19 August 2007
Trains, Skates and Festivals - How Sweet it Was
Victoria British Columbia - The last train left Langford
at 10 p.m. for a quick 15 to 20-minute run to Victoria. It's true it was only a winter special put on by the Esquimalt and
Nanaimo Railway to accommodate skaters seeking ice long before municipal councils built indoor ponds to cater to a skater's needs. But
it was an appreciated and well used service.
The E&N ran its "Langford specials," sometimes three trains a day on weekends, whenever a big freeze came along.
The last train home was always 10 p.m. with a long, hard, cold, walk home if you missed it. The winter of 1901 was a bonanza year for
the railway and skaters.
The freeze that year was in February and lasted from the Fifth to the 22nd - with three rounds trips a day to frozen ponds or Langford
Lake - or both. Newspaper stories about the locations of the skating parties are vague, mentioning only Langford as the site for winter
revelry.
There was another "deep freeze" in early 1907, described as "bitter" in the Victoria Daily Colonist with much
hardship caused in the city by lack of fuel. Not a lack of stockpiled wood or coal but just, with "several feet of snow" in
the streets, the inability to get it from stockpile to household door. There were a few newfangled motor vehicles around but like the
horse and cart they were useless in deep snow.
The E&N, however, appeared to keep running with its Langford skating specials crowded. The 1907 Colonist waxed lyrical:
"The scene in the late afternoon was exceedingly pretty, for the sunset, visible over the tall fir trees, almost equalled any to
be seen in Italy, and this all with the effect caused by the glow of many campfires against the dazzling white of the snow. Every rank
of life from town was represented in the happy throng."
We may well wonder how Italian sunsets crept into the story, but the reporter certainly made an afternoon and evening midst Langford's
ice and snow and a "happy throng [with] every rank of life from town" sound more attractive than an evening at home with no
fuel to burn.
Winter specials were not the only services offered by a railway anxious to build a reputation for customer service. In addition to its
up-Island scheduled trains - which in the early days sported a "parlour" coach for extra passenger comfort and
only a 10-minute wait at Parksville for the connection to Port Alberni - the E&N ran promotion specials to Langford
"for horse racing and skating;" to Goldstream "for picnics, band concerts, and rifle shooting;" Shawnigan Lake
"picnics and family beach parties; Strathcona "for dances," Duncan "for band concerts" and Chemainus
(River)"for picnics."
Big businesses of the day did their part to keep what was then a new railway prosperous. In his book The Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway,
The Dunsmuir Years, Donald F. MacLachlan provides train details for an Albion Iron Works picnic held at Chemainus River on
8 Aug 1881.
He tells us the train dispatcher recorded "return Albion trains arrived [Victoria] at 7:50 p.m. and 3 a.m. [of Ninth]. Very
pleasant time."
It can be assumed the 7:50 p.m. arrival carried mothers and children and maybe a few reluctant dads - and that the 3 a.m. arrival could
probably be heard at railway crossings without a ring of the train bell.
Then there were merchandising specials promoted by David Spencer, the pioneer department store owner who sponsored "excursion
specials" with discounts for E&N riders who took the train and shopped in his store.
Would such specials work today if merchants "chartered" a Dayliner for a special shoppers run? Probably not with today's
society so much in love with their cars and so uncaring about public transportation, but it might be worth a try as a "green"
promotion.
This is not a call for return to the "good old days" which were unhygienic, unhealthy, and far less comfortable and pleasant
overall than they are today. But it is, I suppose, a mild nostalgic longing for a return to some of the values we seem to have lost in
today's restless discontent. Maybe it's something to do with city size. A small community still seems able to make a community picnic
a simple, joyful, affair while in larger communities, if the lager louts don't take over, folk who see the opportunity to squeeze a
dollar from what won original popularity as free celebration, will.
A century ago there was no Symphony Splash to brighten a Victoria summer evening - but there was an annual Gorge Festival with
"special theatre entertainment."
B.C. Electric doubled its normal schedule for festival days - and threw in extra trams if the crowds warranted them - and the Colonist
reported (in a story probably written the reporter who saw the Italian sunset at Langford): "The green foliage of the pine trees
was lighted by numerous festoons of electric bulbs, here and there booths gaily illuminated with Chinese lanterns at which ladies -
immaculately clad in white - dispensed flowers, candies, and other commodities to eager buyers while in the background played the band
of the Fifth Regiment."
Not that all was the sweetness and light of a Langford skate or a Gorge Festival. A hundred years ago the city had "street
people" and its share of drunks.
But, maybe softened with the passing of the years, the drunks seemed a friendlier breed even when sporting, as Tommy Turnbull did when
arrested in 1907 for being drunk and disorderly, "both eyes discoloured."
Things look bad for Tom when the magistrate was informed "when searched at the police station four razors were found in his
pocket." But then someone, not identified in the news report, told the court Tom's "principal occupation is peddling these
articles - and he varies it at times by offering canary birds for sale on the street."
Razors for shaving, canary birds for a song in the house. I couldn't find a record of Tommy's fine or punishment, but I hope it was
light. Maybe one day, sober, he could make it on an E&N Chemainus River picnic special, a winter skate at Langford or a summer day
on the Gorge.
No razors, of course, but Tommy would surely have fit in "with every rank of life from town" and I'm sure his canary birds
would have sung beautifully for an Italian style sunset.
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