3.3 Miles of Mythos and Grandeur The Canadian Pacific Railway as art in Glacier National Park, BC

There is a striking stretch of former railway in Canada that merits closer attention. It is no longer visible from a passing train, but much of it survives as a walking trail in British Columbia’s Glacier National Park (sharing a name, but not an identity, with the park in Montana). More than a century ago, several miles of this former Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR; now CPKC) main line were widely admired for both their scenic beauty and bold engineering. Although later bypassed by rerouting, these features endure because modern traffic now passes beneath the Selkirk Mountains via two long tunnels. In 2016 the Macdonald Tunnel was inducted into the North America Railway Hall of Fame.

This article, however, is concerned less with tunnelling than with art, beauty, and representation.

From the outset—completion came in 1885—CPR management recognised the western mountains as valuable assets. Vice-President (later President) Cornelius Van Horne famously observed: “If we can’t export the scenery, we’ll import the tourists.”

The company acted accordingly. In the mountains, art, landscape, and industry converged as the CPR actively sponsored artists and photographers to transform scenery into international spectacle—and profit.

...the CPR directly supported painters and photographers [...] ensuring that both railway and landscape were rendered in iconic form.

The idea was not entirely new. The opening of the American West had already been documented by accomplished artists whose work fuelled interest in both the artists themselves and the land they depicted. Van Horne went further. Whereas American railways largely relied on independent practitioners, the CPR directly supported painters and photographers, even providing darkroom facilities, ensuring that both railway and landscape were rendered in iconic form.

The policy was unprecedented in scale and generosity. Whether artists felt compelled to include the railway itself within their compositions—and whether its presence enhanced or compromised the landscape—remains a central question explored here.

It is worth noting that the German-American painter Albert Bierstadt worked in Canada’s Glacier Park in 1890, though none of his Canadian paintings remain in the country. Other early artists to enter the Canadian Rockies and Selkirks in the late 1880s—John Fraser, Lucius O’Brien, William Brymner, and Thomas Mower Martin—were influenced by European traditions and the American Sublime movement. Working primarily in watercolour, they produced romantic, picturesque views that conveyed the immensity of the landscape and helped popularise the West among travellers and settlers.

The sublime is fundamentally an emotional response to nature: an encounter with something vast, awe-inspiring, or even unsettling, that challenges human scale and perception. Artists evoking it employ composition, colour, and perspective to draw viewers into such experiences. Beyond aesthetics, the sublime was also used to comment on accelerating technological change and its societal impact.

The sublime is fundamentally an emotional response to nature...

Van Horne understood this. A capable sketcher himself, he maintained close friendships with professional artists and exerted direct influence on Canadian art. He was even recorded as instructing an artist to heighten the view of Mount Stephen at Field, BC—seeking greater awe in the scene.

Each artist discussed here was drawn to the Glacier area just below the summit of Rogers Pass. On the western slope, a horseshoe curve and a large S-bend were engineered to reduce gradients to manageable levels. Completion of the Connaught Tunnel in 1916 rendered this higher alignment—known as the Loops—obsolete. Beyond their engineering importance, the Loops, with their trestles and snowsheds, formed a compelling visual spectacle, compressed into just 3.3 miles of standard-gauge track.

Glacier House, the CPR’s mountain hotel, was frequently praised. It provided a refined outpost amid the rugged Selkirks and stood near the tongue of the Illecillewaet Glacier (then known as the Great Glacier), within walking distance for guests. From the hotel, trails led into surrounding valleys and summits.

Artists classified as “special guests” were given access to velocipedes to reach their working locations downhill at the Loops, passing through eight snowsheds and over four watercourses. Watercolours were favoured for portability, though larger works—both watercolour and oil—were often completed later in studio. As familiarity with the terrain increased, some artists incorporated details derived from glass-plate photographs, refining compositions after returning east.

Through these works, one can trace not only evolving artistic approaches but also the influence of the CPR’s patronage on Canada’s emerging national identity. Although corporate in origin, artists such as Frederick Talbot, William Notman, Marmaduke Matthews, and Frederic Bell-Smith helped establish a recognisable Canadian school of landscape art. Today Glacier Park remains open to interpretation, though ubiquitous photography has largely replaced the individual vision of painters.

Bell-Smith first travelled west in 1886 on a free CPR pass arranged by Van Horne. He was especially drawn to the Lake Louise area, where the railway had established modest accommodation. Whether artists paid for hotel stays or compensated the CPR with paintings is unknown. Given the early fires that destroyed both the Banff Springs Hotel and the Château Lake Louise, any such works may have been lost.

Born in England, Bell-Smith came to Canada in 1867 after formal training. His work was well regarded in London and Paris, and Queen Victoria sat for him in 1895. Of 138 Bell-Smith works held in Canadian museums, only ten are neither oil nor watercolour.

In Trestles at the Loop, Ross Peak is enveloped in mist while a distant train climbs its flank. His easel position is marked ① on the map inset. Bell-Smith’s western landscapes earned critical praise, with one reviewer calling the Glacier House area “the Canadian country of the gods”. His work conveyed not only spectacle but myth, reinforcing the idea of the “Great Lone Land”.

Compare the locomotive’s smoke plume here with that in the following painting by Marmaduke Matthews; both artists were drawn to this vantage point beneath Ross Peak.

This second portrayal of the railway on Ross Peak allows comparison between writer Talbot, photographer Notman, and painter Matthews. Matthews painted from position ② on the map, combining oil and watercolour. Over time, acidic paper and light exposure caused fading; the present reproduction was digitally adjusted, with permission, to approximate its original appearance.

