Life in the Railway Camps
Reprinted from the 1912 book The Making of a Great Canadian Railway by F. A. Talbot, Chapter XVIII
If one wishes to see the rough life in the wilderness at its best one must visit, live, and move in a railway camp. It is a strange, albeit fascinating, little colony. There is an atmosphere of devil-may-care on every hand, such as is met with in no other phase of human existence. The grader is a personality of himself, a desperately hard worker, who revels in the open air, enjoys toiling far beyond the limits of civilisation, and who makes money plentifully. The days when such centres of activity were hot-beds of lawlessness, crime, and gambling have vanished for ever so far as Canada is concerned. A modern railway camp in the heart of the wilds has a social level and a moral code superior to what may be found in many thriving towns, as I found from experience. The work is exacting, for the task of laying the thin thread of steel is beset with dangers innumerable. That, however, is the element which above all, exercises such a bewitching glamour.
One looks in vain for the gin-palace, gambling-saloon, and other sinks of iniquity; searches in vain for the human vultures who thirty years ago used to prey upon the unsophisticated wielders of the pick and shovel, for the professional grader, though a rough diamond, is as simple in the ways of the world as a child, and certainly has no idea of the value of money. Legislation has stamped out such plague-spots as relentlessly as hygiene and medicine have mitigated the ravages of disease in the camps. The men, instead of being the outcasts of society, dragged down to the lowest depths, and seeking sanctuary in the wilds, where no questions are asked, and where there is no probing into private affairs or the past, have developed into thriving, industrious settlers. The Golden Calf may be worshiped, but that is a failing which cannot be overcome, for it permeates the whole community of the twentieth century—it is the one obsession of today.
THE WORKERS
Yet the railway camp has lost none of its peculiarly picturesque characteristics. The men are just as rough, brusque, and abrupt as ever. There is nothing of the velvet glove, for the contest with Nature is too grim and stern. They have a rough idea of hospitality, but it is sincere. If one happens to visit the camp, he is not permitted to continue his journey without inquiries being made as to his well-being. Has he had a meal? If not, he must partake of one straight away. They follow a happy-go-lucky existence. They carry their lives in their hands, incur extreme risks in their haste to fashion the grade, bite their lips determinedly when confronted with eternity, and laugh mockingly when they glide safely by the looming portal. It is a life of “luck”; a daily juggle with Fate.
Nor has the camp lost its cosmopolitan character. If anything, it is more so to-day than it ever was. Every type of nationality will be met with along the grade. A little colony may represent as many as ten, fifteen, or twenty different tongues, from Russian to Hindoo, from British to Slav, from Scandinavian to Turk. Yet there is no misunderstanding, no hesitation or confusion. Each man has his allotted task to perform, and he goes his way oblivious of all external influences.
Now and again there is a hitch, conflicting interests clash, and sometimes resort is made to force to settle the dispute. Then the rest of the colony gather around to enforce fair play, for no underhand tricks are permitted. The time was when heated words in a railway camp soon provoked a revolver-shot, but nothing more formidable than fists are allowed to-day, and the canons of fair play are administered with austere severity.
PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CAMP
Occasionally I saw tempers aroused quickly, and words lead to blows, but no more harm than a severe pommeling with fists was inflicted. The combatant who stooped to mean advantage would have received terrible punishment from his assembled comrades.
But it must not be imagined that a camp is a scene of such disorder. Far from it. Peace generally prevails, but when seventy, one hundred, or possibly two hundred men are thrown together, for month after month, to live like a huge family, it would be a strange coterie indeed if disputes did not arise occasionally.
A camp offers golden opportunities for the psychologist. The general opinion of the navvy as he is seen at home is totally different from his counterpart as I saw him along the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway right-of-way. Every calling had its representative. There was one finely built, brilliant, enterprising, well-cultured young fellow I met at the entrance to the Rockies. He would have looked more appropriate in immaculate white starch and a sombre morning suit at work in a stockbroker’s office, than he appeared in muddy, torn, and patched khaki trousers, a brown flannel shirt open from the neck to the waist, and top-boots trundling a wheelbarrow through the muskeg. Piqued by curiosity, I asked why he had penetrated to such incongruous surroundings. His reply was frank, curt, and to the point—” To make money ! I should have starved as a clerk in London. Here I am earning a steady four shillings a day clear, delighting in braving the extremities of heat and cold, defying Fate, and having a general good time in the purest open air.”
