Canada and NewfoundlandCarpenter, Frank G. (Frank George)
History
Canada and Newfoundland
Carpenter, Frank G. (Frank George)
Canada -- Description and travel; Newfoundland and Labrador -- Description and travel
The muskeg was one of the difficulties that had to be overcome in
laying out and building the city. Another and still greater difficulty
was blasting the hills. Every bit of the town is founded on bed rock,
and many places have had to be levelled with dynamite for the business
streets and foundations of buildings. The streets in the residential
section are paved with three-inch planks. They look like continuous
bridges, but they are substantial enough for heavy teams, motor trucks,
and automobiles. In some places the planks are spiked to trestle-work
from ten to fifteen feet high, and in others they lie on the rock. The
steep hills that extend back to the wooded mountains behind Prince
Rupert are so rough that to cut roads through them would bankrupt the
city many times over.
It was in company with a member of the board of trade and the civil
engineer who laid out Prince Rupert that I took an automobile ride
through the town. The plank roads are so narrow that turning-out places
have been built at the cross streets and curves, and the inclines are
so steep that we had all the sensations of a giant roller-coaster as we
dashed uphill and down. I expected a collision every time another car
passed. Now we shot around a curve where a slight skidding might have
hurled us into a ravine; and now climbed a hill where the trestle-work
trembled beneath us. We rode for some distance through “Lovers’ Lane,”
a part of the ninety acres of forest in the public park, and later
climbed the steep slope of Acropolis Hill.
On top of Acropolis Hill we inspected the city’s waterworks. The supply
is carried to a reservoir here from Lake Woodworth, five miles away.
The reservoir, which has been dug out of the rock, contains a million
gallons of water more than the regular needs of the city.
On another part of the hill are the municipal tennis courts and
baseball park. The tennis courts are made by laying a level plank floor
upon the uneven surface of the rocks, and erecting about it fences of
wire netting so high that the balls cannot possibly fly over and roll
down the steep slopes of the mountain. The ball park was blasted out
of the rock. It is so situated that the hills about it form a natural
grandstand, and consequently admission is free. The players are paid by
passing the hat.
We have a good view of Prince Rupert from Acropolis Hill. In front of
us is the harbour, sparkling in the sunlight and backed by mountainous
islands of green. Behind us are forest-clad hills, lost in the clouds,
and below is the city, connected with the mainland by a great bridge of
steel. The business section is made up of two- and three-story frame
buildings, painted in modest colours. Here and there the spire of a
church rises above the other roofs; and should you take your spyglass
you might pick out the signs of banks, stores, and real-estate offices.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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