Travel Amenities.

So much for commerce and industry. There is another industry, however, which becomes more valuable to Canada as the years pass. Each year many millions of tourists visit the Dominion. The part the National Railways play in this highly remunerative business is large. Its lines, for example, lead into Jasper National Park in the Rockies; Wainwright, where the largest herd of bison in the world is found; Prince Albert National Park, in Northern Saskatchewan; Algonquin, in Ontario; to the Pacific Coast by two routes; the one northward, through the Skeena River country, to Prince Rupert; and the other, along the Fraser to Vancouver. It taps the North, not only for its minerals, timber, pulpwood and power and its potential grainfields, but also for its lakes and streams and its woods, for the pleasures it gives the hunter and the fisherman. As part of the service the Canadian National gives the traveller, whether for business or pleasure, fifteen hotels and summer “lodges” are operated by the railway. Two of the most outstanding of these are the Chateau Laurier, at Ottawa, and Jasper Park Lodge, in the Rockies. Visitors from all parts of the world are guests each summer at Jasper Park Lodge, which, although it is equipped as a truly modern hotel and has one of the finest golf courses on the continent, is built in a series of bungalows of native logs and stone, in keeping with the beauty of the surrounding mountains. The page 55 Canadian National line crosses the Rocky Mountains at the lowest altitude, yet in view of the most splendid mountain scenery, notably Mount Robson, the loftiest of the peaks.

As a matter of statistics, the British Empire has few larger or more powerful locomotives to show than the “Northern” type, built in Canada for the National System. Designed for use in fast passenger and freight service, it can handle a train of twelve steel cars at a speed, when it is demanded, of eighty miles per hour. With its tender, the Northern weighs 329 tons. It is capable of developing more than 3,200 horse power. To further facilitate the speed of the International Limited, the crack Canadian National train, which runs between Montreal and Chicago, the Hudson locomotive, No. 5700, has come into being. With its eighty-inch driving wheels, the largest ever cast in Canada, 5700 has no difficulty in making more than eighty miles an hour. Trimness of appearance, as well as power and speed, has been considered in its design, and it possesses many features new in the steam locomotive history of Canada. The International Limited, famous all-steel train operating from Montreal to Chicago, and the Inter-City, are the fastest trains in the world traversing a like distance, making the run between Montreal and Toronto, 334 miles in 360 minutes, including stops.