Thousand Islands to Oshawa, Ontario Great American Railroad Journeys

I have crossed the Atlantic to ride the railroads of North America

with my faithful Appletons' guide.

Published in the late 19th century, it will lead me to all that is

magnificent... ..charming...

..confusing, invigorating...

..and awesome

..in the United States and Canada.

As I journey through this vast continent,

I'll encounter revolutionaries.

And feminists, pilgrims, and witches.

And ride some of the oldest and most breathtaking railroads in the world.

I'm exploring Canada.

Using an Appletons' guide published some 30 years

after the Dominion of Canada was created.

My rail journey in Eastern Canada

has brought me into English-speaking Ontario.

On this stage, I'll thrill at islands more numerous than generally thought,

find out how Canadian officers are taught,

view a bastion against US invasion - or "fort",

hear of high-wired tricks with danger fraught

and of motor cars by royalty sought.

This has been an international North American adventure.

I began in the former British colonies of New England,

now a part of the United States.

Before crossing into Canada.

Having explored Francophone Quebec,

I stopped off in the national capital.

From now on, my route will run parallel to the United States border

as I approach my final destination, Toronto.

On this leg, I will come up 180 miles,

travelling alongside the St Lawrence River

and the shores of Lake Ontario,

as far as Oshawa.

Along the way, all discover the magic of the 1000 Islands...

Ahead of me now, a tiny island with an enormous house

and the St Lawrence sweeps by on either side.

..learn to tread in the footsteps of a famous Canadian showman...

Extend your arms, and breathe.

Good.

..and immerse myself in Canada's military history.

I will unleash fire and fury like the world has never seen.

Fire!

I'm following the route of the Grand Trunk Railway,

which linked to the 19th-century commercial capital of Montreal

with up-and-coming Toronto.

-Bonjour, Madame.

-Bonjour, vous allez bien?

Tres bien, merci. Comment vous appellez-vous?

Je m'appelle Lauren.

Lauren. Have you got some lovely breakfast for me?

Yes, I got a nice south-west omelette with potato, chorizo,

and fresh asparagus.

Or a nice fresh fruit casserole with almond cereals and Greek yoghurt.

What a fantastic choice.

-The omelette, with the asparagus, please.

-Yes.

That looks very nice.

-Voila.

-Merci.

Bon appetie, monsieur.

Would you like a cup of tea?

A cup of green tea, please.

A cup of green tea, marvellous.

My first stop will be Brockville,

described in my Appletons' as "the 1000 Islands city".

"The 1000 Islands are really many more than a thousand in number.

"Some are precipitous,

"others barely lift their heads above the lily pads that encircle them.

"Some are naked, as if their granite frames had just come from the provincial fires.

"Others are topped with pine and fir,

"or softly rounded with the foliage of vines."

My Appletons' was written by the poet Sir Charles Roberts,

and I hope to be equally inspired.

Au revoir! It was nice having you.

-Enjoy your day.

-Bye-bye.

Bye.

Brockville is named after General Isaac Brock,

hero of the war of 1812.

In that conflict, British forces successfully repelled

the United States' invasions of Canada.

Today, the boundary between the two now-friendly nations runs down the

middle of the St Lawrence,

punctuated by the picturesque 1000 Islands.

How do you do?

I'm taking a cue from my Appletons',

which recommends a river trip here

as "one of the most attractive on the continent."

Ahead of me now, a tiny island with an enormous house

and a boat which is perfectly in proportion.

The house fills the island

and the St Lawrence sweeps by on either side.

-Hello, Susie.

-Hi, Michael.

Susie Smith has written a history of these islands.

What a beautiful place you live in.

Well, thank you.

We think we're lucky.

I see the islands are settled, at least in part.

When were they settled?

Up until the American Civil War in the 1860s,

there was very little leisure time,

but it was after that, when all the manufacturing started,

that the wealthy manufacturers could take time off.

