by Julie Lawson
And if the Baby is a girl? I admit I might be jealous. But only for a little while.
Thursday, August 16
Fraser River
It is 7 A.M. and the steamboat has just left the New Westminster landing. My ears are still ringing from the whistle.
The boat is crowded with people, most of whom I know. Not like my journey three years ago, when I felt strange and out of place and the railway scarcely begun. Sometimes I feel as if the railway and I are growing up together. I do not expect I’ll be “finished” at the same time, but to hear Papa talk, the railway may never be finished. There will always be something to rebuild and repair and replace — even when the trains are running from sea to sea.
Later
Papa just handed me a package. I opened it and lo and behold — it is a brand new Diary!
Papa said, “I see you’ve almost finished your first one.” This is true — I have but one remaining page — and he told me how pleased he was that I had put it to such good use. He gave me a hug and told me that I would always be his special girl, and that the new Baby will be lucky indeed to have a sister like me to look up to.
I am so anxious to begin my new Diary! Eyes and ears open, thoughts tumbling helter-skelter, emotions about to burst. What lies around the bend? Maybe something Adventurous. Maybe something Exceedingly Wonderful.
It is a beautiful morning. I feel so light of heart I could float up the Canyon, all the way home. And with that happy thought, I come to the end of the very last page.
Epilogue
The Canadian Pacific Railway was completed in November, 1885. A short time later, the Camerons, including Kate’s two-year-old sister, Mary, left Yale and moved to Victoria, where John Cameron started working for the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway. In 1905, the E & N became part of the CPR.
Michael Hagan stopped publishing the Inland Sentinel in Yale on May 29, 1884, but started again in Kamloops, B.C., two months later.
Kate graduated from Victoria High School in 1888 and promptly applied for a job with Victoria’s Colonist. She was hired as a junior reporter — much to the chagrin of her mother, who saw it as a low-class occupation and not suitable for young ladies.
But times were changing. The career of journalism was opening up to women and, over the next decade, the once low-class occupation became a glamorous pursuit. Kate wrote for several top newspapers, including Toronto’s Globe. When the Globe sent her to the Yukon in 1898 to write about the Klondike Gold Rush, she met the English photographer Peter Mortimer.
Toby left school and worked for the CPR — first as a wiper, then as a fireman and finally as an engineer, based in Winnipeg. He married and had four children.
Andrew attended university in Toronto and became a doctor. He practised in Northern Ontario for many years and eventually settled in Ottawa with his wife and three children.
Kate married Peter Mortimer in 1900. An adventurous and resourceful team, they travelled the world recording events and experiences through words and pictures. “A letter from Auntie Kate!” was an enthusiastic cry often heard in the homes of her nieces and nephews.
Kate and Peter lived in London, England, from 1908 until war broke out in 1914. Kate then returned to Canada with their two young sons while Peter stayed in Europe to cover the First World War. They were reunited in Vancouver shortly after Armistice Day in 1918.
In spite of her best intentions, Kate eventually lost touch with her friends from Yale. She and her brothers and sister, however, remained close throughout their lives.
Yale’s position as a bustling and prosperous town changed once the railway was completed. The transport of freight no longer depended on the steamboats, and the Cariboo Wagon Road, maintained by Onderdonk throughout the construction period, was rendered obsolete. Many families and long-standing businesses moved away. Yale became a station on the main line, where trains stopped but briefly.
The town is still on the map, however, as the gateway to the Fraser Canyon and its rich and fascinating history. Its residents can still hear the rumble of trains as they roll along the tracks.
Historical Note
One country from East to West and a railway to tie it together! Such was the dream of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister. And there was good reason for it. At the time of Confederation, when the colonies of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec joined together to form the Dominion of Canada, the threat of United States expansion into Canada’s largely unsettled north and west was real and imminent. What better way to solve the problem than by building a transcontinental railway? At the same time, it would build up the country from coast to coast and fill the land with settlers who wanted to be Canadians.