Matthews worked in a realistic idiom comparable to his contemporaries. Best known for landscapes, he first travelled west in 1887 on Lucius O’Brien’s recommendation and returned frequently. Though his work brought recognition, it rarely brought financial reward; Mountain Landscape was offered by a Toronto gallery in 2024 for $800.

The lower trestle in the accompanying Notman photograph appears elsewhere in this article. Ross Peak commemorates James Ross, engineer in charge of the 1884 construction who devised the Loops. Like Van Horne, Ross was an avid art collector.

Matthews likely sketched on site—only 2.5 miles downhill from Glacier House—though many artists completed work later in studio. This may explain inconsistencies noted by critics, and the fleeting detail of the train’s smoke may not have been captured on location.

Painted the same year, this second view retains its original colours. Ross Peak dominates the scene, a rendering that likely appealed to Van Horne. Nineteen years earlier, William McFarlane Notman photographed this same location. The track curves into the Loop Brook valley, descending 0.5 mile at 2.2 per cent grade. The route remains walkable today with interpretive signage.

Note how Matthews adjusted the railway’s alignment on the far slope; the smoke is carefully placed to confirm a locomotive rather than a campfire. Matthews’ western work is held in the BC Provincial Archives, the Glenbow Museum, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the National Gallery of Canada.

Talbot, now largely forgotten as an artist, worked for the CPR after Van Horne’s retirement. Encouraged by Rudyard Kipling, he enjoyed a brief but productive career as author, publicist, and artist.

His watercolour featuring the former flagstop Cambie illustrates In the Selkirks, a travelogue notable for avoiding conventional sublime imagery. Talbot was unusual in depicting trains in watercolour, a technically demanding choice.

Although prolific as a writer—author of 25 books on science and travel—his artwork is poorly documented. No auction records or exhibition histories are known. His primary reputation as an author may have eclipsed his visual work.

Talbot stayed at Glacier House while researching. His painting shows the Loop Brook trestle before its 1906 reconstruction, though he may have relied on Notman’s 1887 photograph. If so, he mistakenly rendered the trestle as double-tracked.

He described the snowsheds in detail, though he did not illustrate them:

When special dangers arise… snow-sheds were built over the railway…

In 1924 Talbot was sent west to prepare for the Prince of Wales’s transcontinental journey. He contracted pneumonia in Calgary and died aged 44.

Set in 1914, this winter scene typifies Jacquiard’s commitment to historical accuracy. From 1981 onward he produced over 400 paintings, mostly 20th-century western Canadian scenes, now largely in private collections.

Two traits define his work: human figures are subordinate to machines and mountains, and perspectives often derive from imagined or inaccessible vantage points—achieved accurately before drone photography. His reference library was extensive, and site visits frequent.

The Loop Brook and Illecillewaet River trestles are shown with one minor error: the latter is depicted on stone rather than concrete piers. Given the difficulty of reaching the site through dense rainforest, the inaccuracy is understandable.

Jacquiard was inducted into the Canadian Railway Hall of Fame in 2006.

Bob Turner is the only living artist discussed here. A lifelong British Columbian, he is internationally respected as a historian of steam transportation and has authored 20 books.

He has painted only four railway scenes, all for his own publications. The scene shown depicts CP 1842 working upgrade near Glacier House at snowshed no. 21. Like Jacquiard, Turner rarely includes railway workers.

Turner knew Jacquiard personally and reproduced several of his works. His painting style is realistic, nostalgic, and informed by period photography. Two winter scenes demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of snow’s chromatic complexity.

Notably, Van Horne discouraged winter imagery in CPR publicity; by the time Turner painted, such constraints no longer applied.

Jim Finnell may be the most widely recognised artist here, despite never visiting the location he painted. Raised in a military family, he later worked in commercial illustration before founding Durango Press.

His steam-era railway paintings appeared frequently on the cover of Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette. Bob Turner commissioned Finnell to paint a Glacier House scene based on an 1887 hand-tinted Vaux family photograph—the only known Canadian subject in Finnell’s work.

Finnell’s locomotive, a cordwood-burning 4-4-0, is rendered with characteristic vitality. His legacy endures through collectors and continued auction sales.

These artists were not merely recording a railway; they interpreted a frontier, shaping perceptions of Canada’s western mountains for domestic and international audiences. Through varied media, they captured both engineering achievement and landscape myth.

By coincidence, just three miles of track between Glacier House and Cambie attracted all six artists discussed here. Others exist, omitted only because images could not be obtained.

For more than a century, such works defined the visual identity of Canada’s railways. They remain historical documents, artistic achievements, and cultural artefacts, ensuring that the CPR endures not only as an engineering triumph but as a source of artistic inspiration.

Tom Parkin has won four media awards through the Canadian Railroad Historical Association’s annual awards (2018, 2020, 2022, and 2023). Readers wishing to track his other stories, or to suggest article ideas, may contact him through this website.

Boulet, Roger, 2009. Vistas: Artists on the Canadian Pacific Railway. Glenbow Museum, Calgary, AB. Including over 120 images, this book supplemented an exhibit of the same name.

Pringle, Donald Allan, 1983. Artists of the Canadian Pacific Railroad: 1881-1900 (view PDF). Concordia University Masters thesis. A thorough academic treatise with details mostly of interest to art researchers.

Sanford, Barrie, 2012. Train Master: The Railway Art of Max Jacquiard. National Railway Historical Society, Vancouver, BC. A coffee table book with alternating pages of paintings with detailed captions, chaptered by mountain range; 164 pages.