mackie@watdcsu.UUCP (mackie) (10/09/85)
There are a lot of events in Canadian railroading history being
commemorated this year. November 7, 1985 will be the one hundredth
anniversary of the driving of the last spike at Craigellachie, British
Columbia.
But on this day, 108 years ago, that event was still only a wild
dream. "On the morning of October 9, 1877, the citizens of Winnipeg were
awakened by an unaccustomed fanfare - the shriek of a locomotive
whistle." Pierre Berton, in his two volume chronicle of the building of
the Canadian Pacific Railway, quotes George Ham, a western editor and
"raconteur" who was on the sceen:
"A lone, blanketed Indian standing on the upper bank of the
river looked down rather disdainfully upon the strange iron
thing and the interested crowd of spectators who hailed its
coming. He evinced no enthusiasm but stoically gazed at the
novel scene. What did it portend? To him it might be the dread
thought of the passing of the old life of his race, the
alienation of the stamping grounds of his forefathers, the early
extinction of their God given provider, the buffalo, which for
generations past had furnished the red man with all the
necessities of life . . . whatever he may have thought, this
iron horse actually meant that the wild, free, unrestrained life
of the Indian was nearing its end."
The 'Countess of Dufferin' was the first engine in the Canadian
West. She had to be floated down the river on a barge because the
connecting railway to the U.S. border wasn't finished. Even if it had
been, the "two streaks of rust and a right of way" that made up the St.
Paul and Pacific Railroad from Pembina, Minnesota to St. Paul in the
early 1870's was in no condition to handle traffic. It took an optimist
to describe the trip to the border from St. Paul as "leisurely". "Yet
this was the line that would eventually make Jim Hill, Donald Smith,
Norman Kittson and George Stephen rich beyond their wildest dreams and
gain them both the experience and the money to build the CPR."
Most of the information above comes from the two most interesting
and readable chronicles of railway history that I have read. I strongly
recommend them for anyone interested in Canadian geography or history,
or North American railway building in general. In the early 1970's, Mr.
Berton also produced a mini-series/film version that captured much of the
breathtaking beauty of the scenery through which the railway was built.
The series was rebroadcast over the July 1st holiday weekend this past
summer on the CBC.
references:
The National Dream, Pierre Berton, McClelland and Stewart Limited,
Toronto, 1970.
The Last Spike, Pierre Berton, McClelland and Stewart Limited,
Toronto, 1971.
D. Mulholland University of Waterloo (519) 888-4004