To fulfill his dream, Macdonald needed British Columbia. He promised that if B.C. joined Confederation, he would build the railway straight to the shores of the Pacific. In 1871, four years after Confederation, B.C. became the westernmost province of Canada, and Macdonald’s dream of an east–west link came one step closer to reality.
Before any tracks could be laid, the land had to be surveyed. Survey crews spent several years struggling through the rock and muskeg of northern Ontario, across the prairie and through the rugged mountains of B.C., looking for the safest, cheapest and most direct route for the railway. Some 19,000 kilometres of wilderness were covered before a final route was determined.
Once the route was mapped out, construction could begin. Roadbeds were cleared, bridges built, tunnels blasted through rock. Tracks were laid and iron spikes hammered to hold the rails in place. Crews worked simultaneously from the east and the west to speed up the process.
The cost of building a transcontinental railway across Canada’s vast landscape of mountains, prairies, rivers and swamps was tremendous. For almost two years Macdonald tried to get private funding. Finally, in February, 1881, he secured the backing of a private company — the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. The CPR signed a contract agreeing not only to construct, complete and equip the railway, but also to maintain it and run it forever. In return, the Dominion of Canada agreed to provide the CPR with 25 million acres of land and to pay the company $25 million in cash.
By this time, private contractors hired by the government were already building sections of the railway in central Canada, the eastern prairies and British Columbia. Under the terms of the contract, these sections were also turned over to the CPR once the construction was completed.
Andrew Onderdonk, an American, was the contractor responsible for the Pacific Section — from Port Moody on the coast, through the Fraser Canyon, to Savona’s Ferry at the west end of Kamloops Lake. He established his headquarters in Yale in 1879, and on May 15, 1880, a blast of dynamite at Yale marked the start of construction.
The Pacific Section proved to be one of the most remarkable engineering feats in Canada’s history. Much of the road had to be suspended over the Fraser River on piles, wooden bridges and rock cribbing. Blasting was necessary to widen the flat surface ledges in the walls of the Fraser Canyon and to tunnel through the granite cliffs. A whole year was spent blasting the right-of-way before any track could be laid.
Then there was the problem of labour. Onderdonk needed as many as 10,000 labourers to build the Fraser Canyon section of the railway, and since B.C.’s labour force at the time was too small to fill the need, he was forced to look elsewhere. In spite of widespread opposition, he arranged for thousands of Chinese labourers to come to British Columbia, most directly from China.
Pushing the line through the Fraser Canyon proved to be costly. One of Onderdonk’s contracts alone, the 45-kilometre section between Emory and Boston Bar (including excavation, grading, tunnelling, bridging, tracklaying and ballasting) cost $2,727,300 (more than 45 million in today’s dollars). The estimated cost of the entire Canadian Pacific Railway in 1886 dollars was almost $165 million, including branch lines and existing ones that were acquired, plus those constructed by the government itself.
The high number
of accidental deaths and injuries among the workers, as well as the hundreds of deaths caused by scurvy, also made it costly in human terms.
Onderdonk’s contract eventually extended from Savona’s Ferry, through Kamloops and on to Eagle Pass. Work progressed rapidly until the summer of 1885, when Onderdonk ran out of rails along the Eagle River and dismissed most of his crews.
A few months later, on a cold November day in the British Columbia mountains, crews working from the east linked their rails to those laid by Onderdonk’s crews. The site was christened Craigellachie — the name of a rallying-point in Scotland meaning “Rock of Alarm.” CPR officials George Stephen and Donald Smith — cousins from Scotland — used the word between themselves during the building of the railway, when times were especially difficult.
The “Last Spike Ceremony” on November 7, 1885, was noted for its simplicity. William Cornelius Van Horne, the CPR’s General Manager, had said that there would be no ceremony, at least not an official one. No dignitaries were invited. Anyone who wanted to attend had to be a railway employee or pay their own fare. After Donald Smith hammered in the second 5-inch iron spike — he bent the first one — Van Horne was called upon to make a speech. Not a man to waste words, he simply said, “All I can say is that the work has been well done in every way.”
