Coast to Coast by Automobile

Mr. President and Gentlemen,--Standing as I do with the reverend President of our Club on my left and His Lordship the Bishop on my right, I feel that I must walk warily lest I should stumble between two such eminent clerics; but fortunately my subject is in no way controversal, for we are all Canadians, and the love of our country and its magnificance permits of no divided opinions.

As President of the Canadian Automobile Association, I have been endeavouring for some time to promote a better understanding between the various sections of our far-flung Dominion and it is only when one takes to the highway that one really comes into intimate contact with the citizens of any particular part. In the development of the TransCanada Highway, one of the chief objects of our association, I feel we are doing more to create unity within the Empire than can be accomplished by any other single factor. This Highway, when

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Born in Elgin County of United Empire Loyalist Stock, educated at Trinity College and the Medical College, Toronto, Dr. Doolittle is one of our most successful physicians, whose life has been broadened and influence extended by an early and continued interest in the welfare of his native land. This is evidenced by his activity in promoting good roads As he was the first doctor to use the bicycle and the automobile, no doubt this activity received its first stimulus from the exigencies of his profession. He is now vice-president of the Ontario Safety League and president of the Canadian Automobile Association.

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completed, will be the longest in the world, traversing eight of our nine provinces, and exhibiting more varieties of scenery and landscape than could be imagined elsewhere; starting as it does, at the Atlantic Ocean side at Halifax, and ending at Vancouver, on the Pacific side of the Continent.

In the short time at my disposal today I propose to take you with me and showy you, on the screen, a few of the beauty spots on the east and west. Time will not permit me to complete the journey. I traversed this Highway last year, and a story of the trip will serve to form a connecting thread to various views we will now put on the screen.

On my way to Halifax I accepted an invitation from my friend Hiram Riker, of Poland Springs, Maine, to be his guest for a day; and here you see him standing with me at the entrance to his Spring house. I would just like to say to the bootleggers in the audience that there is a man that has made millions out of the finest booze that God ever put into the Granite rocks of the State of Maine. There is not a headache in a gallon, for it is absolutely pure water, not having even a trace of chemical element in it; and he bottles it up under absolutely sterile conditions and sells it throughout the country as a table water.

Passing into Canada at St. Stephen, New Brunswick, I spent three or four-days at St. Andrews, where the Canadian Good Roads Association were holding their annual Convention; and then passing on to St. John, I took steamer to Digby and stopped for a look around at the ancient town of Annapolis Royal, where was erected the first fortress in the new world in this northern latitude, namely, Fort Anne. Here is a view in the interior of what is left of the old fortress, which has fortunately been preserved to a nation as a museum; and in the barracks shown on the right the curator has assembled a wonderful lot of old junk which he proudly displays to visitors; and so interesting are the relics of the early days here collected that he informed me that last year over 5,000 American visitors registered in his book. Those 5,000 American guests would spend at least a week on an average, in Nova Scotia, and not less than $10 a day each, so you of a commercial turn of mind can estimate what a financial asset to Nova Scotia is the preservation of this ancient landmark.

But we must hurry on, asp we have not even started our trip yet. On the way we pass and halt for a few minutes at Grand Pre, made famous by that story of Longfellow which, although it lacks truth, yet lures the tourists from all parts to come and gaze at the willow trees which you see before you, and at Evangeline's Well-and by the way, this is not Evangeline standing at the well; and the C.P.R. have added to the interest by erecting a beautiful statute to Evangeline in front of the little church I now show you, which is a replica, of the original church in Evangeline's time.

Now we have reached Halifax, and here is a view from the Citadel, looking out over the harbour; and here is another of that $13,000,000 project which cut a way through the solid rock for four miles to get a better entrance for the railroad into the city; and here is a view of the Wegwaltic Club on the North West Arm. The Haligonians are great for seabathing, and on my trip two years ago I had two husky young Toronto friends with me who I insisted should have an ocean bath, and, accompanied by one of the Club members, they jumped off the landing-stage you now see before you. They remained in the water about twenty seconds, and came out blue to the gills, as the temperature of the water was 53 degrees Fahrenheit.

On the trip the year before last the start was made from the first Trans-Canada Highway post erected in the outskirts of Halifax, and on that occasion Premier Armstrong came to bid us Godspeed on the way to Sault Ste. Marie, where, after inspecting the Eastern section of the Highway, we were to attend the celebration of the 300th Anniversary of the Discovery of the Rapids by Brule. This is Hon. Mr. Armstrong shaking hands with one of the members of my party. On the right is Mr. Murphy, several times Mayor of Halifax, who in this next picture is seen presenting me with a letter from himself to Mayor Dawson of Sault Ste. Marie, to be handed to the latter on our arrival at the celebration.

We are away at last on our trans-continental journey, and after skirting the Bedford Basin for ten miles-that great arm of the sea in whose deep waters the navies of the world could manoeuvre, and in which all ships to be convoyed across the Atlantic during the late war were sent and inspected -we jumped right out of civilization into the wilderness, for, within ten miles of Bedford, moose can be shot in their season, and other varieties of wild game are in abundance. In fact, the whole Province of Nova Scotia is a natural playground, as of its 15,000,000 acres in extent only 1,500,000 are capable of cultivation. Indeed, the whole central section of the Province is one vast area of rocks and lakes and streams, too wild even for much lumbering to be done, but a wonderful covert for wild game, and a delightful playground for the summer tourist.

