14 March 2008
Many Area Places Named for Executives, Engineers
Almost every leading figure who had a hand in the building of the
Canadian Pacific Railway, Canada's first continental rail line, had a station or siding named after them.
The map of western Canada is dotted with the names of CPR presidents, directors, shareholders, surveyors, and civil engineers.
Even the names of their obscure birthplaces in the Old Country live on in new towns and villages that mushroomed in the wake of
rail construction.
Bassano, Alta., was named for a French aristocrat and CPR shareholder the Marquis de Bassano.
Maj. A.B. Rogers, an American civil engineer in the CPR's mountain division, is memorialized by Rogers Pass.
Grenfell, on the CPR main line east of Regina, commemorates a CPR director Baron Pascoe du Pres Grenfell, whose daughter was
married to the eighth Duke ef Marlborough.
Mortlach and Boharm, on the CPR main line west of Moose Jaw, were named after two parishes in Banffshire, Scotland, closely
associated with George Stephen, the CPR's first president, and his cousin Donald Smith, a member of the CPR syndicate.
As a boy in Scotland, George Stephen attended Mortlach parish school in Dufftown, taught by John Macpherson who was also the
minister of Mortlach church. Macperson is buried in the churchyard, under a gravestone paid for by his former pupil.
George Stephen went on to amass a fortune in the Canadian business world, to become a founder of the CPR, and as Lord Mount
Stephen, to be the first Canadian elevated to the House of Lords. There is a window to his memory in Scotland's Mortlach church.
Continuing west on the CPR main line, there's the village of Secretan named after J.H.E. Secretan, a civil engineer and head of
the CPR's prairie survey party. In 1882, he surveyed 400 miles of rail line from Manitoba to the Moose Jaw River.
West of the river, Secretan, who had little understanding of the plight of the aboriginal peoples, locked horns with the Cree chief
Piapot when members of his band pulled up 40 miles of surveyors' stakes.
Secretan didn't mince words with Piapot, and alarm bells rang in Ottawa when he threatened to shoot on sight if the Cree pulled up
one more stake. A siding between Tompkins and Maple Creek bears the chief's name.
Described as a "great, bulky Englishman with a waxed moustache," Secretan loved food, a passion he shared with William
Van Horne, the CPR's general manager.
Before setting off on one of his prairie surveys, he drew up a list of food supplies he would require and sent it off to the CPR's
purchasing agent. When the agent saw the list, he cut the supplies in half, which sent Secretan complaining to Van Horne.
Van Horne yelled at the purchasing agent, calling him an idiot. "I'll just give you till six o'clock tonight to ship a carload
of the very best stuff you can find up to Secretan."
All summer long, luxuries arrived at Secretan's survey camp. And on one occasion, the purchasing agent himself turned up with a
bundle of the latest English newspapers, a box of the best cigars, and a bottle of rum.
When the CPR was constructing its branch lines out of Moose Jaw, it continued to name stations after company hierarchy and lesser
lights.
Drinkwater, southeast of the city on the Soo Line, bears the name of Charles Drinkwater, secretary of the CPR and former secretary to
the prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald.
Belbeck, the first stop north of Moose Jaw on the Outlook-Macklin line, was named after A. Belbeck, CPR
superintendent at Moose Jaw.
Further along, Brownlee honours James Brownlee, another superintendent of the Moose Jaw division, who had been in charge of the first
engine on rail construction to pull into Moose Jaw.
In 1912, when the CPR undertook the building of a rail line from Moose Jaw south to Expanse, it named its sidings in alphabetical
order: Archive, Buttress, Crestwynd, Dunkirk, and Expanse.
In 1917, when the CPR extended the line to Assiniboia, the alphabetic pattern was discarded.
It's surprising what came out of the CPR's name-bag. In the Swift Current area, two CPR sidings were called Cantuar
and Dunelm respectively.
Cantaur is the signature mark of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Dunelm is the signature mark of the Bishop of Durham.
Exon, a junction in the Weyburn area, is the mark of the Bishop of Exeter.
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