There were several issues that the city fathers had to confront. Of course the C.P.R. objected, that was to be expected. Some objected on the grounds that it was an American intrusion into the market that would divert trade from Canadian routes. Others had reservations concerning the ownership of the Great Northern. Jim Hill had been invol
ved in the original development of the C.P.R. and at one time had hoped that the eastern portion of the new line would pass beneath the great lakes through the U.S., facilitating easy links with his other holding and providing the basis for a North American rail empire. When the decision was made for an all-Canadian route he withdrew from the project. Some said his main motivation in establishing this North South link was to get back at the C.P.R. It is more likely that Hill simple wanted to expand his operations in a most logical fashion with another Canadian link. [4]

There was a necessary and habitual attempt at secrecy, mainly to forestall land speculation that would drive up the prices of required stations and related property, and also because of local opposition to the American ownership. The local promoters tried to maintain pretense at first, to a Canadian component to the corporation, but it turned out to be totally a Great Northern operation. After witnessing the orgy of land speculation and townsite swindles that preceded the C.P.R. on its pathway west, the railways had learned a lesson and regularly went to such lengths as to develop secret telegraph codes. Thus a communication from R.I. Farrington to Louis Hill on August 7, 1905 read: "Duchy Jame Alfred anything dwindle about reasoning for brusher outlive loquacious." Translated it meant, "Do you wish anything done about rail for Brandon line" [5]

Most Brandonites were all for the new line. And those along the proposed route could see the possibilities. For many farmers it would cut the distance they had to haul grain. Aside from the historical reason fro distrust of the CPR, there had been some widespread dissatisfaction with that railway, amid concern about inefficient grain handling and allegations of collusion with elevator companies to the detriment of producers. For all rural people along the proposed line it mean greatly increased options for convenient travel.

Once the deal was struck the line was started without delay, beginning in 1905, and decisions were made quickly regarding the route and placement of stations. Despite the best effort of the rival lines to stall the establishments of the necessary crossings at Wakopa, Boissevain and Minto, the line worked its way northward at an astonishing pace. Rights of way were purchased. Established communities of the Boissevain, Minto, and, of course Brandon would be on the route. New sites of Bannerman, Bunclody, Hayfield and Heaslip were surveyed, although not all developed into villages. A deal was struck with McCabe Elevators for grain handling facilities and Great Northern cash was provided up front to build the twelve facilities. Even the sites of Fairburn, Alcester, Griffin, Healip, McKelvie and Roseland would have elevators but even in those optimistic times villages were not anticipated.

While stations were located at most of the villages even stops that didn't evolve into real villages got waiting rooms complete with pot-bellied stoves. Stops like Beverly (originally called Webster) and Hebron, closely spaced between Bunclody and Hayfield, and known as "sidings", got loading platforms. Several sites had dwellings for section foremen and bunkhouses for crew. Water towers, a vital part of the infrastructure in the days of the steam locomotives, were closely spaced on this line with structures at Bannerman, Boissevain, Minto, the Souris River Crossing near Bunclody, Hayfield and Brandon. Each had a pumping manager in charge. Crucial to the whole operation was a 30 year contract to carry the mail. Post offices were established along the line or in several cases moved to be closer to the line. [6]  By 1906 the trains were running, bringing an immediate benefit to local farmers, improved mail delivery, easier access to both Brandon and the point in the US, and a much improved distribution of consumer good into the rural area.

According to Great Northern records, the line ended up costing $2547281.37. [7] That price was perhaps a little steeper than they had intended. The CPR competed for contractors, offering work on its own lines and thus boosting prices. The GN countered by offering local farmers work on the easier grades with contracts going out in 1906. A story in the Boissevain Record insisted that between three and four thousand men were employed in that year. It was the only common carrier railway line ever build in Manitoba with no public subsidy of land or money, in fact, it often paid inflated prices for land. [8] The extra cost was the first in a series of circumstances that limited the profitability of the line.

A Ride on the GN Line

Let's hop on board as the train departs from St. John's, North Dakota, just a few kilometers south on the Manitoba / US border where connections could be made to points south (Minneapolis) and points west on the Great Northern Line.

In charge is St. John local, Charlie Bryant, long time conductor, well-known to folks all along the line, a man who wouldn't hesitate to make an unscheduled stop or other accommodation for a good customer.