And so they would come up to the 1000 Islands,

and the train stopped right in Gananoque,

so you could get on the train in Montreal,

or you get on the train in Toronto and end up here.

And that was the perfect place to come.

As well as building holiday homes,

those 19th-century tourists established

an unusual vacation ritual.

What's the ceremony we're going to today?

It's called Half Moon Bay.

And it's Sunday vesper services.

It was started in 1887,

they would all gather together and, in their canoes,

in their St Lawrence skiffs,

and they'd sing hymns and somebody would say some prayers.

And the man that owned the property

bequeathed 20 feet all around that bay

to the town of Gananoque,

providing therapy church services there in perpetuity.

My Appletons' says of the 1000 Islands,

"Hither and thither among them dart the trim craft of the canoeists.

"For it is here that they most do congregate."

But this is not the kind of congregation that you might expect.

WOMAN SINGING

Welcome to this special service at Half Moon Bay.

APPLAUSE

Lord God, we ask your blessing on this our sanctuary.

Filled by your light, blessed by your breath, created by your hand.

Bless the members of your communities gathered in this place.

In the name of our saviour Jesus Christ,

amen.

The New Testament talks about the Disciples, who were fishermen,

sheltering from the storms

and here, the tranquility of the 1000 Islands

in the St Lawrence River,

these people have brought their boats to

the secure haven of Half Moon Bay.

We'll sing together the Half Moon Bay hymn.

THEY ALL SING

Peace be with you.

-Peace be with you.

-Peace be with you.

-Peace be with you.

-Peace.

-Peace.

It seems that some of the earliest and most recent Christian disciples

were people in boats.

I'm now rejoining the route of the Grand Trunk Railway.

Built from the 1850s, by 1860, the 800-mile line linked Portland,

Maine on the East Coast of the United States,

with Sarnia in Ontario,

from where trains could continue over the border into Michigan.

The Grand Trunk was a symbol of trans-North American trade

and cooperation.

But I'm leaving the train at Kingston, Ontario

to learn about a low point in US-Canadian relations

back in the days of British rule.

I'm meeting guide and re-enactor Mark Bennett.

Hello, sir, welcome to Fort Henry.

Michael Portillo. 1832?

Well, that is Fort Henry number two, sir.

The first fort was built during the war of 1812,

with hostilities between the United States of America and Great Britain.

This is the point where the St Lawrence River meets Lake Ontario.

The Navy protected the water, Fort Henry protected the land.

In 1812,

Britain was at war with Napoleonic France and was aggressively blocking

United States trade with the enemy.

In a bid to force a change of policy,

the US launched an unsuccessful invasion of British North America.

Fort Henry itself escaped attack.

But Canada remained uneasy about its southern neighbour.

By 1832, the British have now completed the Rideau Canal,

so they wanted a bigger and better Fort Henry to protect the dual

waterways meeting here.

And so Fort Henry number two was constructed.

Different forts at different times, but always the same enemy.

That is correct, sir.

MILITARY DRUMS

May we proceed and inspect your men?

Let's head this way.

Present arms!

Since the 1930s, Fort Henry has been a living museum, where visitors

can get an authentic taste of 19th century military life.

Time to man the guns!

But not everyone gets this close to the action.

On the double!

Move!

I will unleash fire and fury like the world has never seen.

Cannon ready!

Fire!

Fort Henry may be a tourist attraction today,

but Kingston continues to play an important role

in Canadian military affairs.

"The Royal Military College," says Appletons',

"is the West Point of Canada,

"where the cadets get a training the efficiency of which

"is well recognised in sister colonies and in the mother country."

I have reason to believe that the quality of the education is still

extraordinarily high.

Ronald Haycock is a professor of military history

of the Royal Military College.

Ron, tell me about the foundation of the military college.

Well, the College was founded in 1876

largely because the British forces had withdrawn from North America

and we had to take care of our own defence after Confederation.

Who provided the training staff in the early years?

