Exit the Horse: The Early Years of Canadian Motoring- Canadian Automotive Museum Talk

00:00 Dumaresq's remarks begin
53:02 Q&A begins
How and when did Canadians start driving? Between the 1860s and the 1910s, Canada underwent a series of transportation revolutions, leaping from the horse and carriage to the locomotive, bicycle, streetcar and automobile. From steam cars to experimental electrics to the first Canadian-made gasoline vehicles, join Dumaresq de Pencier as he explores the unusual and often chaotic early history of the Canadian automotive revolution. Discover the origins of the gas station, why Canadians drive on the right side of the road, how bicycle clubs helped build the Trans-Canada Highway, and more!
Dumaresq de Pencier is a museum researcher, exhibit developer and guide, and has had a lifelong interest in the history of vehicular technology. He is currently the Exhibit & Special Project Coordinator for the Canadian Automotive Museum. In his spare time he writes tabletop games and volunteers for the Ontario Regiment RCAC Tank Museum and Ottawa’s Cold War Collection.
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This online talk was part of the Canadian Automotive Museum's Third Thursday lecture series. These online talks are free and open to the public, but registration is required. To view future talks visit www.canadianautomotivemuseum....
The Canadian Automotive Museum is a registered Canadian charity and a suggested donation of $10 goes toward covering the cost of hosting these virtual events. Donors who make a contribution of over $25 will receive a charitable tax receipt. www.canadianautomotivemuseum....
For more information, visit www.CanadianAutomotiveMuseum.com

[@gentlegiants1974]

Horses owned and kept strictly for personal transportation were entirely an upper class thing. The cost of keeping a team, or a four-in-hand and the coach just to get about the city, was prohibitive. The man who could afford the stable of horses and a man to drive them could just as easily buy a Pierce Arrow. The rural farmer on the other hand, required the horses as they were the sole means of tractive power available to him. He went to town by wagon and sleigh with them, but this was of necessity and done at long intervals. The store owner and businessman might have a delivery wagon and a horse or two, but again this was a necessary part of his business, and often as not owned the wagon and hired the horse as needed from the livery man down the street.. Livery stables were commoner than car rental places today. The farmer off to town for the day, especially in poor weather, had to stable and feed and water his horse somewhere, and this was like a parking garage for the out of town visitor.
Really, it is a better time for horses getting them off the urban roads, and the stage runs, it was a brutally hard life. Horses expend twice as much energy when trotting as they do at a steady walk for the same amount of time. I work heavy horses as my business, and they are most efficient at about 3 miles per hour, and under a steady load within their range can maintain this for 8-10 hours with only very short rest periods and a longer break for feed and water at noon. The coach horse made to work at speed, a steady trot and even a canter as in the open plains on the overland coaches, is all tuckered out in 3-4 hours and must be changed out for fresh horses just for the sake of speed. Horses really do shrink your world and slow it down, but it suits me. Yes I drive a truck roadhauling more than a few miles and to town for supplies, or hauling grain to the elevator, but part of me wishes I could use the horses, but this world of today is too spread out.

[@CanadianAutomotiveMuseum]

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.