CBC's The National Dream, 1974

AN EIGHT-PART SERIES 

Long before Schitt's Creek*, Workin' Moms or Little Mosque on the Prairie, Canada's national broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) produced an eight-part mini-series on the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Entitled The National Dream, the first episode aired on Sunday, March 3, 1974, the last on April 21, 1974. Each episode cost $175,000, though accounts of costs vary. The series' stated budget was $800,000, and some sources pegged costs as high as $2,000,000! Two hundred hours of film were recorded over six months' filming between February and July, 1973. The series was the product of two years' research and preparation, with a cast of 400. There was enough period political tomfoolery, dynastic derring-do and high-altitude hijinks to fill several Red River carts. Syndicated 'Weekend' magazine called the series "a major cultural event." 

THE EPISODES

Author and series narrator Pierre Berton told the CBC, "You will do the story well, or not at all!" Berton lived in Kleinburg, ON at the time, and was 53 years of age. His children would give him a CP end-cupola van for the property. The synopsis of all eight episodes, deemed by some ten years of bickering, followed by five years of building:

• Episode 1: The Great Lone Land. Sir John A's historic speech on February 1871 announces his intention to build the CPR.
• Episode 2: The Pacific Scandal. Charges of corruption are levelled against Macdonald's government and he is forced to resign drunken and dispirited.
• Episode 3: The Horrid B.C. Business. A national depression strikes, B.C. clamours for the railway, and Macdonald must rise from his own political ashes.
• Episode 4: The Great Debate. Back in power, Sir John A's government reailway bill finally passes in Parliament.
• Episode 5: The Railway General. [now it's getting good!] Construction in 1882-83 speeds up as W.C. Van Horne connects a nation.
• Episode 6: The Sea of Mountains. Andrew Onderdonk and Major A.B. Rogers push the rails slowly but surely through the Selkirks and Rockies.
• Episode 7: The Desperate Days. Macdonald fights the Metis Rebellion crisis through construction delays north of Lake Superior.
• Episode 8: The Last Spike! The national crisis is averted and Donald Smith hammers home the final spike.

    The TV Guide magazine listed upcoming episodes: 

THE CAST

Director Eric Till and producer Jim Murray assembled an ensemble cast, and who can forget that opening theme music composed by Louis Applebaum, with its haunting French horn opening? Some notable cast members:

• Sir John A. Macdonald - William Hutt who appeared in five episodes.
• William Cornelius Van Horne - John Colicos who appeared in three episodes.
• Sir Sandford Fleming - Tony Van Bridge
• Lord Dufferin, Governor-General - Paxton Whitehead
• Donald Smith - Chris Wiggins
• Lady Agnes Macdonald - Pat Galloway
• Chief Crowfoot - Joe Crowfoot, grandson of the Chief
• Major A.B. Rogers - Jonathan Welsh

THE SERIES AND THE BOOKS: MULTI-MEDIA

The series was sponsored by Royal Trust, circulating a notification card that beamed, "The Royal Trust Company takes pleasure in inviting you to watch this portrayal of one of the greatest achievements in the story of Canada." Photos from the series were incorporated in Pierre Berton's double volume: The National Dream/The Last Spike. Originally priced at $4.95, still available for $5 in almost every used book shop or train show, every railfan or history buff needs at least one copy! In the preface to the abridged edition, an emaciated 200,000 words from the pleasingly plump 400,000, of the series, Berton affirms, "A production, I am happy to say, that faithfully follows the events chronicled here.

Three of my favourite quotes from the series:

• A homesick navvy looks longingly at a woman's photograph, "Aye, but women are a fine thing."
• Major Rogers is forced to abandon his perilous mountain survey, "It ain't right to have come so G*****ned far. Not so G*****ed far!"
• Macdonald's unparliamentary language as he and Donald Smith are physically separated during a particularly contentious debate, "I could lick him quicker than Hell could scorch a feather!"   

Here's a two-page CBC press release on the series: 

ON LOCATION

"Far out beyond the Red River, the prairie land lay desolate under its blanket of shifting snow, still bereft of settlers. In just twelve months, as Macdonald knew, all that must change. Cities yet unnamed would have their birth, passes yet uncharted would ring to the sound of axe and sledge. An army of 12,000 men would follow. Norhing would ever be the same again. The tight little Canada of Confederation was already obsolete," intoned Berton. To capture twenty locations from Montreal to Bute Inlet, BC, location shooting gave the series a wide-ranging, history-dipped feeling:

