Canadian Pacific is renowned as a diversified company, but little is known of the company's foray into the quasi-medicinal world of sparkling mineral water and its soda pop offspring.

The Caledonia Springs Company Limited bottled such liquids as Magi Water, which "exercises a most beneficial influence,"and the "sparkling-healthful" Adanac Ginger Ale. It, along with a stately hotel bearing the Caledonia Springs name, was purchased by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company around the turn of the century.

The "curative qualities" of the Caledonia Springs in Ontario, eight miles from l'Orignal on the shore of the Ottawa River, had long been known to the indians of the area.

A former member of the Ontario legislature and his party of beaver hunters were the first town dwellers to happen on the springs. They thought they had been poisoned. It seems the water had a laxative effect.

During the early 1800s, word of the medicinal values of the Caledonia Springs water had filtered through and it wasn't long before the area was developed as a health resort, similar to ones popular with the more affluent in continental Europe.

"The water, although somewhat unpleasant to the taste, is extremely bracing, and in much request," reads a report in the Montreal Transcript and General Advertiser dated 5 Jul 1838. "The most extraordinary cures which have been performed, have been in the cases of Rheumatism, diseases of the liver, Dropsy, Dyspepsia, Scrofulous Affections of every description, fever and Ague, Jaundice, etc. The almost superhuman cures which have been effected in cases of Syphilis cannot be too forcibly impressed upon the public."

The report contains an analysis of the spring water by Dr. James R. Chilton and goes on to add:

"It is a delicate but necessary task to point out some of the diseases for the relief of which these waters have become so justly celebrated. Their powers in diseases to which females just verging upon womanhood, are subject deserves particular notice. To heads of families, and medical gentlemen this hint will be amply sufficient, and they may rest assured that in such cases none have tested their efficacy in vain."

Such endorsements and testimonials by leading physicians of the day helped cement the spring's reputation in Europe and the United States, as well as at home.

Hundreds of people would patronize the springs to bathe in its soothing waters. The site now contained a stately hotel, billiard room, and a steam powered train which ran on an oval track around the site to the amusement of the clientele. Excursions were operated from Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto. The visitors would have to travel by train to Calumet, take the ferry across the Ottawa River to a dock three miles from L'Orignal, then continue the remainder of their journey in a horse-drawn carriage.

The Canadian Pacific Railway Company began serving Caledonia Springs in 1898 and about eight years later purchased the Caledonia Springs Hotel and its associated bottling plant, the acquisition became part of the company's hotel chain.

By 1914 it became apparent the hotel was in need of renovation. The popularity of hotel-spas was fizzling out and the company decided to shut its doors for good.

However, until the 1920s Canadian Pacific maintained a financial interest in the bottling plant which produced mineral water, ginger ale, and other carbonated drinks under the trademarks Adanac, Magi Water and Duncan Water.

J.J. McLaughlin Limited, the forerunner of Canada Dry Ginger Ale Limited, purchased the Caledonia Springs Company Limited in 1927 and changed the name to The Caledonia Springs Corporation Limited.

Canadian Pacific formally licensed Canada Dry to use the Adanac trademark on 2 Jan 1934. The trademark was eventually sold to the soft-drink company 29 Feb 1940.

Whether the products produced by the Caledonia Springs Company Limited tasted anything like the products on the shelves today is not known.

But at least one speaker, addressing a CPR Conference and Banquet in 1919, during which prohibition was the subject of many a coffee cup chit-chat, decided to poke a little fun at the company's venture into the soda pop market.

He was quoted as saying, "Another great ally, which would be even greater if Quebec went bone dry next May, was the Caledonia Springs Co. When the people were deprived of their seductive Scotch and soda, and the merry making Martini and Manhattan, and the genial gin fizzes, were banished into utter oblivion, the C.P.R. would timely come to the rescue, and though there might be no mornings after the night before, there would be the rare vintages of Magi water, the effervescing Adanac ginger ale, the delectable crearh soda, the delight of the hardened drinker, sparkling Cola Champagne, whatever that might be, to assuage the imperishable thirst, and to revive one's drooping spirits, and these with a bumper or two of that justly celebrated and far famed Duncan water, would make every day a Sunday in the sweet bye and bye."