It is often said that Canada was built on the railroad, with expansion of the train tracks from east to west ensuring that the population – particularly new immigrants – spread across the country. A network of grand railway hotels was created to encourage wealthy tourists to take the train. With the arrival of Google Street View in Canada, we’ll take a look at these hotels, starting with Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City.

Opened in 1893, the hotel’s history is apparent the moment you step into the ornate wood-panelled lobby, while the exterior is typical of the style of hotels built by the Canadian Pacific Company, with soaring turrets and towers.

Its position atop a rock outcropping gives stunning views across the St Lawrence river from many of the rooms and makes it the dominating feature of the city’s skyline – see the view from the Old Town about 60m below.

The Chateau is now owned by the Fairmount hotel chain, as are most of the other grand hotels, including the Queen Elizabeth in Montreal.

The last railway hotel to be constructed (in 1958) before air travel became the preferred form of mass transit, it has a rather more modern architectural style. It is located directly above Montreal’s Central Station and is the largest hotel in Quebec with 1037 rooms.

This hotel is perhaps most famous as the location of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1969 Bed-In. They took up residence in room 1742 for a week, receiving the world’s media and many celebrities and other guests. The bed-in culminated with the recording of Give Peace a Chance.

The Queen Elizabeth was preceded in Montreal by two other – externally more elegant – hotels, both of which have now been converted for business or educational use: the Windsor Hotel and Place Viger. The Windsor Hotel was the first of the grand railway hotels, opening in 1878; it closed 103 years later. Place Viger opened 20 years later but closed in the economic depression of the 1930s.

In Ottawa the Chateau Laurier stands beside the Rideau Canal, just a few meters from Parliament Hill.

Originally located across the street from the train station¹, the hotel was commissioned by Charles Hays, chairman of the Grand Trunk Railway. Unfortunately Hays chose a ship called the Titanic to make the journey to the hotel’s opening celebration, which was subsequently delayed by a couple of months. Hays may have made the journey anyway, as a number of guests have reported seeing his ghost wandering the hallways!

Being in the nation’s capital, the hotel routinely plays host to visiting heads of state and other dignitaries. For 80 years it was also the home of the local CBC studios, while portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh had a studio and apartment in the hotel.

We’ll cover the rest of the country in part two of this post.

Thanks to Denis Gravel, Stephen Salomons and Dave.

Locations: Ontario, Quebec / Categories: Buildings, Street Views

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We’ve already found some great Street View sights, which you can see on our brand-new Street View page or even better, follow us on Twitter to get the latest sights the moment we find them.

Montreal’s Olympic stadium was one of the very first sights we posted to Google Sightseeing, when the site was just 3 days old. Now 4 and half years later, we get a much better view of the bizarre building and the world’s tallest inclined structure.

Outside the stunning Canadian Parliament building we can see Tamil protestors, calling for action on the Sri Lankan Civil War. They protested non-stop throughout most of April 2009.

Probably Canada’s most recognisable landmark, the CN Tower in Toronto can be spotted from miles around. This unique view, complete with truck about to crash into the tower, comes from the CTV’s television station.

The impressive Czech National Museum sits atop Prague’s Wenceslas Square. The facade had to undergo major repairs following severe gunfire damage during the 1968 Warsaw Pact intervention.

Have you found anything cool on the new Street View? Send us a tweet so we can tell the world!

Locations: Czech Republic, Ontario, Quebec / Categories: Street Views

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Le Nordais is split between two locations, and it is at Éole Cap-Chat on the Gaspé Peninsula that we find the Cap-Chat Wind Turbine, which at 110 metres is the tallest vertical-axis wind turbine in the world.

The “vertical axis” refers to the the main rotor shaft which runs vertically. One of the benefits of this arrangement is that the generators and gearboxes can be placed close to the ground, but more importantly, that vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWT) do not need to be pointed into the wind.

The Cap-Chat turbine is actually a Darrieus wind turbine, and the reason we don’t see many of them is that despite the apparent benefits, the constantly changing direction of the forces applied to the spinning blades causes poor performance and reliability.

For these reasons Darrieus designs are no longer developed, but the torque issues were eventually solved by using a development of the Darrieus design that features a helical twist of the blades.

Great shadow though!

Official site, Ground-level pic, VAWTs on Wikipedia. Thanks to Benoit and Eric.

Locations: Quebec / Categories: Shadows, Structures, Towers

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Thanks: Eric Veilleux

Locations: Quebec / Categories: Towers

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Cirque du Soleil isn’t a circus in the traditional sense (because they don’t use any animals), but they do all sorts of stuff involving contortionists, jugglers, feats of strength, clowning, and trapeze artists. You can see one of their travelling set-ups in what is usually an empty car park in Minneapolis. Just north of here is Saint Anthony Falls, which also looks pretty cool from up here.

I saw one of their performances once in the Albert Hall, and I thoroughly recommened checking them out if you get the chance, it’s incredible stuff. As it happens, they’ll be performing permanently at the Tokyo Disney Resort beginning in 2008 if you’re planning a trip!

Thanks to Lowrent, Jean-Sébastien, Dauns, Robert Craig, Eric Veilleux and Andy.

Locations: Minnesota, Quebec / Categories: Buildings, Movie Locations

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The falls look absolutely stunning from up here, but make sure you compare the Google image to the shot posted on Wikipedia so that you can really appreciate what you’re looking at. Also note the suspension bridge over the crest of falls, where I imagine you really do get a superb view. (More info at Wikipedia)

Thanks to Mathieu Jobin and Donald A. P.

Locations: Quebec / Categories: Natural Landmarks

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…a beached wreck off the Washington coast…

…and finally a super-cool submerged ship in the river Clyde, near Glasgow! (it’s great posting Scottish things )

Thanks to Jacob, Jonny, troy, DDA, Jonathan Hoppe, Patrick, Joel Leo, Mike and Gus (from the comments).

Locations: Quebec, Scotland, Washington / Categories: Watercraft

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Thanks to Waldo for this one.

Locations: Quebec / Categories: Weirdness

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The building has absolutely no straight edges, it is made entirely with curves (even inside). There is also more copper in it then any other building in the world.

Thanks: David Novoa, Colin, Shawn, Patrick Gordon, Fernando, Quinn Kuiken & Noel

Locations: Quebec / Categories: Buildings

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To the east of the island is a long rowing basin built for Montreal’s 1976 Summer Olympics which is still the biggest artificial rowing basin in North America. You can see quite a few boats in the basin and there are a couple more moored at the north end. In winter the basin is also used as an ice rink.

In the middle of the island is the Casino de Montréal, built in former the Expo pavillions of France and Quebec. Around the edge of the island is the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, which is used once a year for the Canadian Grand Prix Formula 1 racing.

Thanks: Jonathan Cote, Kristian & Twombly

Locations: Quebec / Categories: Structures, Watercraft

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