LITERARY LOCATION: Pan Pacific Vancouver Hotel, 999 Canada Place

Millions have heard the ten horns atop the Pan Pacific Hotel at Canada Place that blare the first four notes of O Canada every day at 115 Decibels, but few know the patriotic bleat was designed and built by B.C.'s bestselling poet, Robert Swanson. He was a renaissance man who was also known for decades as the 'bard of the woods.' After a meeting with Robert Service in a Vancouver bookstore run by Service's brother, Swanson took the advice of Robert Service and mimicked his Klondike balladeering style to generate four books of verse about B.C. logging that reputedly sold 82,000 copies.

Among Swanson's many other achievements, the ingenious engineer also gave the world fail-safe air brakes for trucks, the hexatone air horn for railway crossings (created by Swanson to simulate the wail of a steam train whistle) and he was the driving force behind the restoration of the Royal Hudson train engine. The multiple horns atop Canada Place were originally built at the request of Prime Minister Lester Pearson for the Centennial train that crossed the country in 1967. They blared for many years atop of the old BC Hydro Building, but were silenced and kept in storage after the Hyrdo building was transformed into condominiums in the early 1990s. They blared anew atop Canada Place on November 8, 1994--and have been heard every day since.

QUICK REFERENCE ENTRY:

Robert Swanson, the "Bard of the Woods,"; travelled extensively in B.C. logging camps and also broadcast his poems via his weekly talk show on CJOR. Although his chapbooks were never accepted by the literary establishment, his books easily outsold the better-known poets of the 1940s, starting with Rhymes of a Western Logger: A Book of Verse (1942).

It was Robert Service who advised replicating his approach to writing poetry about the Yukon to B.C.'s logging industry. The extent of Swanson's popularity as a versifier for B.C.'s main industry is rarely appreciated today, but, in the late 1980s, B.C. forestry authority Ken Drushka once remarked that being on a reading tour with Robert Swanson was "like travelling with an octogenarian rock star.";

Born in Reading, England, in 1905, Swanson worked as a logger, then gained his degree as a professional engineer. When new diesel locomotives created safety problems at highway crossings (because motorists could not recognize their monotone horns as an approaching train), Swanson invented a tuned hexatone airhorn that recreates the wail of a steam train whistle. It was adapted for use all over the world.

Swanson also invented a fail-safe braking system for logging trucks that was adopted as standard equipment all over North America. As the inspector for the Department of Transport, he devised runaway lanes on steep hills and insisted on better regulations for bridge designs. His expertise on steam trains and their whistles was central to the restoration of B.C.'s Royal Hudson excursion train. Air Chime, a company he founded in 1964, provided the "O Canada"; air chimes for the Centennial train in 1967. Actually a combination of ten horns made to sound like one, the horn now blasts the first four notes of "O Canada"; from the roof of Canada Place every day at noon. Swanson's handiwork can also be seen and heard in Gastown's steam clock.

Swanson once represented Canada at the World Standards Organization. He was also the first president of the B.C. Truck Museum and helped his friend Gerry Wellburn establish the working locomotive at the B.C. Forest Museum. A Freemason for 64 years, B.C.'s bestselling poet was also one of the most ingenious of British Columbians. He died in 1994.

FULL ENTRY:

"Without Homer, the Greeks would amount to bugger all." -- Robert Swanson

Robert E. Swanson was the Robert W. Service of B.C. He was also one of the most ingenious British Columbians. Born in Reading, England on October 26, 1905, he immigrated with his family prior to World War One, earned his steam engineer's ticket at age 17, worked for years as a logger, then as a forestry safety inspector for the government, and eventually gained his degree as a professional engineer. When new diesel locomotives created safety problems at highway crossings (because motorists could not recognize their monotone horns as an approaching train), Swanson invented a tuned hexatone airhorn that recreated the wail of a steam train whistle. It was adapted for use all over the world. Swanson also invented a fail-safe braking system for logging trucks that was adopted as standard equipment all over North America. His expertise on steam trains and their whistles was central to the restoration of B.C.'s popular Royal Hudson excursion train. He founded a company in 1964, Air Chime, that was called upon to provide a whistle to play O Canada for the Centennial train in 1967. [ABOVE, AT RIGHT, ROBERT SWANSON TESTS HIS O CANADA AIR CHIME IN 1966]

The refurbished horn now blasts the first four notes of O Canada from the roof of Canada Place each day at noon. His handiwork can also been seen and heard in Gastown's steam clock. In addition, he helped his friend Gerry Wellburn establish the working locomotive at the B.C. Forest Museum and he was the first president of the B.C. Truck Museum. He represented Canada at the World Standards Organization. As the inspector for the Department of Transport, he devised runaway lanes on steep hills and insisted on better regulations for bridge designs. But Swanson is most widely known as the "Bard of the Woods." His four chapbooks of folksy verses, ballads and stories were enormously popular in the 1930s and 1940s. Swanson travelled extensively in the logging camps and also broadcast his poems via his weekly talk show on CJOR. He took the advice of Robert Service, who advised him to try replicating his approach to writing poetry for and about the Yukon.

Although his work was never accepted by the literary establishment at UBC, his books far outsold the works of Earle Birney and Dorothy Livesay, the better-known poets of his era. He was a Freemason for 64 years. In the 1980s, he was part of a performing troupe that read and sang literature about logging. Forestry authority Ken Drushka recalled that being on a reading tour with Robert Swanson was "like travelling with an octogenarian rock star." He died on October 4, 1994.

BOOKS:

Rhymes of a Western Logger: A Book of Verse (Vancouver: The Lumberman Printing Company, 1942)

Rhymes of a Lumberjack (1943)

Bunkhouse Ballads: A third book of verse concerning the trials and tribulations, lives and ways of that red-blooded, outdoor breed of men who have built the Great Northwest of America. (Toronto: Thomas Allen, 1945)

Alberni District Paul Bunyan Day: [Souvenir Program] (pamphlets). Written by George Hubert Bird and Robert Swanson. Printed by Nelson L. Ball, 1946.

Rhymes of a Haywire Hooker: A book of verse concerning the lives and ways of the old-time loggers, railroadmen and frontiersmen who founded civilization in the Great Northwest (Vancouver: The Lumberman Printing Co., 1953), co-authored with his brother Seattle Red (Dan Swanson).

Rhymes of a Western Logger: The Collected Poems of Robert Swanson (Harbour, 1992)

Whistle Punks and Widow-Makers: Logging Stories. (Harbour, 1997, 2000) With Ken Drushka.

[BCBW 2015]