Passing Truro we come to Five Islands, and here one sees one of the phenomena of the world. At low tide immense mud banks, with schooners of 200 and 300 tons burden resting snugly in their oozy slime, are changed in a few hours by the rising tide. The highest tides in the world are encountered at the head of the Bay of Fundy, and when we reach Moncton, thirty miles up the Petitcodiac River, we find another phenomenon, due to the high tides of the Bay, and only duplicated in one or two other places in the world. This is called the Bore, and is a tidal wave that is caused by the narrowing of the basin into the mouth of the River. So rapidly does the water pile up that it travels up as a wall of water, and at the City of Moncton, in Bore Park, one can sit on the bank of the river-as the time of its coming is posted in the hotels-and see this tidal wave roll in, and see the entire river rise fifteen to twenty feet in a very few minutes.

On our way to Moncton we passed through the beautiful City of Amherst, and three miles beyond, on a rising ground, we see the ruins of old Fort Beausejour, built by the French, captured by the Virginians and renamed Fort Cumberland, and finally dismantled, with nothing left but the ramparts and a bit of the old powder magazine.

Travelling up the East Coast near Bathurst we found the tide out and the clam-diggers at work, and here is a view. I had always thought the expression "Don't be a clam" suggested that the clam was a foolish type of bird; but I was surprised to find that clamming was not so easy as I had thought. Mr. Clam hides himself deep down in the mud, and you have first got to find where your clam is hidden before you can capture him.

Along the Bay of Chaleurs the scenery is beautiful, the clear sparkling water of the Bay on one side, and the rustic scenery of which this is a sample, and the homes of citizens scattered here and there, and the small rail fences marking the Highway on the other. As we approached the Matapedia Valley the scenery became magnificent; nothing east of the Rocky Mountains excel the beauties of that wonderful valley, which can only be seen at its best from the seat of an automobile. The railway traverses only its deeper parts, while from a motor car one gets views from the depths as well as the heights. From the top of the valley to the St. Lawrence at Metis we passed through a country where the modern Highway had not then been built. It has now been completed. Near Metis we came upon the banks of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and it is one dream of beauty all the way, with excellent roads, and dotted with typical French Canadian villages. Here you see the great church, alongside it the priest's house, and scattered round about the small, snug, matchlessly clean houses of the habitants. It reminds me very much of a hen and her chickens. The priest is the benevolent autocrat of his little parish, and when there is a sign of the hawk they all flock to him like chickens to the protection of the mother-hen. That he is beloved by all is abundantly evident to even the casual passer-by.

At Levis we are opposite the Ancient City of Quebec, the Gibraltar of the North, the city that carries on its face under the frowning cliffs of the Dufferin Terrace, a bit of old Normandy, with streets so narrow that two carts could not pass. In fact, no carts get there, as it is only approached from above by steps. Here we have the St. Louis Gate, indicating that at one time Quebec depended on its walls for protection. Here we have the Plains of Abraham, on which was fought the decisive battle that wrested for ever from France and transferred to Great Britain the sovereignty of North America. Here in the garden of the Chateau Frontenac we have a monument that is unique, in that it is erected to the joint memory of two brave generals--WoIfe and Montcalm.

Here we have the mighty Quebec Bridge, the greatest feat of engineering in the world, in whose erection one hundred lives were lost, but over which will flow not only the railway traffic of this section, but eventually the Highway to the sea, unbroken without even the necessity of a ferry. Unfortunately time will not permit you to travel with me across the vast stretches of the plains and over the wonderful mountains and through the deep canyons of our great Rocky Mountain area, with its fifty Switzerlands rolled up in one; so that we will have to let you visualize as best you can the wondrous beauties of the continuing trip. Near Vaicouver there is a stand of the big timber through which the Highway passes. These trees are 250 feet high. The roadway, 100 feet wide, seems like a narrow chasm, and looking to the east, directly in the centre, old Mount Baker, forty miles away, erects its eternally snow-capped head. I never see these trees but I am reminded of the lines of the late Joyce Kilmer:--

I think that I shall never see A poem as beautiful as a tree; A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed Against the earth's sweet-flowing breast; A tree that looks to God all day And lifts its leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in Summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain, That intimately lives with rain; Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

On my return from this trip I travelled down through the neighboring United States, so as to compare what we were developing with what they have already produced in their Lincoln Highway. The comparison was most satisfactory, because while our road dips through deep canyons with verdent views on every hand, in the South the great American Desert has to be crossed, with its high, arid, uncomfortable air. When completed there is no doubt which road will be the popular one for the transcontinentaler.

In visiting Jasper Park I was told that Dr. Conan Doyle, after spending a week in that wonderful playground along the banks of the Athabasca, sat down in the Superintendent's house and wrote these, my concluding lines:--

My life is drifting downwards; it speeds swifter to the day

When it leaps the last dark canyon to the plains of far away;

But while its stream is flowing through the years that are to be

The mighty voice of Canada will ever call to me.

I shall hear her mighty rivers where the waters foam and tear;

I shall smell her virgin uplands with their balsam-laden air;

And in dreams I shall be riding down the winding wooded vale

With the packer and the pack-horse on the Athabasca trail.

I have passed the warden cities by the eastern water-gate

Where the hero and the martyr laid the corner-stone of state;

The habitant, courier-du-bois, and hardy voyageur,

Where dwells the breed more strong at need to venture and endure.

I have passed the gorge of Erie, where the foaming waters run;

I have crossed the inland ocean lying golden in the sun;

But the last and best and sweetest is the ride by hill and dale

With the packer and the pack-horse on the Athabasca Trail.

I will dream again of fields of grain that stretch from sky to sky,

And little prairie hamlets where the cars go roaring by;

Wooden hamlets as I saw them, mighty cities yet to be,

To girdle stately Canada with gems from sea to sea.

Mother of a mighty manhood, land of promise and of hope,

From your eastern sea-swept islands to your sunny western slope,

Evermore my heart is with you, evermore till life shall fail, I'll be out with pack and packer on the Athabasca Trail.

(Loud applause)

THE PRESIDENT expressed the thanks of the Club for the interesting and delightful address.