The line stretches across flat prairie, broken here and there by a slough ringed by low willows, a low bunch of aspens in the corner of a fenced pasture, and a farmyard with the beginnings of a shelterbelt. To the left (west) in the distance is the outline of Turtle Mountain, low and thickly wooded with oak and aspen. But straight ahead lies an uneventful horizon.

Before long we're at the border and four kilometers past that is the newly-founded village of Bannerman, a place that owes its existence solely to the railway.

Bannerman

Another added responsibility was controlling the flow of alcohol as different and changing liquor laws always seemed to keep make smuggling a worthwhile venture. Agents patrolled the border in the area. Then as now border security was an important responsibility.  Magistrate John Balfour, aided by town cop Sam Balfour kept the peace locally.

Each year the circus of the Royal Canadian Shows came by the Great Northern to entertain at Brandon summer fair. Customs agents went to Devil's Lake to start inspection of the many passenger cars and the inspection was completed at Bannerman.

A hotel with large dining room and bar appeared, but bar closed with prohibition and the building became to a dance hall. Other buildings included a feed and livery barn with sleigh and buggy for hire, lumber yard, pool room and barbershop, store and post office, blacksmith shop, harness and shoe repair shop. [10]

On to Desford and Fairburn...

Pulling out of Bannerman, we are just nicely getting up to speed when another fledgling village appears on the horizon. But we pass by it to the west. The village of Wakopa, the first in the southwest corner of Manitoba is, a well-known fixture on the rival CN line that we are about to cross. But not for long.

Wakopa had its beginnings as a stopping place on the Boundary Commission Trail, that well-rutted trail first etched by the expedition sent in the 1870's to survey and describe the border region from eastern Manitoba to the Rockies. The store established there by a Mr. Lariviere who served those hardy early settlers who arrived before the big rush of the 1880's and the site continued to be a landmark and supply depot until the arrival of the a spur line branching off of a more northern line at Greenway a kilometer to the north. The town moved to the line and continued, enhanced by the new rail service, but limited by competition from the Great Northern line passing it just a kilometer or so west. Even in boom times this region could only support so many towns! [11]

With Wakopa bypassed we soon pull in to in an even smaller place!

This village also sprang up overnight as it were, although an earlier post office and store were in place to the west and had to be relocated. But it lacks Bannerman's boom-town vibe, just a station an elevators and a few scattered buildings.

Rail lines are a vital service to any community. To the owners, they are a business like any other: they will survive if they are competitive. On the prairies, that means competing for grain delivery. To do so elevators or loading platforms have to be spaced closely enough to ensure that farmers will choose them over competitors. The Desford community began in the late 1870's along the Old Commission Trail about 12 kilometres south-southwest of Boissevain, and was, like Wakopa, one of the first trading centres in the area.

In those first days of settlement, 1878 and 79, settlers came by the Boundary Commission trail from Emerson. By 1880 the preferred route was by way of the Assiniboine River to Millford, then south to Langvale and via the Rowland Trail to the Turtle Mountain area. The first stores in the area were at Desford, Wakopa and Waubeesh. The first general store and post office in "Old Desford" was owned by E. Nichol and Son.

Fred Johnston, and early resident of Boissevain, before the town even developed, recalls the choice in 1884 between shopping at (Old) Desford and Rowland (16km NE). Another pioneer recalls Sunday Church service in the Jimmie Burgess home at "Old Desford". But as with so many of the first settlements, the location had to be reconsidered when the railways came. For Desford the change began in 1906. First the CN line was extended through Wakopa, Adelpha and Horton, just narrowly bypassing Desford, The that same year The Great Northern Railway bypassed to the east and a new town started to grow on that line about six kilometres away.

The store at Adelpha, owned by Mr. Crummer, was moved four miles to Desford. They used sixteen team of horses to drag it and the path was still visible in the 1970's. In no time a McCabe elevator was built. Next came the section house, a few residences, a station, and a bunkhouse . Qualified help was in short supply and the station master had to imported from the U.S. Both Anglican and United Churches followed, and other buildings included a large storehouse and garage, an oil station, and a blacksmith shop. The population exploded to near thirty and a community hall was deemed necessary. [12]

A cairn marks the location of Desford - all traces are gone.

A few kilometres out of Desford we come to Fairburn. These "sidings" as they were called were put in place to accommodate local farmers, and were never intended to become villages.

