May 30, 2003 Canadian First Coast to Coast Car Trip

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned how I appreciated feedback from readers of this column. Lewis Seale, who told me about the general store his grandfather owned and was reported here a couple of weeks ago, also told me a fascinating story about the first coast to coast car trip which went through our area in 1912. He sent me his notes and I got the book that told the story in detail - the All-Red Route: From Halifax to Victoria by John Nicol (1999). Nicol took the same route in 1997 in an antique 1912 Reo owned and driven by Lorne Findlay from British Columbia.

Ninety years ago last August Thomas Wilby an English author, and Jack Haney his driver/mechanic left Halifax for Victoria in a 1912 Reo Special touring car. The purpose of the trip was to give Wilby a book to publish and to publicize the Reo motor car. There were few autos in those days and no paved roads. As a matter of fact there were no drivable roads from North Bay to Sudbury and from Sault Ste. Marie to Port Arthur. They made it to Victoria in 53 days where others had failed. Wilby wrote his book in 1913 and it is long out of print.

A car traveling through our area about the same time as Wilby and Haney went through

The roads were not the only problem. Wilby was a snob who wanted to be called "Sir", with Haney his "chauffer". Haney saw himself as Wilby's equal and certainly when it came to solving mechanical and other problems he was a wizard hand picked by the Reo Co. When Wilby wrote his book in 1913 it was all Wilby with put downs of dozens of the people and places he saw. He did not mention the Reo Company or Haney, without whom the trip would have failed many times. In one photo in Wilby's book it appears that Haney was air brushed out of the photo or at least asked to leave when it was being taken.

An ad for a Reo Touring Car

The Canadian Reo was built in St. Catherines by Ransom E. Olds who built and had the Oldsmobile named after him and the Reo name came from his initials. The Reo used on the trip was a dark green five seater with wooden-spoke wheels, a convertible mohair top, and no side windows. The route was called the all red route because maps in those days had Commonwealth countries in red. The men called themselves the Pathfinders, an appropriate name for men on the first trip across Canada.

Their trip from Toronto to North Bay may be of interest to readers of Community Voices. They made good time until they came to Scotia Junction (now Scotia) where J.R. Booth's railway crossed the Grand Trunk line. They ran into a steep sand hill on September 9 and had to be pulled out by a local farmer. The drive shaft was twisted and had to be replaced. Wilby's stories provide humour and insight into life there. Haney ordered a new drive shaft and started to work on a method to haul the car out when a block and tackle would not do it. The drive shaft came the next day and Haney was watched by 8 of the farmers' children while he installed it. Shortly after they left they had a flat tire, but soon the "real fun" began. Wilby wrote about a "sailors' knot of roads", jarring corduroy and hills. They got stuck on a sand hill again, had to be pulled out and bent the drive shaft again. They proceeded in low gear to a bridge, which had a huge hole in it. They got some planks from a nearby farm house and repaired the bridge.

When they got to Trout Creek, Haney's diary noted that he had fried eggs and fried potatoes. Wilby wrote at length about the hotel where someone stole his pen and where a loquacious parrot presided over his writing table and a commercial traveller used fly paper to hold down his paper from "furtive gusts of wind". Wilby was surprised by all of the prints of British Royalty on the walls of the hotel, and wondered why Sir Wilfred Laurier was included. Wilby walked to the post office and down the wooden sidewalks beside the white picket fences and "gardens of sunflowers and morning glories". A crowd surrounded the car as they left. In short order they were in a ditch again and had to be towed. 

The Wilby book does not mention Powassan or Callander. When they got to North Bay they found the road to Subury was impassable so they put the car on the train.

Lewis Seale, who put me onto this story, commented in his notes that the first car in Powassan was a Ford owned by the proprietor of the Queens Hotel, A.W. Tingley and that the car was purchased in September 1912, the same month as our Pathfinders went through. Another reference indicates that "a few automobiles passed through" (on Aug 22, 1908). A family history noted that "while in Powassan (in 1910) we saw 2 automobiles go north through the town…. and nearly every person in town must have been out looking at the cars throwing mud as they traveled north".

Photo of 1912 Reo on its 1997 stop at the gate in North Bay - Peter Findlay photo