Rails Across Canada

Rails across Canada American Museum of Natural History American Museum of Natural History Rails across Canada On the rails 1 Vancouver-Kamloops • Kamloops-Jasper • Jasper-Edmonton; Edmonton-Winnipeg • Winnipeg-Sudbury • Sudbury-Montreal Canadian basics 37 Government • Population • Language • Time zones • Metric system • Media • Taxes • Food • Separatist movement Early Canada 41 Petroglyphs and pictographs • The buffalo jump at Wanuskewin • Ancient and modern indigenous cultures Modern history: Cartier to Chrêtien 49 Chronology • The fur traders: Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company • Railway history: The building of the transcontinental railway; The Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad & Canadian National Railways Index 68 On the rails Jasper Edmonton Kamloops Vancouver Saskatoon Winnipeg Thunder Bay Montreal Fort Frances Ottawa 2 • Rails across Canada Vancouver to Kamloops Vancouver Contrary to all logic, Vancouver is not on Vancouver Island. Instead, it sits beau- tifully on a mainland peninsula with the ocean before it and the Rockies behind. Its mild climate and inspiring scenery may have contributed a good deal to the laid-back demeanor of its inhabitants, who, Canadians are fond of saying, are more Californian in their outlook than Canadian. Vancouver's view out towards the Pacific is appropriate, for the last two decades "British Columbia is its own ineffable self have seen an extraordinary influx of investment and immigration from the Orient, because it pulls the protective blanket notably Hong Kong. Toronto and the Prairies are much further away, to Van- of the Rockies over its head couver's way of thinking, than are Sydney or Seoul. Vancouver is Canada's third and has no need to look out. " largest city, after Toronto and Montreal, and the country's busiest port. Alan Fotheringham, Maclean's Magazine 1996 Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, the most heavily settled area of British Co- lumbia was its northwest coast. The tribes from this region (conveniently known as the Northwest Coast Indians) enjoyed one of the highest standards of living of their time, benefitting from a relatively mild climate, a forest rich in edible plants, fruits and nuts, and an endless supply of Pacific salmon. The Europeans explored the province from the sea as well as from the interior. Francis Drake is believed to have sighted the coast during his around-the-world voyage of 1579. In the 18th century Spanish ships sailed north from California, and Russians travelled southwards from Alaska. Captain James Cook made a thorough exploration of the coast in 1778, trading Chinese china for Indian pelts at great profit on Vancouver Island. The success of this venture brought the inevi- table British delegation to claim the land for the king. This was accomplished by Captain George Vancouver, a midshipman on Cook's expedition, who went on to map virtually the entire coast between 1792 and 1794. The exploitation of British Columbia for its furs began in earnest with the establishment of trading posts by the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, those two rival fur trading empires which play such a tremendous role in the making of Canada. The difficulties associated with the tremendous distance between this new colony and Britain's more easterly possessions led to the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway's transcontinental line in 1885. As you roll out of Vancouver, you'll be entering the wide and lush Fraser Valley. This is the delta of the Fraser River, a flat region of diked flood plains almost reminiscent of the Netherlands, but with the surprise twist of mountain peaks as a backdrop. Over a 50 million year period the Fraser River brought rich soil into the valley from the interior, burying its rock floor until it lay almost a mile beneath the present surface. Between Hope and Boston Bar lies the Fraser Canyon gorge, or 'Forty Miles of Hell !' as its early visitors must have called it. When Simon Fraser arrived here in 1808, he found the local inhabitants using ladders to circumvent the gorge, sensi- bly not wanting to risk their canoes in its whirlpools. His explorations and those of fellow Nor'wester David Thompson did much to expand fur trading activities in the area and, later, settlement, but it was the Fraser Valley Gold Rush beginning in 1858 that set off the area's development in earnest. Few of those streaming into Rails across Canada • 3 0 25 50 75 100 kilometres 0 25 50 75 100 miles B R I T I S Hý C O L U M B I A McAbee SavonaJaleslieý r Walhachi e v Ashcroftý i Basque R Martel r e s a ad r lro F ai ný Pitquahý R Seddall . Lashaý C . Spence's Bridge B Cisco Conradý Falls Creeký Inkitsaphý Strait of Georgia Martinsoný Bungalow R.