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Blog postIllustration c. Jon Klassen from THE NESTI’ve been writing down my dreams (and nightmares) for years. Like morning mist, they burn off quickly, so it’s best to write them down first thing on waking. I’ve got a pretty big collection now. They always make good reading, sort of like hearing stories other people might tell about you, with the facts all mixed up, or altogether invented; sometimes with malicious intent.
There is definitely a Top Ten playlist to my dreams. Many share commo -
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Blog postComing Soon...
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Blog postCredit: Ian CryslerI'd written a book about a train and I wanted a picture of myself with one. Fortunately for me, photographer extraordinaire Ian Crysler was perfect for the job.
(Ian himself, I've learned, has a fascinating history with trains -- and a much more exciting one than me! When he was a foolish youth, he and his friend would hop westbound trains and ride through the Rockies, gazing at the stars.)
On a chilly November morning we went down to the Toron -
Blog postOf all the spaces aboard a train, the caboose is one of my favourite. It's not as luxurious as first class, exciting as a saloon, or thrilling as the locomotive, but it has the cozy charm of a self-contained little world.
Traditionally the caboose is occupied by the guard and a brakeman, who spend the entire journey there. They are responsible for braking the train when needed, and for ensuring the train's safety as it enters and leaves a station. There is a special cupola at the re -
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Blog postBehind the miles of its freight and boxcars, The Boundless pulls eighty cars belonging to the world famous Zirkus Dante. One of the first circuses to take to the rails, it has eclipsed PT Barnum as the greatest show on earth.
The ringmaster is Mr. Dorian, a Metis with a vague past, who oversees an unrivalled collection of performers, acrobats, wonders (he abhors the word "freaks"), automatons, and wildlife. He is always on the lookout for new talent and marvels to add -
Blog postIt was Van Horne's dying wish that his body be carried within a special funeral car attached to The Boundless. Crossing and re-crossing the continent on the rails he helped lay. Forever.
The funeral carriage is impregnable, welded together from plates of battleship steel, no windows, no doors. Inside is a mausoleum which contains the sarcophagus of Cornelius Van Horne -- and, rumour has it, other things of great value. When at rest in a station, a guard stands watch over the -
Blog postThe General Manager of the CPR, Cornelius Van Horne’s job was to make sure the railway got built, pushing it west to meet up with the tracks being built into the mountains from Vancouver. Van Horne's energy and drive were legendary. He joined survey teams and hefted a sixty pound pack through the wilds of the Rockies. No detail of the railway was too small for him to overlook. He had many and varied interests and hobbies, a restlessly curious mind; he slept very little. Alas, he
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Blog postOwney used to be the mascot for the United States Railway Mail Service. He travelled aboard the mail cars, through 48 states --
Before joining The Boundless.
While many view him simply as an adorable mascot, others know that Owney has an uncanny for sorting and bagging mail.
And there is a great deal of mail aboard The Boundless, being sorted day and night by a small army of postal workers. Even as the train is in motion, new bags -
Blog postIt is the most dangerous job on the railroad.
A brakeman's job is to apply the brakes to slow the train. Sometimes this is done from the safety of a caboose or guard car. Other times the brakemen must cross on top of a moving train, to turn the brake wheels of individual freight and boxcars.
Every day during the 1880's, somewhere on the continent, at least one brakeman is killed on the job. It is common for brakemen to be missing fingers, hands, arms, or -
Blog postSandford Fleming is an engineer and a surveyor for the CPR, but he’s probably best known as the inventor of Standard Time. Now that trains were crossing great expanses at great speeds, it became necessary to develop time zones. Before then, time was pretty much up for grabs, decided by every town or region as they saw fit. Fleming divided the entire world up into 24 zones. What’s less well known about him is that he invented something called Cosmic Time, which is the same all ov
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Blog postSam Steele, the first Mountie (Actually he was the third to be sworn in, but no one knows about the first two.) An officer of the newly formed Northwest Mounted Police, he is asked to keep law and order on the maiden voyage of The Boundless, With so many people aboard, from all walks of life, this is no small feat. But Steele is more than up to the task. He's a mountain of a man, and conveys unassailable authority. Steele may be the closest thing we have to a Canadi
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Blog postSecond Class aboard a train like The Boundless is also very comfortable. The passengers are accommodated aboard Pullman cars that convert to upper and lower berths at night time.
