As soon as the Canadian Pacific Railway had laid tracks to the mountains, it began encouraging settlement by toting groups of influential tourists on expense-free junkets across the Prairies.
The most distinguished group of tourists to accept the CPR’s invitation to travel westward to the end of track in the summer of 1884 was the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
A special train with three Pullman cars was placed at the disposal of the 70 scientists. John Egan, the CPR’s western superintendent, acted as tour guide.
There was no set timetable so the party could stop when and where it wished for a closer inspection of the country.
“Even when the train stops to take on water,” said one of the tourists, “all our botanists jump out to reap, and our entomologists to whisk after small prey with green gauze nets.”
A member of the touring party was an aging Anglican clergyman, the Rev. Harry Jones, who expected the tour would be an all-male outing, and was a little shaken to find three young ladies — one a “liberated scientist from Aberdeen, Scotland” — ensconced in the next berth.
“This is all very delightful at present,” observed the clergyman, “but promises to be embarrassing as there is no specially select ladies’ compartment.”
When the scientists’ train reached the Prairies, Jones wrote: “Nothing was to be seen one hundred miles after another but the same level horizon . . . and after a while this ceased to be notched by farm buildings and haystacks of the settlers.
“The prairie alone remains, but by the everlasting track of the railway which runs straight through it as thin as a thread.”
Jones noticed the countless buffalo runs, well-trodden paths about a foot wide which covered the Prairies and seemed to be cut at right angles by the railway, and the bleached buffalo skulls that were everywhere.
Everything about the new land fascinated the scientists, even the air. Like most early prairie travellers, they spoke of its freshness and said it was “almost alcoholic.”
“I never breathed such an inspiring atmosphere — not even in the high places of Switzerland, nor amid the pure dry sands of the Arabian desert,” said one scientist.
Another thought the air almost aromatic and a settler pointed out that it was the fragrance of the wild mint which seemed to grow everywhere.
On Sept. 10, the scientists arrived at Moose Jaw where there was a good turnout to welcome the distinguished company to the frontier community.
They dined at the CPR restaurant and spent about an hour talking to the settlers and taking in the settlement.
The scientists showed considerable interest in the small test farms that had been established along the CPR track at 50 mile intervals, and had their special train stop at one of these experimental plots just west of Moose Jaw.
In the cultivated patch, which had been unclaimed prairie months before, grew wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, onions, beets, cabbages, carrots, turnips, and corn. The group was amazed at this first-year production and praised the fruitfulness of the Prairies.
The scientists noted that along the entire course of the railway, elevators were being erected to receive the great wheat crops of the future. Since these were visible for miles, the scientists called them the “mountains of the Plains.”
At Medicine Hat the special train was met by a group of Aboriginals who were to entertain the visitors with a powwow.
One of the scientists purchased the head musician’s tom-tom before the show began, thereby constricting the entertainment somewhat.
To the Rev. Harry Jones, the sprouting towns along the railway, when viewed from a distance, looked like “hodgepodges of discarded wooden boxes.”
