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Decades ago, and probably extending well before that, there was a custom among middle-class Canadian families to send their sons out West to work on the railroad for a spell. The parents’ intention was not only to get the boys out of their hair for a while but also to toughen them up and introduce them to the ways of the world well beyond what would now be called their comfort zones. As it happened, one of my father’s sisters, Aunt Irene, was a vice president of the Canadian National Railways, a sprawling transportation network of trains, steamships, and grand hotels.

The Atlantic     Mar 14, 2025