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Thanks for tuning in! Driving in the early 20th century was indeed a heckuva lot more dangerous than it is now- the only reason accident rates weren't incredibly high is that so few people were actually driving.

Not at all! Canada's first steam car was around in the 1860s, and there were electric cars and gas cars by the late 1890s. Plus, bicycles started being really popular in the late 1880s- when this film was made, the country was on the tail-end of a huge cycling boom.

It's a bit more lush and overgrown now than it was in 1912.

Both certainly look like they could be, and geographically make sense together. Do you have anything to hard-confirm this?

The mile zero mark was installed at Victoria Quay and Johnson Road. There are pictures online. Cameron Lake part of the video I know those mountains around the for sure as I have driven past them for the last 60 years. You can check Cameron Lake photos online and see the same mountains. 1912 was the same year the rail line was brought into the Alberni Valley.

Oh, we hadn't realized there was a mile marker! Fascinating stuff. We're really uncovering up this proto-Trans Canada Highway story as we go. Thank you!

Mile Zero: In 1912, hundreds gathered at Victoria Quay for the installation of a post recognizing the terminus of the Trans-Canada Highway. In the spirit of rivalry between the two towns, pranksters from Port Alberni stole the sign in the middle of the night and replanted it at Argyle and Kingsway; Port Alberni's mayor, Arthur Waterhouse, made sure that the sign was returned. In 1950, the terminus, or Mile Zero, was moved to Victoria

In terms of rural roads, absolutely! Dragged and flattened gravel roads is one of those technologies we pretty much figured out a century ago.

Little more pavement, little more greenery, sliiiiightly more traffic...

NW.

Absolutely. Our only reference for where some of this footage might have been taken is a single newspaper article from 1912- the rest is guesswork, not helped by it clearly incorporating footage from multiple different trips.

Thanks for tuning in!

Doesn't stop us from complaining about it though! 🙂

Absolutely correct. This footage is mostly Malahat, but also appears to include footage from at least two other driving trips in B.C.; it doesn't represent one continuous voyage.

It’s explained in the description.

Yes, absolutely! Victoria had one of Canada's largest auto clubs at the time- we know that by 1909 there were at least a dozen cars being regularly driven on the city's roads, which is certainly above-average for that time period. The city's motoring community were also early lobbyists for the construction of a trans-Canada highway, and appear to have used their local highways often.

@@CanadianAutomotiveMuseum A dozen cars. Why that’s absolute chaos. What if they were all on Douglas or Fort streets at the same time? It wouldn’t be safe to go downtown.

Extremely brave! Early driving, even on a good road, was scary. The cars were dangerous and unreliable, and could be quite difficult to control, and even the best roads were rough. There was no easy way to call for help if you got in an accident. Driving, especially fast driving, was an activity for the foolhardy or confident.

If you find any, let us know!

I have a picture of my grandma is driving her model t ford through the canyon in the late 1930s. When her husband and 2 kids drove from Saskatchewan all the way to Victoria and never left.♥️🇨🇦♥️

So, this footage is made of driving footage from two, possibly three different road trips and filming sessions edited together, the last of which was probably taken at least a few months after the previous two. We don't have notes for context on any of them, and they certainly don't show any kind of geographical sense. Think of this as a compilation of three different trips, instead of one continuous route.

Not only the main highway, the first highway! Or at least the first one in the area developed specifically for motor traffic.

I didn't know where it was at first ... but I recognized the name Malahat, and I've lived all over south BC over the last few decades, so I couldn't pin-point it ... I had to hit a GOOGLE map !!! 😜 But Shawnigan (Lake) I knew... But I didn't make the connect !!! 🤭 I've traveled that way many times '81 to '84, and then '94-2002 I think the highway was built above that original road (?) Maybe ??

A beautiful scenic drive to Duncan and Nanaimo.

Well, a substantial chunk of this road trip is the entourage of the Duchess of Connaught, so presumably they are, yes!

LOL. yes that was before the 1960's when a nasty MP or someone like that began to curtail the British Isles immigration/ migration to Canada and opened it up for a very different demographic.

Is this a reference to the B.C. lumber barons of the same names?