It may seem odd to the modern urban-dweller, that a place like Fairburn rate identification on a map, being no more than a lone elevator on the open prairie. One has to understand that in the early years of the settlement era (1878 to 1885) few towns as we know them existed. When settlers moved in, a neighbourhood would be identified in government records, and thus on maps, by its post office (usually established in the home of a settler) and it's name became the community's identity. For instance in a map by DeVille dated 1883 Fairburne (original spelling), Desford, Adelpha, Alcester, Wakopa and Hayfield are identified, while Boissevain, Killarney and Minto have yet to may an appearance. [13]

A quick stop and we're off to the bustling commercial centre of the region.

Boissevain

By 1906 Boissevain was already a well-established town on a busy C.P.R. east-west line. It origins date to 1885 when, in anticipation of the arrival of the tracks,  several settlers congregated on the site. One of those was George Morton, a well-established businessman with several ventures in the region,  who moved his general store building from the earlier settlement of Wabeesh (near present-day Whitewater) which was to be bypassed. By 1886, with the tracks in place, the little town inlcuded a grain-loading platform, a post office, two more general stores, a few boarding houses, two hotels, a blacksmith and a grain warehouse. Originally known as Cherry Creek the name Boissevain was chosen to honour A.A. Boissevain, a Dutch financier whose investment had helped finance the C.P.R. I guess one could say that really makes Boissevain a "railroad" town.  In a way Boissevain brought as much to the GN line as the line brought to the community.  It was the first link with the established Canadian routes, expanding the opportunities for each line and for the people of the area.

Until 2008 Boissevain had the distinction of being the home to the only surviving GN station, which saw decades of service as a Highways Department garage. There is some evidence that the station also featured a garage complete with track so that the engine could be brought in for service. Unfortunately, when no use for the building could be found, the costs of preservation dictated that the building be torn down, but the stayionmaster's house still exists as a concrete reminder of the Great Northern's presence.

 
A construction gang near Minto.

After a short stop the whistle blows and we're off again, on our way straight north to Minto, with a stop at Alcester, another siding and elevator that didn't become a town. Alcester had existed as a post office and as one of the original "districts" of the settlement era, and the improved communication offered by the rail line probably hastened its demise. The post office closed in 1907. It was just too close to Boissevain and Minto.

Minto

Although the surrounding area was well settled, Minto wasn't established until the Canadian Northern line in came through in 1898 and a village sprouted on the northeastern corner of Section 19-5-10. When a few years later this new line, with its links to points north and south, was indeed a shot in the arm. The local history is full of examples indicating how happy the residents were to get this additional service, allowing convenient day trips to Brandon the main trading centre of Western Manitoba.

When that first train came through in June of 1906, with daily mail freight and passenger service to Brandon, life changed. For that period of a few decades, the brief but important prairie railway age, there were four express trains daily, with the CN going east and west and the GN north and south.  Added to that was the economic spin-off from the two new elevators and coal shed built to serve the line. It was an amazing leap forward from the pioneer times when the horse and buggy was luxury travel and people thought nothing of walking fifty miles if it had to be done.

The GN line crossed the CN line at Minto, a tower overlooked the crossing. 

Main routes, before and after the days of the railway.

During this time the bridge we now call the Old Riverside Bridge was built, changing the road transportation patterns substantially. Until this bridge was built the main road from Brandon south followed the rail line south from Brandon, through Hayfield and Bunclody. In the 20's what we know as Highway#10 was developed and became the main route bypassing those villages. The age of the auto was upon us and as the railway had dictated which townsites survived in earlier times, the highway was now the key.

Heaslip from the south
 

Bunclody

Pulling out of the Heaslip Station the track bends slightly westward and passengers who look to the east will see the first real change in scenery.

The landscape of Southwestern Manitoba is dominated, perhaps defined, by the Souris Plains, a wide expanse of relatively flat country stretching from the base of the Turtle Mountains west and southwards towards the Souris River Valley. Early settlers speak of climbing out of that valley at Millford, near where Treesbank is today, and noting the Turtle Mountains to the distant south. That's how flat the plains are, it's a distance of nearly 100 kilometres and to call those turtle-shaped hills mountains was a bit of a stretch. Today a drive from Minto west to Elgin, essentially through the centre of the Souris Plains, gives one and understanding of the term "wide open spaces".