It must be admitted that, from whatever point of view the lot of the grader is surveyed, it is far and away superior to that prevailing among workmen at home. They live healthier, brighter, and happier lives, while the wages are regular and steady. East of the Rockies unskilled labour receives on the average $2-8s. 4d.—per day.
WAGES
If a man is skilled in some branch of railway engineering his wages are proportionately higher, according to his ability. For instance, a timekeeper receives $75-£15–per month inclusive. In other words, this sum represented the amount he could save every month, the only essential deductions being expenses for such trivial luxuries as tobacco and articles of clothing which he might require. From the daily wage the navvy had to deduct 75 cents, or 3s., for meals, and $1, or 4s., per month as his subscription to the medical department, which secured him highly skilled attention and care in the hospital, and ample quantities of medicine from the dispensary, if incapacitated by accident or illness. Therefore a man could rely upon saving about $25, or £5, per month, since he was deprived of all opportunities to waste his wages, unless he gambled among his colleagues.
The base with which money has been earned and saved, however, has exercised a retarding effect to a certain extent. A man arriving at the camp with empty pockets has found himself possessed of a small nest-egg at the end of six months. Perhaps he has never had such a sum in his possession before in his life. Instead of staying on the grade, he has improved his position with this capital by acquiring a homestead—the railway has set him firmly on the road to become a prosperous farmer. So far as the camps east of the Rockies were concerned, the effect of this constant coming and going was not reflected upon the progress of the work to a pronounced degree, as strangers anxious to secure a start in their new life in a new country poured into the camps every day to take the places of those who retired from the grade. But on the Skeena River section it exercised a decidedly adverse influence.
SHORTAGE OF LABOUR
It was not so easy and simple a matter for labourers to gain the Pacific Coast, while very few of them possessed the wherewithal for the steam passage over the 550 miles northwards from Vancouver. Then, when they did reach the grade, the approach of spring offered so many openings to earn higher wages in various other channels that they left the line. During the year 1910 the shortage of labour assumed serious proportions. The development of Alaska, the extreme activity in mining circles around Hazelton, the Babine Mountains, and Aldermere, where the men could command from $4 to $5, or 16s. 8d. to 21s., per day, lured them from the railway camps. The contractors raised the wages to $3, or 12s. 6d., per day, and even at that figure could not attract sufficient unskilled labour.
The head of the contracting firm responsible for the completion of 240 miles along this river expressed his preparation to take on 5000 men, if they presented themselves at Prince Rupert. He made desperate efforts to attract men to the spot. Labour was recruited in these islands, and passages were paid to the camps. Upon arrival the men settled down to work, but in the course of a few weeks they drifted to all parts of the Dominion, attracted by more enticing openings for the sweat of their brow. On one occasion a whole boat-load of men were shipped north from Seattle to Prince Rupert. Not one of that consignment of labourers ever reached the grade. As they disembarked from the vessel at Prince Rupert other ramifications of industry, pushed just as hard for labour, absorbed every man at a higher wage than he would have received on the railway. It was only during the winter, when other opportunities were closed by snow and ice, that a sufficiency of men could be secured to carry the work forward with an appreciable speed, for then it was the only employment available.
A CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH
So far as the social conditions are concerned the grader has no cause for complaint among the Grand Trunk Pacific camps. Here the lot of the workmen has been lifted to a far higher level than has ever prevailed before in connection with railway constructional operations on the North American Continent. The substantial character of the log shacks has been described already. In winter they are wonderfully cosy and warm. In the bunk-house the sleeping quarters are ranged in two tiers on either side of a longitudinal passage, the berths being disposed like those on board a steamship, with spruce boughs for mattresses. One sub-contractor went even further to render his men comfortable. Single iron beds with mattresses were installed, and a man was deputed to look after the graders, whose sole duty was to keep the couches in trim condition, and to provide the men with hot water for a wash and brush up when the day’s work was done. The mess shack is likewise a roomy building, replete with what comforts the bush will permit. The cook has a commodious kitchen with outhouse attached, while within convenient distance is the cache, in which the nine months supply of provisions is stored.
