c. Fleets
of steamers, on the Pacific coast, on the Great Lakes, and on the New
England route, filled in gaps in its lines. Modern car-ferries crossed
Lake Ontario and Lake Michigan, as well as the river Detroit.
Elevators, it has been noted, were built at strategic points on the way
from the wheat-field to the sea. Magnificent hotels were opened at
Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Edmonton, with more rustic resorts in the parks
along the route. Tourist traffic was stimulated by lowered fares and
alluring advertising.

[Illustration: Grand Trunk System, 1914]

The Grand Trunk of 1914 was a much greater factor in the life of Canada
than the Grand Trunk of 1894; it had become nation-wide in its
interests, and had shaken off the unfortunate traditions of its earlier
stagnant {219} days. Difficult tasks still faced it: the building up
of the traffic of the far north would demand ceaseless effort, and when
the wheel of time should bring round slackened business once more, it
would call for all its powers to make ends meet in face of rising
wages, taxes, outlays of every kind. The record of the recent past
gave assurance that the need would be met with courage and alert
endeavour.

[1] One recent acquisition, the Toronto Belt Railway, to meet a rental
of $19,000 and working expenses of $22,500, had gross receipts of less
than $5000 a year.

[2] The Chicago, Milwaukee and Puget Sound, a high-grade road built to
the Pacific coast at nearly the same time, was capitalized, it may be
noted, at $157,000 a mile, or nearly $70,000 a mile more than the cost
of the Grand Trunk Pacific and National Transcontinental.

{220}

CHAPTER XII

SUNDRY DEVELOPMENTS

The Canadian Pacific--The Great Northern--International
Connections--Government Roads--The Intercolonial--On to Hudson
Bay--Opening up New Ontario

All the restless activity upon the part of its older and its younger
rival did not rob the Canadian Pacific of the place it had held in the
life and interest of the Canadian people. With a confident assurance
based on the extent and the strategic location of its lines, the
imperial richness of its endowment, and the proved efficiency of its
management, it pressed steadily forward until it became the world's
foremost transportation system.

The unbroken success and the magnitude of the operations of the
Canadian Pacific in this period are almost without precedent in railway
annals. By 1914 it had under its control m