And then, as now, the traveler new to the area, and on a trek from Boissevain northwards to Brandon, whether on the rutted ox-cart path known as the Heaslip trail, or on the smoothly paved Highway 10, might be surprised when, out of nowhere, appears the valley of the Souris, a kilometer wide / 70 metre deep channel cut over ten thousand years ago as the last of the glacial lakes drained.

Scenic it may well be, but to the railroad builder it holds no romantic charms. It is an obstacle to be crossed. A challenge perhaps, a nuisance, definitely.

When building a railway over hills or through valleys it is often advisable to the travel a few extra kilometers to avoid a steep grade and the expensive construction costs associated with difficult terrain. Trains don't do well on hills, and keeping the grade or slope of the track as gentle as possible is a priority in construction. As far as the prairies go, the northern portion of the Souris River valley is a major challenge. The surveyors for the Great Northern had rejected a crossing straight south of Minto where the valley is both deep and wide, and had selected a site near the hamlet of Bunclody where the southern lip of the valley, although steep, brushed right up against the stream, while the gentle slope on the north side could be crossed with a modest embankment. To get there, the line bends westward at Heaslip, following the curve of the river and crossing a series of deep cuts where ravines enter the valley.

This was the major construction site of the whole project. Three work camps were quickly set up, one at the deep ravine 3 kilometres south of the crossing, one at the townsite on the south side of the river where the station house was built, and one on the north side of the river. Each camp had a steam shovel, (“of the largest size”) modern technology not available a mere 25 years earlier when the CPR crossed Manitoba. Dinky engines were used to haul and dump cars as the grade was built up. It was a major engineering project undertaken by, “one of the largest railway outfits in America.” [17]

The ravines south of the river were crossed by building temporary trestles and dumping fill to create a road-level earthen dam, complete with huge pipes designed to let the runoff through. The pipes soon broke and had to be replaced with concrete tunnels two metres square - still quite visible today,  although somewhat clogged with rubble. One resident told me about boyhood adventures that included a dare to go through the tunnel.

Crossing a ravine between Heaslip and Bunclody



The site in 2016

Bunclody Station

The bridge over the Souris was the biggest undertaking. The span was 132m. long and 26m. high. Timber for the trestles, including 30 metre long cedar pilings had to be hauled from the CN Rail stop at Carroll, about 8 kilometres away.

Taken from the hill, SE of the elevator.

Preparing the grade towards the crossing of the Souris near Bunclody.



Bridge construction

Today, standing on the old rail line where it abruptly ends atop a steep cliff at the river's edge, having followed it from that site through a pasture as it curved towards the former crossing, one can look northward across the river and see one of the few remaining obvious signs of the old line. Directly below you, in the centre of the river is a small gravel bar, once the base of the central bridge support, and across the river where the valley wall slopes gently away from the water's edge, is the high embankment built to carry the line gently across the wide valley.

This was not as uncommon an event as one might expect, there was another incident a year or so later when a boxcar got away from the Heaslip siding and rolled  on downhill to Bunclody.

Or perhaps you'd hear about the morning in 1914 when three horses wandered onto the right-of-way. They were frightened by the approach of the frieight train and ran ahead of it to the bridge; where they jumped off and met their deaths on the frozen river 26 metres below.

Here, as at other stops on the line, you would certainly hear the winter tales.

Snow was the winter enemy. Trains were stuck often in cuts sometimes for a considerable stay! The Bunclody History relates the story of a train stuck in the Hebron cut from November until March. That was in the first year of operation and it was a work train which had its own kitchen so the crew lived there for the winter. It was on the farm of a Mr. Roger, who obliged by hauling them water. Was this during construction perhaps, because no mentions is made anywhere of that sort of interruption in service?

Apparently four metre feet deep drifts in cuts caused stoppages of up to six weeks in the winter of 1915-16.  Each winter had its share of such events. In February of 1923 a blizzard blocked the line from Minto to Brandon for three weeks. Clearing the snow was a big job, without the advantage of today's high-powered graders and bulldozers.

The worst spot was the Wilson Cut two kilometres north of Heaslip, the site of an adventure in March of 1923. A train with two engines and a snowplow was stuck and snow drifted in half-way up the windows. In such cases, neighboring farmers were often called upon to help out and the presumably patient passengers relied on the kindness of strangers so-to-speak. Supplies were brought from the Heaslip store and lunch was served.

Sometimes plans change. On paper it looked like Hayfield was the next logical station with the potential to become a village. Sidings and/or loading platforms would be sufficient for the two stops between Bunclody and that newly established site.