Seven months later, on June 28, 1886, the first passenger train, the Pacific Express, left Montreal for the Pacific Coast. The 150 passengers lucky enough to be on board were entertained by local bands, fireworks and bonfires as the train passed through towns along the way. Travelling at an average speed of 33 kilometres per hour, it covered the distance of some 4700 kilometres in 5 days and 19 hours — and reached Port Moody on time, sharp at 12:00 noon. As one passenger remarked, “A pretty good showing.”
Port Moody’s role as the Pacific terminus of the transcontinental railway was short-lived. A 12-mile extension to the line, completed in May, 1887, gave that distinction to a new city — a “promising plucky little metropolis” known as Vancouver.
With the completion of the railway came the opening of the west. Attracted by advertisements calling the vast prairies “the last best west,” and by the government’s promise of cheap land, thousands of immigrants from Britain, Europe and elsewhere streamed into Canada. Many went west to find farmland or to raise cattle. Others sought employment in the forests and fisheries of B.C.
Trains continually crossed the country, carrying passengers and freight, bringing people to the land and taking raw materials and manufactured items to faraway customers. With trains to carry mail, and the telegraph system built alongside the railway, people were able to communicate as never before. Trade flourished. New wealth poured in. Towns grew up around railway stations. Major cities were founded, including Sudbury, Regina, Calgary and Vancouver.
Thousands of men laboured to build the Canadian Pacific Railway, from Canadians, Americans and British to Germans, Italians and Chinese. Their work, “well done in every way,” saw the realization of a dream that not only played a major role in building a strong Canada in the early years of Confederation, but also helped shape the nation into what it is today.
Images and Documents
Image 1: A poster advertising the Canadian Pacific Railway as the primary connection between eastern and western Canada.
Image 2: The high walls of the Fraser Canyon, showing the Cariboo Wagon Road (at lower right) and the town of Yale in the distance.
Image 3: The town of Yale, B.C., about 1886.
Image 4: The schoolhouse in Yale looked very much like this school/town hall in Richmond, B.C., built in 1880.
Image 5: Pages from a primer. Primers were used by young students who were just beginning to read.
Image 6: Preparation of the roadbed before track is laid. This location is at Sailor Bar Bluff, about 12 kilometres above Yale.
Image 7: Workers blasting a path through the mountains. This painting of an explosion is by noted Canadian artist C. W. Jefferys.
Image 8: This 1886 photograph shows an empty ballast train crossing the cantilever bridge spanning the Fraser River at Cisco Flat, 220 kilometres east of Port Moody.
Image 9: A Chinese work crew during construction of the CPR. Because of the many deaths and injuries to these workers, some Chinese called Hell’s Gate “The Slaughter Pen.”
Image 10: Donald Smith, a prominent CPR official, driving the last spike in Craigellachie, B.C. This joined the tracks coming from the east to those built by Andrew Onderdonk’s crews, and completed the 4700-kilometre-long Canadian Pacific Railway.
Image 11: A telegram sent by W.C. Van Horne, the CPR’s General Manager, from Craigellachie, B.C., to Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, stating that the tracks for the Canadian Pacific Railway have been completed. (Note Van Horne’s unusual spelling: Craigelleaichie.)
Image 12: The arrival of the first train at Port Moody, at noon on July 4, 1886.
Image 13: Two transcontinental trains, the Pacific Express and the Atlantic Express, meeting at Rogers Pass. The Pacific will reach Port Moody in less than a day. The Atlantic will reach Montreal in 4 days. By noted Canadian painter of historic steam locomotives, Wentworth Folkins.
Image 14: Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald and Lady Agnes Macdonald (standing at upper left), on their way west to the Pacific after the completion of the CPR.
