And You Thought that the Yukon Was Cold

The caption on the back of this post card tells us that these are railway workers clearing snow in February of 1869. They are doing this at the Grand Trunk Railway’s station located in Levis, Quebec, Canada. You can see that it was quite the snow fall!! The men in the background are much higher than those standing in front of the 4 engines. It looks like all four of the locomotives are what the Whyte Notation of engines calls the American. The wheel configuration is 4 – 4 – 0.

The railroad on which they are working was not always the Grand Trunk Railway. It started out as the Intercolonial Railway in 1872 (the first run was in November of this year). Its purpose was to connect Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. Although the plans for the railway existed since the 1830s, it was not until the confederation of Canada in 1867 that it actually began in earnest. Sandford Fleming issued his report on the best intercolonial rail routes. He proposed three lines, but argued for what he called the Chaleur Bay route. He argued that it would be the most economically viable. It would join the manufacturing centres of Montréal, Kingston and Toronto to maritime towns and ports, pass through New Brunswick lumber and fishing towns, and Nova Scotia coal mining and shipbuilding communities. In July of 1876, the railway was declared to be completed. This completed the line from Québec, through the rail hub at Moncton, to the Bay of Fundy and then through Truro to Halifax. The 1,100 km line was a technical marvel that used the latest technology and construction methods to keep the rail lines straight and level and with nearly all bridges made not of wood, as was the custom of the day, but the far safer and more durable iron. In 1919, the Intercolonial Railway was included in the amalgamation that developed into the Canadian National Railways Company. The station, which is not pictured on this post card; it is behind the photographer, is a two-storey, stone railway station building located on the east (town) side of CN railway tracks that historically ran along the east bank of the St. Lawrence River. The Lévis Railway Station (Intercolonial) was commemorated in 1976 as the effective terminus of the Intercolonial Railway from Halifax. The heritage value of this site resides in its association with the historic Intercolonial Railway illustrated by its physical survival from the nineteenth century. The Intercolonial Railway, originally built between Halifax and Rivière-du-Loup (1867), extended its main line to end at Lévis in 1879 by the purchase of the Charny/Rivière-du-Loup line constructed by the Grand Trunk Railway between 1854 and 1860. In 1884 the Intercolonial Railway extensively remodelled the Lauzon town hall/market (1864) in Lévis to serve as its station. In the years that followed, the Grand Trunk Railway and the Québec Central Railway also used terminal facilities in the building. Key elements that contribute to the heritage character of the site include: the rectangular massing of the two-storey building under a hipped roof with hipped roof dormers on either side; regularly spaced, segmentally arched windows; the station’s simple classical details; the few details of the original town hall/market building still visible on the ground floor (footprint, openings and their alignment), craftsmanship and materials of the original stone exterior walls; the siting, immediately beside the former tracks and set back from the public road by an open space; the date stone ''1864", originally positioned on the façade, mounted in a commemorative monument.

The post card was copyrighted in 1999 by Kindred Canada. I went onto the internet to see what I could find about Kindred Canada today. What I found was either Kindred Sinkware, which I figured was not the correct website, or Kindred Canada, which was announcing a deal about distributing canabis. Neither of these two fit the parameters I was looking for. Kindred Canada, evidently, WAS a company in Brooks, Alberta back then; it no longer exists. The publisher of the post card must have wrapped up business. However, on the bright side, the back of the post card does tell us that the photographer was Alexander Henderson and that the photo was provided to the printer by the National Archives of Canada.