The sanitary arrangements are such that the possibility of the drinking water becoming contaminated is reduced to the minimum. This precaution has been responsible for the strikingly clean bill of health that has prevailed among the 50,000 men scattered along the grade between Moncton and Prince Rupert. Epidemics, such as decimated railway camps in the early days, are now almost unknown, and, even should contagion appear through the carelessness or ignorance of the navvies—a danger that is ever present among the workmen hailing from the unsavoury quarters of Europe—the medical department within easy distance is able to cope with the malady and to stamp it out before it secures a firm foothold.
AN IMPORTANT OFFICE
If there is one point more than another that tends to maintain harmony and satisfaction in a camp it is the skill and accomplishments of the cook. The contractors display unremitting care in this direction, for experience has taught them that to feed a man adequately and well is to offer more than complete compensation for the loneliness of his situation. An indifferent cook will precipitate discontent sooner than anything else. By means of an attractive wage, ranging from $60 to $75-£12 to £15—per month, with all found—on the Skeena River the wages averaged $100, or £20, per month—first-class men skilled in the mysteries of the culinary art, so far as it affects these rough men, were secured. Many young fellows whom I encountered presiding over the camp-kitchen along the grade could offer a more varied, appetising, and better prepared assortment of nourishing dishes by means of the diminutive cooking stove, stoked with wood and the barest of utensils, than the chef of a first-class hotel, surrounded by every device ingenuity could contrive to facilitate his task.
Yet the position of the cook is trying. The tastes of these graders are peculiar. But they have one gastronomic failing—that is “pie.” A cook who can make delicate pastry and is a master at “pie,” no matter of what description, whether it be mince, pineapple, raisin, apricot, or what not, will be forgiven his lack of skill in preparing other dishes. To the western grader “pie” is the dream of existence, and when the men find they have secured a jewel of a pastry-cook they spare no effort to keep him in an affable mood.
To my surprise I found that a large number of these backwoods chefs were young English fellows. At home their roving dispositions, which would not permit them to settle down to humdrum existences, had caused them to be classed as “ne’er-do-wells.” But they were far from being ranked in this category in their new environment.
THE DAILY ROUND
They revelled in the life, for the wage and freedom made strong appeal to their natures. Having no appearances or social positions to maintain, they save money easily, while there is ample recreation and diversion in the pursuit of game when the day’s duties are completed. One camp cook I met had amassed a huge collection of bear-skins, moose-heads, and other trophies of the forest which had fallen to his rifle, and he was consigning them home. From conversation with his comrades I learned that their acquisition had developed into a perfect mania, and he had experienced adventures in the quest of fur which would have been the delight of a big-game hunter.
The daily round in the camp is somewhat monotonous, but this cannot be avoided, bearing in mind the prevailing conditions. The cook is astir at five o’clock in the morning, and is faced at once with the preparation of the matutinal meal. About six o’clock he tears the workmen rudely from their bunks by vigorously clanging a ponderous steel triangle. The men tumble out hurriedly, and the bank of the creek in a few minutes is the scene of great animation as the morning ablutions are being performed. There is no etiquette at the backwoods dining-table, so the men hurry one after the other into the mess shack, their faces aglow under the combined action of soap and towel friction. Each man helps himself, and there is no limitation. In a large camp silence at table is an unwritten law. This custom is requisite inasmuch as the cook is the sole waiter, and were boisterous conversation permitted he could not possibly hear and attend to the men when they requested this, that, or something else. Nor is there any waiting for sluggards. If a man desires an extra ten minutes in bed, he runs the risk of losing his breakfast, for the cook is the Autocrat of the Table, and, like time and tides, waits for no man. When he clangs his gong the meal is ready, and the first arrivals fare best.
DINNER
The meal is such as few workmen at home ever discuss once in their lives. The variety is infinite and everything is in plenty. The first course comprises porridge, followed by grilled bacon, pork, and haricot beans, cold ham, tinned meats and other condiments, with hot bread and butter, jams, cakes, and other little dishes, with the irrepressible “pie” occupying a prominent position. Each man appears to possess a huge hotch-potch before him, for the rule is one man one plate, and that of enamel. The cook has quite enough to do without being harassed by a huge pile of plates and platters to wash up after every meal. The meal is accompanied with coffee and tea, not raw, but flavoured with milk and sugar.