Image 15: The section of track through the Fraser Canyon, and especially Hell’s Gate, was one of the most difficult the railway crews had to complete.
Image 16: The Canadian Pacific Railway stretching from sea to sea — from Vancouver on Canada’s west coast, to the St. Lawrence River in the east. Tracks also ran farther east to the Atlantic.
Credits
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following:
Cover portrait: John Everett Millais, Bright Eyes (detail), 1877, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums.
Cover background: Wentworth Folkins, The Transcontinentals Meet at Rogers Pass (detail), courtesy of Heritage Art Editions Inc.
Image 1: Canadian Pacific Archives, A.6408.
Image 2: Canadian Pacific Archives, A.11519.
Image 3: Canadian Pacific Archives, A.11625.
Image 4: City of Vancouver Archives, OUT P254 N100.
Image 5: from Canadian Readers Primer 2, published by Gage Education; image courtesy of the Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria, British Columbia.
Image 6: Canadian Pacific Archives, ns25761.
Image 7: C. W. Jefferys, Railway Building/The Pathmakers, 1912, University of Lethbridge Art Collections. Reproduced with permission of the C.W. Jefferys Estate Archive.
Image 8: Canadian Pacific Archives, A.11416.
Image 9: B.C. Archives, D-07548.
Image 10: Canadian Pacific Archives, NS. 1960.
Image 11: Canadian Pacific Archives, A.93.
Image 12: Canadian Pacific Archives, ns. 19991.
Image 13: Wentworth Folkins, The Transcontinentals Meet at Rogers Pass, courtesy of Heritage Art Editions Inc.
Image 14: Canadian Pacific Archives, NS. 10217.
Images 15 and 16: Maps by Paul Heersink/Paperglyphs. Map data © 2000 Government of Canada with permission from Natural Resources Canada.
Thanks to Barbara Hehner for her careful checking of the manuscript, and to Robert Turner, author of West of the Great Divide, for sharing both his historical expertise and his own fascination with trains.
In memory of my parents, Jean and Charles Goodwin, and my CPR grandparents, John and Lydia Anderson — for all my early journeys on the railway.
Acknowledgements
An enormous thank you to: Bruce Mason and Susan Baerg of the Yale and District Historical Society; P.C. Townsend, who allowed the Yale reminiscences of his relative, Elizabeth Tatlow, to be forwarded to me; Stephen Lyons of Canadian Pacific Archives; the staff at British Columbia Provincial Archives; Lorne Hammond, Curator in History at the Royal B.C. Museum; Shirley Cuthbertson, Curator in History (Retired) at the Royal
B.C. Museum; and my husband, Patrick, whose encouragement kept me on track right through to the figurative “last spike.”
Other sources that proved invaluable: Henry and Self and By Snowshoe, Buckboard and Steamer, books by Kathryn Bridge that include the accounts of young women living or travelling in the Fraser Canyon area in the 1880s; Onderdonk’s Way, a website that focusses on the building of the CPR in the Fraser Canyon; Michael Hagan’s newspaper, The Inland Sentinel, for information on the progress of the railway, day-to-day events and weather reports for the period covered by Kate’s diary.
About the Author
Julie Lawson has travelled by train all through the area where Kate’s story is set, “many times — and always in awe. What an extraordinary accomplishment, to build that railway.” Her husband, Patrick, is a railway enthusiast who publishes articles and drawings (plans for locomotives, cars, stations, bridges) in model railroad magazines. Julie says she has spent many holidays “alongside the CPR tracks in the Fraser Canyon, waiting for trains to appear, for those perfect photo opportunities.” In fact, until recently, her “entire basement was taken up by an enormous HO scale model layout of the Fraser Canyon, all constructed by Patrick. Miles of track, trains, tunnels, bridges, forests, cliffs and river — it was all there, even the maintenance crews. If it had been a historical layout rather than a contemporary one,” she adds, “Kate would have been there, too.”