It was nearly all British.

Largely hired because of their expertise.

Canada had no professional capability

and, as a result, there was a reliance on the British.

At Confederation in 1867,

Canada won significant independence and Britain happily relinquished

the burden of defending the border with the United States.

Of course, Canada remained loyal to the Empire.

The Canadians have made an enormous contribution to the wars of the

British Empire. Remind me of those, please.

We had 7,000 troops the Anglo-Boer War.

Of course, 750,000 troops raised in the First World War.

And in the Second World War goes without saying.

So it's a long history.

What were Canadian casualties during the First World War?

The casualties were immense.

There was 66,000 dead, and more than twice that many as casualties.

An extraordinary sacrifice.

It is an extraordinary sacrifice.

Among those who served were 982 graduates

of the Royal Military College -

by then a fully Canadian institution.

From the outset, the College has aimed to infuse officer cadets

with leadership skills.

Your three services are trained here together?

That's correct.

It works superbly well because they work together

in all three services. When they go out on active duty,

they know each other.

They speak the same language.

They are developed in the same ethos.

And from our point of view, that's a good thing.

50 years ago, Canada adopted a new national flag,

inspired by the banner of the college.

Today's cadets will go on to serve proudly

under the country's Maple Leaf.

A new day. Skirting the northern shores of Lake Ontario,

my guidebook is continuing to lead me west.

Good morning.

-Hi.

-How are you doing?

Fine, here we go.

-OK.

-I'm headed for Port Hope.

Port Hope? Well, we don't stop at Port Hope.

Well, where do I get off?

You get off at Cobourg.

Cobourg, that'll do me.

OK, awesome.

And...there we go.

-Thank you. Have a great day.

-Thank you very much.

-You're welcome.

From Cobourg, I'm heading down the road to Port Hope,

described in my Appletons' as "picturesquely situated in a deep ravine."

These are the beautiful clear waters of the Ganaraska River.

And they say that in one year, more salmon passed up this river

than all the rivers of Europe combined.

I don't know whether I believe that.

But I just love these fishy statistics.

Around the time of my guidebook,

these waters inspired equally implausible feats

from a local character

whose legend is kept alive here, whiskers and all.

Sir, do I have the honour of addressing the Great Farini?

Indeed, I am the Great Farini.

I was born and raised in Port Hope.

Studied to be a doctor, but always wanted to be a showman.

So I went to my first circus in Port Hope,

when I was a boy, and saw the high wire act and fell in love.

I went home and practised and practised and practised

until, in 1859, I traversed a high wire myself

across the Ganaraska River.

AKA William Leonard Hunt, the Great Farini

went on to win international fame when he crossed above Niagara Falls,

even doing his laundry whilst on on the high wire.

Farini was a product of the golden age of the travelling circus.

These days, the nation that has given birth to Cirque de Soleil

produces some of the world's most-skilled circus performers.

In homage to Farini,

Jill Arsenault is introducing me to the modern sport of slacklining.

How different is this equipment that you use from what the Great Farini

-would have utilised?

-A tight rope, it's completely tensioned,

whereas the slackline is very loose,

there's a lot of movement to it.

So the way that use your body is somewhat different

to the way that you would walk a tightrope.

What do you use your skill for?

So a lot of slacklining for me is actually just for the love of it

and the kind of expression that can come from it.

So when you're on the line, it's very focused

and you're really in the moment when you're doing it.

It's very fluid. It's quite wonderful.

Do you think an old man like me could pick up a few tricks?

Absolutely.

-How do we start, then?

-OK, so I'm going to take your hand.

You're going to balance with my hand.

Your right foot is going to start to step on to the line.

You're looking forward towards the tree.

Yep.

Extend your arms and breathe.

Good.

Push in your feet. Awesome.

Keep looking forward and breathe.

Keep breathing.

Yeah, lots of pressure.

Amazing.

Back on terra firma, I'm returning to the tracks.