• "Fraser Tunnel" - Hope, BC
• "Mountain area" - Penticton, Myra Canyon, Carmi Sub., Okanagan Lake, McCulloch, BC
• "Indian confrontation and Track laying" - Brooks, AB including actual CP Rail sectionmen
• "Craigellachie" - Caledon East, ON
• "Winter and the Last day of filming" -  Havelock, ON 
• "Parliament" and other studio work - Toronto, ON

with locations such as Rogers Pass, Thunder Bay and Hamilton used for other scenes. CP, along with various volunteer groups, co-operated to source the period equipment used:

• 4-4-0 136 leased from the Ontario Rail Association, with interchangeable smokestacks and numbers i.e. CPR 148 at the Craigellachie tableau.
• Boxcar 500 was plucked from Service use on the Alberta South Division.
• Coach 141 was built from two Dominion Atlantic Rly. Service cars (411577 and 411585) modified at Winnipeg Weston Shops.
• Baggage car from the Alberta Pioneer Railway Association in Edmonton.
• Construction flat car 221 was fabricated from scrapped cars at Calgary's Ogden Shops.

CPR 136 with equipment from the National Dream shoot at CP's John Street roundhouse, Toronto. (Bill Grandin photo via Jim Parker)

The National Dream available on CBC's Curio website

April 2023 now available on Youtube

HOW HISTORY BECAME HISTORY

*So, the 1973 CBC series was not Schitt's Creek. This was television programming made by white men depicting Scottish and American white men making history. Inclusiveness and diversity were years in the future, witness the CBC's current hiring drive promoting racialized candidates. Through the prism of intervening years, we now evaluate the low value given to indigenous, Chinese and Metis lives in the 1880's; we now decry the domination of the 'savages' and the ravaging of the land and its people by the now villainized Sir John A. Macdonald, undoubtedly Kingston's most famous citizen, ever. (Sorry, Tragically Hip!) Times change but history doesn't change. Because it's history. Though we freely toss around trendy terms like colonization, and pay lip service to colonist meetings held on traditionally indigenous lands, I see no move to restore rights-of-way nor major cities back to indigenous control. So, for its time, the National Dream was a dramatic tour-de-force. Alternate descriptions and depictions of history are welcomed.

AN EARLIER CPR TELEVISION EVENT

But this was not the first TV depiction of the building of the CPR. As part of its 1962 Festival Series, the CBC also broadcast 'The Brass Pounder from Illinois'. An hour-and-a-half special, it told the story of  the title character, William Cornelius Van Horne. Adapted for TV by author Tommy Tweed from his own radio play, the special had an all-male cast of 40. Filmed on a dozen sets ranging from a prairie telegraph office to Van Horne's wood-panelled business car, actually 'Saskatchewan' held by the Canadian Railway Historical Association. Researched by producer George McCowan, the final tableau of the driving of the Last Spike was recreated live on the CBC as the final scene of the special.

News clippings profile the broadcast on May 7, 1962 as part of CBC's long-running Festival series:

The broadcast, along with that famous 1885 photo, was publicized in CPR's Spanner magazine.

Some still photos of scenes from the production, starring John Drainie as the cigar-chompin', hard-drivin' Van Horne:

This puts a pin, or a period, in Trackside Treasure's 700th post. Like the original second-to-last spike, some posts get a little bent in the process, but each marks the end of an unpredictable undertaking. The completion of each post echoes, or perhaps paraphrases, Van Horne's final sentence, "The work has been done well (to medium-rare) in every way." Thanks for being here, and having a stake in Post 700, as we drove a spike through the heart of this topic, together. And as they say at Craigellachie, thanks for cairn!

133 years, 7 months & 172 hours to the day, and 90 degrees perpendicular!

Running extra...The 700 Club!

VIA released yet another variation of its online timetable on May 17. The first day of the reinstated Toronto-Winnipeg-Vancouver Canadian! VIA No 2 departing Vancouver will go through to Toronto, arriving Friday, and then will depart as No 1 from Toronto this Sunday for the first time in over a year. No 2 met No 1 in Edmonton, and they both backed down the station lead for servicing, with No 2 first-out. The passengers for No 2 had to walk all the way past No 1's consist to board. In the snow! The Super Continental served Edmonton in 1964 per this article. And there was bingo!

I've enjoyed subscribing to the Railstream Belleville webcam over the winter months. Now that I'm outside more, I'm no longer 'watching' Belleville. It kept me entertained and I never got to the other Railstream webcams, though they are sprinkled all over the States. Belleville is the sole Canadian site. Here's a webcam I'm going to investigate more. The previous three hours' seaway traffic past the City of the 1000 Islands: Brockville Time Lapse.

Just returned home from a trip to Allan Graphics, my local printer here in Kingston. I dropped off the content for my companion volume on Kingston waterfront history; its working title: Stories on the Waterfront - A Curated Collection of Stories and Photos of Kingston Harbour. Even saying the title takes you back in time because it's so darned long. Kingston harbour photos like this just beg an explanation. Is this Kingston or Halifax??