Shooting at passing wildlife through open windows was a very popular pastime in the early days of train travel.
The Boundless made this all the easier by having a repurposed flat bed car for gentlemen and ladies to try their aim at the magnificent, though fast dwindling, herd -
Blog postIf, like Will Everett, you were lucky enough to be a first class passenger aboard The Boundless, you could expect unparalleled luxury.
Will boards a double decker palace car...
...where he and his father have a comfortable parlour on the ground floor, and then upstairs... ... each has his own -
Blog postThere is no satisfactory photograph of a sasquatch. There are tricky animals to track down.
Certainly the sasquatch in The Boundless look nothing like this burly fellow to the left. They are much, much scarier. But they are certainly a fact in my world -- as much a part of the mountain fauna as a bear or cougar.
There are other names for this creature, namely Big Foot, or -- and maybe Yeti, his Himalayan cousin. The name Sasquatch itself is possible -
Blog postIn the May 5th edition of Macleans Magazine, Brian Bethune wrote a piece on The Boundless!
"Adventure, history -- even if Cornelius Van Horne never did shoot at an engineer-hunting sasquatch -- and moral nuance. The Boundless deserves its name." -
Blog postAvalanches were a constant hazard in the mountains when they were building the CPR -- one of the many hardships the workers had to endure.
When Will drives the Last Spike, pistols are fired jubilantly in the air; cheers ring out; and the company locomotive blasts its whistle.
It's avalanche season, and the noise is enough to trigger one.
A lot happens during that avalanche.
Someone tries to steal the golden spike, Cornelius Van Horne is swept o -
Blog postIt was traditional for 19th century railroads to forge a ceremonial last spike out of gold. They were never left in the ground of course. It was merely for the photo op. After the ceremony it was hastily replaced with an ordinary spike.
But in 1885, up in Craigellachie, the last spike was not made of gold. Cornelius Van Horne grandly said that ordinary iron spikes had been good enough to make the railroad from coast to coast -- and an iron spike was good enough to finish it. Whi -
Blog postThis is Will Everett. He's come up to Craigellachie to meet his father who’s been working on the railway for the better part of three years. (Will actually hooked a ride up into the mountains with Van Horne and the other CPR dignitaries in their private train.) And here's a secret about the Last Spike. It isn't Donald Smith who drives it. It’s Will. You won't find it in any official photos. But after Smith bungles the first at
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Blog postIf you’re Canadian you’ve probably seen this photo. It's 1885 up in Craigellachie, BC. It’s not even a real town. (It’s near Revelstoke.) This is where the tracks coming from the East met the tracks coming from the West, up in the mountains. You can see the workers in the foreground. The fellow driving the spike is Donald Smith, the President of the CPR. (He actually bent the first spike, and had to do it again. He had a desk job.) Behind him to th
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Blog postIt's huge.
It has to be.
Embarking on its maiden voyage across the continent, The Boundless pulls over 900 cars and more than 6000 people, on a train seven miles long.
It’s a rolling city.
It carries tycoons and newly arrived immigrants, famous inventors and murderous charlatans. It contains opulent lounges and staterooms, a swimming pool, a cinema, a raucous saloon and a shooting range.
It pulls hundreds of freight car -
Blog postCredit: Ian Crysler Photography Where I’ll be this spring, to talk about, and read from, THE BOUNDLESS!
APRIL 2014
Toronto ON
April 26th
Chapters Brampton, 2:00PM
PHILADELPHIA, PA
April 28, 2014, 4:30 PMChildren's Book World
WASHINGTON DC
April 29, 2014, 10:30 AM Politics and Prose
St. Louis, MO
April 30th, 6:30PM St. Charles City-County Library - Spe -
Blog postOppel, Kenneth. The Boundless. 336p. S & S. Apr. 2014. Tr $15.99. ISBN 9781442472884; ebk. $10.99. ISBN 9781442472907. LC 2013009879. Gr 5-8 –All aboard for an exciting tale of steam-powered automatons, a bloodthirsty sasquatch, colorful circuses, and magical paintings. Aspiring artist Will Everett knows he’s not cut out to follow in the footsteps of his railroad manager father, but his pampered life leaves little opportunity for adventure. Then he boards The Boundless, the wor
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