Those two stops would be Beverly and Hebron.

Hebron had been an identifiable community for some time, with the school as the focal point. Between the Beverly and Hebron sidings the line was crossed by a busy east-west CP line connecting Winnipeg and Regina by a route parallel with the main line. These crossing were referred to as "diamonds" and required staffing to set the switches. Slightly west of the diamond at Newstead, a rival company established an elevator and before long the McCabe Co. and their Great Northern allies determined that they too needed and elevator at the crossing to compete. This meant having an unprecedented four elevators on a mere 12 kilometre stretch. It also meant that Hayfield which had a full station as opposed to a small shelter, would be downgraded. Its station was moved to the Diamond, named Griffin.  Later it was moved again and served the remainder of its days as a community hall in the Riverside district a few kilomtres to the south west. Hayfield received the shelter that had been at Hebron.

Hebron School

From Bunclody the line angles a bit west to skirt the western rim of the Brandon Hills, and at the western foot of those hills is the hamlet of Hayfield.

 

Downtown Hayfield

From there the rails continued straight north through McKelvie and Roseland before angling eastward into Brandon.

An on to Brandon....

From Hayfield the route takes us through a siding at McKelvie and the tiny village of Roseland then in to Brandon.

Brandoin railway historian, Lawrence Stuckey, remembered transfers between the CN and the Great Northern on a track set up on what is now 25th street. He also remembered going down the main line, which entered Brandon from the west running just south of Pacific Avenue.   The colourful refrigerator cars carrying fruit from various American companies especially caught his eye. No evidence remains of the wye about 5 kilometres west of the station where passenger trains turned around to back into the station, nor of the "diamond crossing" over the CNR line a kilometer south of that and the tower overlooking it. There was a three-stall engine house and turntable for maintenance near 26th and Pacific, a station near 11th and Pacific, and a block-long freight shed a few blocks west of that. [20]

The Great Northern contributed substantially to Brandon’s economic makeup. A promotional publication entitled “Brandon in 1913” boasts that ”Brandon has direct connection with the great railway systems of the United States…” and goes on to mention that the railway has a charter to build on the The Pas and Hudson’s Bay.  [21]

Brandon Station, train ready to depart. They were backed in to the station area.

It wasn’t without at least some opposition, but that was mainly related to issues about the appropriation or re-location of some homes and buildings along the route as the rails were pushed into the city. [22]

But the ongoing battle between the C.P.R. and all forms of competition was not over. The C.P.R. responded with a new station and an expansion in Brandon that some though was partially intended to ensure “for all time the exclusion of any other railway lines along this throughfare such as the continuation of the Great Northern through the city.” [23]

The End of The Line

By late 20's it was apparent that big profits for the company would never materialize. The line had been built into an area that was already served by east-west lines. Unlike the original CPR lines, the owners had been prevented from making large start-up profits from the establishment of towns and the grants of land often associated with a new line. With the defeat of Laurier in 1911, the hope of a reciprocity agreement with the US, which would have increased north-south freight, was effectively over. The population had reached its peak and the car was establishing itself as the mode of choice for personal transportation.

This possibility of reciprocity had encouraged the expansion of the Great Northern and some speculated that it would lead to a large portion of the grain harvest being transported through the U.S. Needles to say, there were many Canadians opposed to reciprocity for that very reason. The Portage La Prairie Weekly noted that “The Great Northern Railway…has no lees than seventeen different lines operating between Canada and the country over the border…: and could see that much business would go that way.  [24] That was a pretty good argument against Reciprocity from a western point of view.

Another force at play was the growth of the cooperative initiative that became The Manitoba Pool Elevators.

"Part of the problem … was that farmers were prepared to support the Manitoba Pool, even at a financial cost to themselves." McCabe had monopoly on the GN line, thus there were no Pool Elevators along its route. At one time Pool was paying 53 per bushel while McCabe as much as 75.  By 1929 losses had mounted to $74000. In 1935 grain tonnage on the line was only 16.5 % of what it had been in 1913. [25]
At the same time passenger service fell off. Although it was never intended to be the primary source of income, it was helpful to the bottom line. In 1906 travel by auto was a slow and unreliable. But people really liked the freedom the car gave them, and better roads and cheaper, more reliable vehicles developed rapidly. By 1922 a "highway" existed from Brandon to Boissevain and on to the border. By 1927 rail passenger numbers began to decline.