By seven o’clock the men have departed to the scenes of their labours. The cook snatches a little respite, partakes of his breakfast somewhat leisurely and in solitary state, for meal-time is a busy rush with him. But he cannot dally long, as the midday meal has to be prepared. The hooter of one of the engines blaring out twelve o’clock precipitates a spirited rush towards the mess shack. The men come in as hungry as hunters. Bowls of steaming soup disappear with astonishing rapidity, and then the main dish of the meal is attacked in decided earnest. Here, again, there is variety to meet different tastes. One can revel in juicy steaks of fresh meat, cold meat, bacon, corned beef, with potatoes baked and boiled, tinned peas, beans, Indian corn, or other vegetables. Even fresh fish is often available to those who prefer it. Then come the sweets, ranging from pies of all descriptions to milk puddings and stewed fruits. Or one can have cakes and jam, crackers and cheese with pickles, rendered more appetising by the aid of such condiments as tomato catsup. Salads are available occasionally. For liquid refreshment there is tea and coffee, or if something cold is preferred, then lime-juice can be obtained. The consumption of this cordial is astonishing, but it serves to protect the men from the ravages of scurvy, which is a serious menace, seeing that they are necessarily heavy meat-eaters. According to their own statements, a man could not toil so heavily and so continuously were he not able to secure large supplies of meat in various forms, and from experience I must admit candidly that to attempt such labour on a vegetarian diet is to court physical disablement. Meat appears to be the only article of food which can supply the requisite stamina for so many hours on end.
FOOD-STUFFS
Seeing that the men are buried in the wilds so far away from the busy cities, they must be dependent to a very great extent upon tinned comestibles. Such can withstand the rigours of transport, while also they preserve their original excellence almost indefinitely, the loss from storage and inclement climatic conditions being reduced to an infinitesimal degree. The perfection of canning and preserving science has changed the life in a railway camp completely. It has enabled food-stuffs to be brought within reach of the humble navvy which formerly were quite impossible. Shredded dried canned potatoes are even obtainable to-day, and are used in place of the fresh article in the outermost camps. The contractors, however, always secure fresh foods if such are available, and this demand has been welcomed by the pioneer homesteaders who have had the courage to penetrate the wilds in anticipation of the railway.
While I was at Aldermere a Chinaman broke into a frenzy of delight at a stroke of good fortune. The purchasing agent of the railway had been searching the country for supplies of fresh potatoes. This indefatigable Oriental had been expecting such a move, and had raised seven tons of tubers accordingly. The purchasing agent was willing to acquire the whole consignment, and they haggled for over an hour about the price. The Chinaman wanted so much per ton, but the agent, armed with figures which indicated the price at which the potatoes could be brought into the country from Vancouver, was adamant. The upshot was that the wily Celestial parted with his produce at $100-£20–per ton, and over the transaction had made sufficient profit to enable him to buy his settlement of 160 acres outright.
FRESH MEAT
Fresh meat is one article of diet for which the graders hunger. At first sight it might be considered as impracticable to gratify this desire, but the contractors rose to the occasion. If the country traversed could yield anything in this connection it was purchased, but if not, then animals were shipped by rail to the end of steel, and from that point they were driven to the various camps and there slaughtered.
On the Skeena River section this problem assumed grave proportions. The cost of bringing the carcasses by water from Vancouver to Prince Rupert, and thence distributing them along 240 miles of grade, was abnormally high. So they conceived another plan. A contract was made with a cattle-raiser in Southern British Columbia to drive large herds overland to a point about one mile below Hazelton. It was a daring undertaking, for it involved a “drive” of 420 to 700 miles through thick bush country. As an experiment 600 cattle were driven across the province, and the journey occupied about twenty-five days, the cattle grazing as they proceeded. Upon arrival at the destination they were turned loose, to be corralled for slaughter as required. A large modern abattoir was erected, and the carcasses were then shipped down the river to various points where small cold-storage depots were established, and from which the camps were served.
