In 1886, Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, finally set out to see the country he had helped stitch together by rail. The Canadian Pacific Railway had just been completed, and a grand cross-country tour was planned, complete with speeches, pomp, and a private rail car.

What no one planned for was his wife.

Lady Agnes Macdonald was bored.

So bored, in fact, that she abandoned the Prime Minister’s private car, climbed into the locomotive cab, blasted the whistle at crossings, ignored orders from her husband, and eventually talked her way into riding on the cowcatcher at the very front of the train, from the Rocky Mountains all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Yes. The outside of the train.

Sitting on a candle box.

At speed.

Through mountain descents, landslides, near derailments, forest fires, and even a full-on pig collision in the Fraser Valley.

Joined reluctantly by a deeply stressed government superintendent whose job description rapidly shifted to “human seatbelt.”

Along the way, Lady Agnes waved to crowds, dared her husband to join her (he did, briefly), and redefined Victorian ideas of decorum, safety, and common sense—while Sir John A. retreated back to the bar car.

Based on “Fur and Gold” by John Pearson (Black Press Media)

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