A hard drive West

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This article was published 23/08/2003 (8328 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DRIVING across Canada — it’s something many of us have done. Maybe you did it this summer.

The Trans-Canada is the world’s longest stretch of paved highway, running more than 7,700 kilometres from St. John’s to Victoria. It carries millions of vehicles across this land every year.

But did you ever wonder about who the first person to drive across Canada was?

I started thinking about it after reading a story by a writer for the Miami Herald who drove with his son across the United States last month to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first trans-continental automobile trip.

A doctor, H. Nelson Jackson, and a mechanic, Sewall Crocker left San Francisco in a Winton automobile on May 23, 1903, and arrived in New York City on July 26, 63 days later.

Canada had a railway running from coast-to-coast for more than a quarter of a century by then, but had anyone yet driven across this land?

No one had, mostly because there were no roads across much of the country, although there were automobile associations like the Winnipeg Auto Club springing up everywhere. Something called the Good Roads movement was pushing governments to build and maintain a road system.

It wasn’t until 1912, nine years after Jackson and Crocker made that first automobile crossing of the U.S., that someone managed to take a car from Halifax to Vancouver.

Thomas Wilby was a British journalist who moved to the U.S. in 1908 and began writing travel features for magazines. He made a return motor crossing of the U.S. in 1910 — a 14,400-kilometre trip that took 105 days. That trip produced a book called On the Trail to Sunset.

After that, backed by the Reo Motorcar Company, he was ready to tackle Canada.

While history credits Wilby as being the first person to cross Canada by car, strictly speaking, he was the first person to be driven across Canada. The man that actually did the driving, and kept the car running, was a young mechanic from Indiana named F.V. “Jack” Haney.

As a boy, Haney was keenly interested in machines, motor boats, and especially cars. At 16, he left home for Michigan to work for Reo. He soon gained a reputation as an excellent mechanic. In 1910 he moved to St. Catharines, Ont., to work as a trouble-shooter for the Canadian Reo factory. He was the obvious choice as driver and mechanic for that first trans-Canada auto trip.

The pair left Halifax in a car dubbed the “Red Route Reo” 91 years ago next week, on Aug. 27, 1912.

While Wilby wrote a book about the historic journey — A Motor Tour Through Canada — Haney kept a simple diary, a daily journal of the trip. And while Wilby was getting all the attention, Haney remained the forgotten, unnoticed man.

A lengthy article in the Manitoba Free Press of Sept. 24, 1912, spoke glowingly of Wilby and his efforts to bring attention to the Good Roads movement. He met Premier Rodman Roblin and was decorated by the wife of Mayor R.D. Waugh. The automobile editor of the Free Press presented Wilby with a map and directions for getting to Portage la Prairie.

There was no mention of Haney in the story.

But Haney’s own diary, which turned up on the Internet, does tell his side of the story. And by his account, it was a stormy jaunt across the country. Haney refers to Wilby throughout the diary as “the captain” and it doesn’t sound like a term of endearment.

This is how he begins:

“August 27 — Left Halifax at 4:30 PM. Arrived at Truro 8 PM. Bum roads most of the way. Mud got in carburetor, will fix protection for it in the morning. … tired, going to bed now 10:30 PM.”

By Sept. 2. they are in Quebec City and it appears Haney isn’t too happy.

” … Left Quebec about 4 PM. Got to see a little of the town in the forenoon. A fellow from the garage took me around. Saw inside three of their noted churches, and the oldest street in Quebec. It is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg and about 10 ft. wide. Montcalm died in the building which is now the Campbell garage and where the Red Route Reo was stored while in Quebec.

“We got to Three Rivers about 10 o’clock. I will be glad when I get out of the country for I can’t understand anything they say, everybody is French. They have a shed about a mile from the hotel which is used for a garage, It is the only one in the town, 15,000 inhabitants. …”

With Montreal and Ottawa behind them, tensions are clearly rising.

“September 5 — Left Ottawa 7:30 AM. I was ready at 6:30 but the Captain of the schooner slept in so we could not get away.