The experiment was found so successful that a further contract was signed with the cattle man, whereby he undertook to deliver 5000 animals in the same manner during the summer of 1911. Owing to the beasts being driven across country at a leisurely pace, and being able to obtain fodder in the form of luxuriant vetches and grasses in abundance as they ambled along, or when they stopped for the midday meals and night camps, the meat was found to be of excellent quality, as the animals arrived in the primmest condition.
SUNDAY
The last meal of the day is discussed at six o’clock in the evening. It is similar in character and extent to the midday repast. Then the men while away the rest of the evening according to individual inclinations. Some indulge in fishing, for the streams, rivers, and creeks teem with rainbow and bulldog trout, pike, and even salmon, which are to be caught readily, and thereby the menu is varied appreciably. Others cultivate small patches around the shacks if the soil is suitable, raising vegetables for the table, lettuce and onions being the most popular delicacies. Some extend the cook a helping hand by splitting sufficient cordwood for his fire during the following day. Games serve to pass an hour or two away, while reading among the more cultured members is a popular recreation, but, unfortunately, there is a dearth of reading material. The phonograph has proved an excellent diversion: there is scarcely a camp which does not possess at least one talking machine. In this manner the time flies rapidly until nine o’clock, when the greater majority of the men retire to their bunks.
Such is the round day after day for six days in the week. On Sunday there is a complete cessation of work, and the time is passed either in hunting, fishing, by visits to neighbouring camps, or in some profitable occupation. Some of the men devote the day to the performance of essential domestic duties, sufficient for the ensuing week, the trees around the shacks becoming involved in a network of lines carrying laundry of all descriptions. Occasionally a peripatetic “man in the frock” will appear on the scene, and though he seems strangely out of place in such an environment, yet he is certain to secure a fair hearing. Indeed, the majority of these missionaries who travel up and down the grade receive a warm welcome, for they have become accustomed to the graders and their peculiar ways. After a little informal Gospel chat, in which the speaker takes care to clothe his main idea in a manner acceptable to his auditors, the whole party invariably gather round and indulge in the exchange of reminiscences and adventures along the grade, for the grader is a born raconteur and has a wealthy store of anecdote.
VARIOUS INSTITUTIONS
The various institutions, such as the Young Men’s Christian Association, the Salvation Army, and the Navvies’ Mission, have done yeoman service in improving the social conditions in the camps. Through their instrumentality magazines and books are circulated to gratify the desires of those who wish to read; a vigorous educational campaign is maintained among the illiterate, while the foreign element is taught English. Though the main aim of their operations may be described as “Christianising,” it is accomplished in such a diplomatic manner that the men do not resent the efforts of these organisations. If there is one thing more than another which the grader detests it is out-and-out preaching. To attempt such is to meet with gibe and joke, while words fall on deaf ears. These graders live in a world of their own, and they have no desire to venture beyond its confines. But if the mission of faith is prosecuted carefully it meets with considerable success. The men show their appreciation of this work and the self-denial of those engaged in the improvement of their interests in a practical manner, and woe betide a colleague if he forgets to contribute his mite.
SUCCESSFUL MISSIONARY EFFORT
How successful such missionary effort can be made was demonstrated conclusively along the Skeena River. Here the liquor at first was a potent disturbing element, for, given the opportunity, the average grader will waste every penny of his hard-earned substance in riotous living—”amusement,” he calls it. Though Canada has a rigorous liquor law which prohibits the sale of any intoxicants within a certain area of a public work, such as railway construction, yet at places it is impossible to enforce this enactment without pressing harshly upon other members of the community. It was the case on the Skeena River. The line was located near Essington, which had come into existence years before, because it became the centre of the salmon-fishing industry. Being a law-abiding little town, licences had been granted before the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was ever contemplated. To have withdrawn the licences or enforced a period of abstemiousness to enable the railway to pass would have damaged legitimate traders, and would have been resented by the inhabitants.
The contractors were placed in a quandary. Directly the graders received the cheques for their month’s wages they trooped off to Essington to have them cashed at the saloons. They not only cashed the paper there, but squandered the whole of its financial value in drink, and did not reappear on the grade for several days. To make matters worse, lawless members of the community, who always hang on the flanks of a railway constructional army, hurried up from the States. According to the prognostications of these parasitic worthies, the good old times were coming back in regard to railway camps at Essington, and snares of every possible description to lure the workmen into despicable dens to rob them of every cent they possessed sprang up on every side.