ý Boston Barý m Harrison e t Hicksý ys Lake S Komoý l i a R Stoutý P NEW WESTMINSTERý C Yaleý (VANCOUVER) Trafalgar D Maps throughout this handbook are adapted ý ope from the Railway Association of Canada's Atlas of Canadian Railways CANADA Glen Valleyý Pageý Chilliwacký Matsqui Jct.ý Cheam Viewý (Montreal, 1996) Abbotsford Rosedale Floods U.S Sumas Mtn.ý Arnold H .A VANCOUVER ISLAN . W A S H I N G T O N British Columbia made their fortunes in gold, but many stayed to farm in an area billed by one transportation company as "unequalled for its beauty and salubrity of climate." To accommodate the thousands of gold-seekers pouring into the region, the Cariboo Road from Yale to Barkerville was completed in 1865. In 1915 a second transcontinental railway line to Vancouver was constructed, this one by the Canadian Northern Pacific Company. It was later amalgamated into the Canadian National Railway system. This is the line you will be following across Canada. The CPR and CNR tracks parallel each other for most of the distance to Kam- Mileage markers loops, usually on opposite sides of rivers and canyons. Interchanges have been Points of interest along the rail lines are built in a number of spots, allowing the trains to switch tracks if a rock slide or listed with a mile number. The numbers avalanche blocks the way - not infrequent in either the Fraser or the Thompson coincide with those on the little white valleys. The threat of these natural disasters accounts for the number of slide rectangular mileage markers on posts by the detectors, tunnels and bridges along the rail route. The stretch between Boston Bar side of the track. The markers tell you how and Kamloops alone boasts some 4.5 miles of slide detector fences, 28 bridges and far you've travelled within a subdivision, which is a length of track punctuated by 23 tunnels and snowsheds. what's called a railway divisional point (usually an intersection of two rail lines). BRITISH COLUMBIA Each subdivision starts at mile 0 and runs east to west or south to north. Subdivisions can be up to 300 miles long (on older rail For the first 60 miles out of Vancouver, the train carries you through lines they were set at a maximum of 125 the fertile landscape of the Fraser Delta and the wide Fraser Val- miles, which was the average distance a ley. Dutch farmers who settled along the river in 1848 built dikes, steam locomotive could travel in 12 hours). which created tracts of low-lying land on the marshy floodplains that Although the markers measure distances resemble the 'polders' of the Netherlands. Dairy farms and orchards from east to west, the same numbers are are framed by the mountains, with several waterfalls to complete the used on the eastbound tracks. picture. You'll notice stands of black cottonwood and the distinc- 4 • Rails across Canada British Columbia is Canada's third largest tively gnarled coast maple. The Fraser River is named for Simon Fraser province in surface area (366,000 square who in 1808 followed the 850-mile course of the river from its origin in miles), and also comes third in terms of the Trident Range to its mouth on the Pacific Coast. population. About 70% of the land is covered Mile 87 in stunning but uninhabitable mountains, so the Watch for the white cone of Mount Baker, 10,778 feet high and 40 miles vast majority of British Columbians live in the away in Washington State. Across the river, Mission was settled in 1862 southwest corner of the province. These are a by a Roman Catholic priest who sought to convert the Indians. Silverdale, diverse lot, from the very-very British in also on the opposite bank, was the site of Canada's first train robbery: Victoria, to the lumberjacks of the interior, the American Bill Minor and two accomplices boarded the westbound train cosmopolitan crowd of Vancouver and vibrant in Mission City on the evening of September 10, 1904. They stopped the Haida, Kwakiutl and Nootka bands of the train at Silverdale, left the passenger cars behind and quite ingeniously northern coast. It's interesting to note that drove off with the locomotive and the baggage/parcel car. The robbery almost half the people living in B.C. went off without a hitch and the three netted $7,000. Two years later were born elsewhere. Miner tried again, stopping a CPR train near Kamloops. This time, he British Columbia produces almost a quarter of and his two cohorts unfortunately uncoupled the wrong car and inside the marketable timber in North America (it supplies the world with chopsticks). Forestry found only $15 and a bottle of liver pills. On top of it, two of their horses is its largest industry, followed by mining and ran off, and the three had to make their getaway on a single animal.

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