“Had a warm argument with the Captain today. He says it makes him sick to run over a chicken, also he is afraid to go more than 25 M.P.H. — Rather a soft outfit for the Captain of a transcontinental automobile trip. …”

They run into serious mechanical trouble and are stranded in a place called Scotia Junction, north of Toronto, after twisting the transmission shaft. They wait while a replacement is sent from the Reo factory.

The entry for Sept. 11, a particularly bad day, reads:

“Got up at 5 o’clock, uncrated trans., recrated bad one. Murphy came by for it at 6. Got it in car and away about 8:30. Got about 27 miles from Scotia when the fun began. Got to a very high hill with about 40 per cent grade and rutty slippery surface. Could not get over. A number of cars have tried it but not succeeded. We were told of a way around … Got stuck on a corduroy stairs, two times, put the trans. on the bum again. Got hung up on rocks which were too high to clear. Had to rebuild a bridge which had broken down. Had to come 12 miles on low, could not get into any other gear. Got to Trout Creek 8 PM. Gone 64 miles, but only 30 miles nearer to North Bay. With poor prospects ahead.

“… Wilby is pretty sore about the delay, is almost ready to give up. The trip is a farce anyway.”

The next day they make it to North Bay, where they find there is no road going west. They load the Reo onto a railcar and ship it to Sudbury. Haney and Wilby take separate trains.

They drive from Sudbury to Sault Ste. Marie and then await a lake steamer to Fort William. It is the last time they will actually drive until they reach Manitoba. A diary entry written onboard the boat reads: “Am getting more sick than ever of the Captain.”

At Fort William, it is back on a train heading west, because there aren’t any roads between the Lakehead and Winnipeg. “Had trouble with Wilby concerning the signs on car,” Haney notes.

Despite the Free Press account of the visit to Winnipeg, Haney’s time here was not enjoyable.

“September 19 — Left Kenora 7:45, got to Selkirk 11 AM. East Selkirk is 4 miles east of Selkirk proper and is only a depot. As the car had not got there yet and no signs of Wilby, I walked over to Selkirk. Had to row across the Winnipeg (Red) River.

“September 20 — Raining hard all night and all day. Got car unloaded about 10 o’clock, and got to Winnipeg at 5 o’ clock. Fierce roads, 28 miles.

“September 21– Got out at 8 AM. Had big fight with Wilby. He was going to leave at 1:30 today. I said NO, owing to condition of car and roads. Expect to leave the 23rd. Worked on car all afternoon.

“September 22 — Worked on car all day; ground valves, took out clutch, oiled and cleaned it, was chattering pretty bad. Left Winnipeg about 4:30 PM. Went to Headingly (sic), left car and returned to Winnipeg on electric.

“September 23 — Got out of Headingly at 1 PM. Bad roads to Portage, which was reached at 5:30.”

They seemed to make fairly good time across the Prairies. Haney even stopped for a little hunting around Swift Current.

By Oct. 4 they were in Cranbrook. They had to dip down into the U.S. on Oct. 7 for a couple of days because that’s the way the road went. They came back into Canada near Princeton and made it to Lillooet by Oct. 11.

By Oct. 14 they were in Vancouver.

“October 14 — Left Chilliwack 8 AM. Saw some great fish in Vedder River. Reached New Westminster 12:30 PM. They had a lunch for us and then we left for Vancouver which we reached 4 PM.”

That is the last entry in Haney’s diary, although other reports have them in Victoria on Oct. 17.

Wilby went on to work for the Christian Science Monitor in Boston. During a year-long trip around the Mediterranean and England with his wife, he took ill and went to the health spa in Bath, England, to recuperate. He died in November 1923.

Haney returned to work for the Reo Motorcar Company. He married in 1914 and eventually opened his own garage in St. Catharines. He continued to work with cars and in his later years helped to open Niagara’s first airport. He died in 1935 after several years of illness due to heart problems.

paul.pihichyn@freepress.mb.ca

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