The "avenging fury? -- 6. Macdonald versus Blake again -- 7. The dawn of the new Canada.

It is New Year's Day, 1871, the year in which Canada will become a transcontinental nation, and in most of British North America it is bitterly cold. In Ottawa, where it is 18 below, the snow, gritty as sand, squeaks eerily beneath the felted feet of morning church-goers. A cutting wind, blowing off Lake Ontario, is heaping great drifts against the square logs of the Upper Canadian barns, smothering the snake fences and frustrating the Grand Trunk's Montreal-Toronto passenger schedule. On the St. Lawrence, in front of Quebec City, that annual phenomenon, the ice bridge, is taking form. In the harbor of Saint John, the rime hangs thickly upon the rigging, turning schooners and barquentines into ghost ships. Only at the colonial extremities is New Year's Day a green one.

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