To combat these disturbing influences the Y.M.C.A. consummated a crowning achievement. Their forces were in charge of one of the oldest missionary campaigners in North America, who had fought the human vultures tooth and nail in the great railway camps of the United States. He was no idle preacher, but an aggressive militant. By means of various counter-attractions he induced the men to stay in the camps on Sundays, the day they generally selected for an excursion to Essington, and even waylaid the men as they received their wages, and offered to take care of their money or to cash their cheques if such was desired. Only the more hardened and reckless spirits declined his proffered help, but they were in such a minority that the sycophants of Essington became disgusted with the fruits of their ill-famed traffic, and left the district breathing threats of vengeance upon the Y.M.C.A. The leader of the latter became so popular, for he could keep the graders fascinated with his exciting adventures on the grade, that his meetings were always crowded. His breeziness and humour fascinated the men, and even the habitual lovers of a carouse in time abandoned their visits to the saloon town.
SUMMARY JUSTICE
When the railway had advanced beyond Essington some of the liquor-spiders, driven to desperation, resorted to subterfuge to trick the men of their money. As the graders would not come to the town to spend their wages in alcohol they would take the drink to the camps. But in so doing they came within reach of the stern arm of the law. Still, they considered the risk well worth incurring. They carried bottles of poisonous whisky, and peddled it out in insidious small quantities at fictitious prices. But the foremen of the gangs soon observed that their men were suffering from the effects of alcohol, and directly the ruse was detected the whisky peddlers received very short shrift. They were stripped of their bottles, which were smashed, and in some cases even the graders themselves took the law into their own hands and gave the illicit vendor a sound drubbing, with the intimation that if he were caught in the neighbourhood again he would run the risk of being thrown into the Skeena River. The vigilance of the foremen and others became so acute that whisky-peddling became too dangerous an occupation, the vendors shrank from the risk of being caught, and in a short time the traffic died out.
THE PROHIBITION LAW
The Prohibition Law is one of the wisest and most beneficial Acts of legislation that the Canadian Government ever has brought into force. It has purged the camps virtually of vice and crime. Although some 50,000 men were scattered along the grade, and despite the fact that the men were drawn from every corner of the globe, and even included the scum of the earth, lawlessness was practically unknown. Liquor was recognised as the most disintegrating and inflammable factor among these camps, and so it has been stamped out rigorously. Not a dram of intoxicant is permitted to enter a camp, and no new town is extended a liquor licence, so long as it is within a certain distance of any railway constructional work. This fact has become noised far and wide, and consequently many of the graders when proceeding to a camp have a final indulgence on the way. If they arrive at the camp under the influence of liquor, as a rule they are placed under restraint and thereby deprived of the chance to create disorder. True, it must be admitted that a large number of the men lead a sober, steady life from “lack of opportunity,” but that was the main reason which impelled the passing of the Act.
But prohibition legislation has given birth to a new calling—the smuggling of liquor and the fabrication of vile intoxicating concoctions from doubtful materials by individuals who are ever ready to trade upon and profit by the weaknesses of their fellow-men. So far as Western Canada is concerned, the North-West Mounted Police is able to cope with this evil. A couple of these Riders of the Plains will keep 400 miles of the grade clear of liquor, for they represent the law in an autocratic manner. They know the class of men who indulge in this nefarious traffic, and directly they hear that the clandestine distiller and smuggler is busy in a certain district they will spare no effort in scouring the neighbourhood and treating him according to his deserts. Seeing that these officials may have to ride hard for 100 miles or more to investigate a suspected instance of liquor traffic, they leave no stone unturned to discover the culprit and his iniquitous machinery, which is smashed to pieces, while the offender is fined heavily on the spot. Should he prove an old offender, then he is escorted to prison, and if other than a Canadian he runs the risk of ultimate exile. The Mounted Police is the Nemesis of the illicit liquor-vendor, and the intimation that one of their number is approaching is sufficient, generally speaking, to cause the evil-doer to hie to pastures new with the utmost speed he can command.”◄
For an alternative view on working and living in the camps see the post Building the Grand Trunk Pacific where Walter Wicks shares his experience working in the construction camps.
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