You're absolutely correct! He'd founded GM, eventually became the president of its board, and was kicked out by the shareholders in 1920. Durant Motors was largely his attempt to make enough money to buy his way back into GM.

@@CanadianAutomotiveMuseum I'm pretty sure his kids, especially Cliff, sucked him dry every time he got his head above water. At least up until 1939.

Bonjour.

@@CanadianAutomotiveMuseum how are you?

Until about '31 I think.

British for sure !!!

Compared to all over the road now.

@@garyfrancis6193 Ha! Indeed!

It is with great pleasure that the duchess announces the Malahat will indeed be widened to a two lane road. She thought it was a rather splendid idea, especially because now traffic would move in both directions. This suggestion must have come from someone with foresight of what is to come. Her opinion moved the powers that be to move forward.

I've not been able to find a Canadian star brochure for that year, but an American '24 Star touring car's MSRP was $490.

The workers had them... aaaand apparently just didn't use them.

In a lot of cases that kind of equipment was theoretically available, but no one wore it. Car-building was a phenomenally dangerous profession.

At the time we're pretty sure it would have been called a platform truck, a compact, electric or gas-powered ancestor of the first forklifts.

Interesting, thank you.

Then you're definitely due for a re-visit! In the past 8 years we have, among other things, completely stripped down the interior of the museum, redone all of our exhibits from scratch, tweaked large parts of the collection so we have a better focus on Canadian vehicles, and just generally overhauled the whole place. The building no longer looks like a gloomily-lit Italian restaurant from the 1980s, that we can guarantee. Are we still a little strapped for space? Yes, every museum is. But we're doing a far better job with what we've got.

Much has changed in over a decade and a half - huge investment in the building, collection, and how they are displayed

As far as we can tell, yes! It was one of the quirks of the flow-on paint system.

To the best of my knowledge Ford Model As built in Canada were close to 100% Canadian-made, though I don't know how close. Not sure about what followed afterwards.

The magical world of flow-on lacquers!

Honestly, given how common they are on the collector's market these days, you could probably buy an entire Model T in parts form if you scrounged around hard enough. If you're interested in these kinds of simple cars, strong recommend you check out a vehicle called the Orient Buckboard- it makes a Model T look like a Cadillac by comparison.

At the time, Ford's factories were absolutely the pinnacle of industrial tech at a grand scale. And the Windsor plant wasn't even close to the company's largest!

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We're sorry to hear that. Strongly encourage you try the video muted, as it has full English subtitles.

In terms of the car industry, the one-two punch of the First World War and the Great Depression happened. During the War, there was endless lucrative government contract work available, lucrative to the point that it often wasn't worth a business continuing to build motor cars when they could assemble fuses or build other war materiel. Canadian auto businesses that depended on American suppliers for parts got hit extra hard like this, because suddenly their suppliers were also disincentivized from making auto parts. Plus, with rationing on things like auto tires and gasoline, owning a car started to become prohibitively expensive. Post-WW1, the boom meant that there were tons of auto startups on both sides of the border that were riding the general bubble of economic prosperity; there was enough capital floating around to keep them solvent, which was always a constant problem with under-funded Canadian auto-builders. When the bottom fell out of the market, it didn't matter if you could make a car that would still sell; investment dried up, and there went your chances of keeping the lights on. The supply problems also returned, but much more catastrophically; as the suppliers of things like base materials went bankrupt, the parts builders that depended on them failed, and the auto makers on both sides of the border that depended on *them* did too. You often see failed Canadian car manufacturers suddenly switch brands or car designs in their last couple years of existence because of this.

This is an insightful, well-thought-out comment, and you're absolutely right. I'm always endlessly fascinated by how much of Canadian urban geography is fundamentally based on how far a team of horses might be able to travel in a day.

Not very- though according to period sources, Ford *did* provide something like respirators, in the form of sponge masks that could be worn. They were entirely optional, and almost no one wore them, despite the company and the workers being aware of the health dangers of lead-based paint.

@@CanadianAutomotiveMuseum Oh wow! I forgot the paint was also lead based. I'm thankful I was never one of those kids who ate paint chips because our house was built in 1863. That house had so much lead it could be used as a nuclear shelter.