“The Dawson Route continued to wither during the ensuing years as work on the Canadian Pacific Railway progressed. This railway was built in a peculiar way. Some of the segments on the western plains were completed in short order because of the flatness of the terrain. The portion between Lake Superior and the Red River presented formidable obstacles. Here were rock formations that had to be blasted with nitroglycerine, as well as swamps and morasses that presented varying features during the four seasons of the year. Some stretches were built on what was thought to be solid ground in winter. After the spring thaw these portions occasionally swallowed up a locomotive or two.”

Ed and Alice Laing, Pioneers of Clear Springs, 2001

Source: Laing, E. & Laing, A. (2001). Pioneers of Clear Springs: The land of springs, coulees and rich loamy soil, Clear Spring beginnings with memory connections 1869. Part 1, Chapter 1, The Famous Dawson Trail (P.3). Retrieved June 9, 2020 from http://hdl.handle.net/10719/3101800

The trains were mixed, passenger as well as freight. Source: Heather, D. (1968). Prairie Grove 1872-1968 (P.273). Manitoba Local Histories. UM Archives. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10719/3101128

    “Lumbering in eastern Manitoba began with the letting of the contracts to build the first transcontinental railway that became the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). Since the timber resources of the Lake of the Woods area were being harvested by the 1880s, the activity spread into the region that became eastern Manitoba, but at that time this region was under dispute between Manitoba and Ontario. The building of the Manitoba and South Eastern Railway between St. Boniface and Sprague (later part of Canadian National Railway system) between 1889-1898 created a good transportation route for forest products from both Kenora and eastern Manitoba. The railway, derisively called the “Muskeg Special”, made a profit hauling predominately cordwood cargo. Since railways required timbers for ties and trestles, the construction of these two railway lines stimulated the production of lumber products in the region.

    "A third railway in the region, the Greater Winnipeg Water District Railway, built in 1914 to service the route of the Winnipeg Aqueduct, became the major carrier of cordwood in the post-World War I period. Subsistence farmers in the region earned extra income by cutting the stands of smaller trees. Cordwood camps in the area produced from 7000-10,000 cords annually, all shipped to the railway’s yard in St.Boniface. In one nine-month period in 1920, the GWWD shipped 1234 cars of cordwood, 21 cars of boxwood, 67 cars of pulpwood, 47 cars of posts, 42 cars of poles, 14 cars of piles, and 49 cars of tie logs, for a total of 1274 carloads. By 1940, this area had been predominantly stripped of sizeable trees. After 1950 the reliance of Winnipeg homeowners on non-wood fuels brought a decline in the market for cordwood. Since then, the only market for the small trees of the eastern region of Manitoba has been the pulp and paper mill at Pine Falls.”

Karen Nicholson, Historic Resources Branch,
Province of Manitoba, 2000

Source: Nicholson, K. (2000, Feb). Economic History Theme Study: The Lumber Industry in Manitoba (Eastern Manitoba, P.32). Historic Resources Branch, Manitoba Culture, Heritage, Tourism and Sport. Retrieved June 26, 2020 from https://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/hrb/internal_reports/pdfs/Lumber_Industry_Mb_Nicholson.pdf

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