The last stop on this leg of my journey is half an hour away.

I'll be leaving this train at Oshawa,

which Appletons' tells me means "carrying place"

because it was the beginning of the Portage,

where they had to haul the boats overland,

between the Ontario and Scugog Lakes.

Also a busy manufacturing town.

Indeed, so many factories were developed here

during the Industrial Revolution that it earned the soubriquet

"The Manchester of Canada",

although I prefer the nickname Motor City.

The spread of railways brought new prosperity

to the Lakeland settlements of 19th-century Canada,

linking communities and changing people's lives and habits.

At the start of the 20th century,

private conveyances brought wealth to Oshawa,

thanks to the vision of one entrepreneurial family.

I'm visiting the McLaughlin estate to meet curator Samantha George.

-Hello.

-I'm Michael.

-Welcome to Parkwood.

-Lovely house.

Let's start in the garden.

Thank you very much.

Samantha, Parkwood is a superb house.

How did the McLaughlin family make their money?

Originally, the family fortune came from carriages and sleighs.

-Then the automobile.

-How big was this carriage works in its day?

The McLaughlin carriage works was huge.

It's started off as a general hobby,

and, within a few years, became the biggest carriage works

in the British Empire.

Founded in 1869, the carriage works moved to Oshawa in 1876

for easy access to the railway.

How did they make the transition from carriages, for horses,

to motor cars?

The second generation saw the automobile in the United States,

came home, spoke to the patriarch of the family, Robert McLaughlin,

and said can we start putting the engine into one of our carriages?

Dad was a little bit hesitant, but he said go for it.

-What sort of engine?

-The first one was the Buick engine.

So, in 1908, off the assembly line ran the McLaughlin Buick.

In 1911, they had the same agreement with Chevrolet.

And by 1917, General Motors of Canada was born.

So this was the origin of GM Canada.

That's correct. This is General Motors House.

Thanks to the family's carriage-building expertise,

McLaughlin cars soon established a reputation for quality.

Their automobile empire brought great wealth, and in 1917,

they completed this suitably lavish family seat.

The dining room. A lovely, lovely room.

Silk damask walls, the portraits of the family,

all done by portrait painter to the Royal Family, Mr O. Salisbury.

The whole house actually has that kind of feel

of a British stately home, doesn't it?

Yes, it was right off a blueprint of a British estate.

They tried to create for themselves a legacy, so who do they turn to?

They looked at the Empire.

They looked at Britain. They created this.

In the 1930s, the company received the Royal seal of approval.

King George VI and his queen, Elizabeth,

used a custom built McLaughlin Buick on a Royal tour of Canada.

And other members of the family also displayed a taste

for Canadian luxury.

That is amazing.

What a stupendous car.

-What is it?

-It is a 1937 McLaughlin Buick.

Absolutely superb.

I love it.

And guess what? When King Edward VIII abdicated his throne,

and was driving away from Buckingham Palace,

he was in a McLaughlin Buick.

And would you mind if I drive away now?

Certainly.

Of course, the car has no modern facilities like power steering

or power braking or, indeed, air-conditioning,

but it is a magnificent machine.

The car that I've just driven is a blend of the finest engineering

from Canada and the United States.

But even though The Great Farini

could cross on a tightrope above Niagara Falls,

which spanned the border,

for much of the 19th century,

the governments of the two countries

viewed each other with mutual suspicion.

And war threatened to engulf even the lovely 1000 Islands.

Canada, therefore,

needed to develop a capable officer corps

and military forces to defend itself.

Thankfully, the cannon at Fort Henry,

whose loud report caused me to flinch, never roared in anger.

Next time, I'll enjoy the epitome of luxury...

We do indeed save one very, very special thing

for those very special VIP guests.

..share in the success of Canada's financial capital...

..one!

CHEERING

..and live life on the edge.

Whoa.

I'm leaning out of the tower and everything is just down there below.

Argh!

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