The Canadian Pacific Railway and British Columbia 1871
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THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY AND BRITISH COLUMBIA 1871 - 1886 hy Arthur J. Johnson A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment, of the requirements for the degree_of Master of Arts in the Department of History > The University of British Columbia September, 1936 THE CANADIAH PACIFIC RAILWAY AND BRITISH COLUMBIA 1871 - 1886 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chap. Page I. British Columbia and the Conception of the Canadian Pacific Railway. 1 II. Railway Difficulties 1871 - 1881 ..... ... 28 III, Location of the Mainline of the Canadian Pacific Railway in British Columbia. 63 IV. Government Construction — Port Moody "tO S 3/V" O fl ct S J. G 000000000000000000000000000000 HI V. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company, the Change of Route and Construction in the 1^0 U.l'l'fc 3Lj\. XX 3 ooooo«o«*9o»s«o*oo*so0ft««0ooea»D«»0OO0 148 Map of British Columbia showing the eleven routes projected by Sandford Fleming in 1877 and the route adopted by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company ^r&S"- ^ £ 11D 1 X O ££I*SL]phy 0000000*000000000000000000000000000 183^ CHAPTER I BRITISH COLUMBIA AND THE CONCEPTION OF THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY One ef the most remarkable aspects of the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway was that it reversed the re• lationship which a railway normally bears to population. 1 Usually a commercial railway is built to centres of popula• tion, or failing this optimum, it is built where population is. growing or flowing. The Canadian Pacific Railway was based on neither of these population requirements. It was construc• ted through the barren country north of Lake Superior and west across an almost uninhabited prairie to the Province of British Columbia which had, at the time the railway waa con• ceived, a population of less than 10,000 white inhabitants. Unlike all the overland railways built In the United States of America, which sought centres of population on the Pacific such, as San Francisco, Portland and Taeoma, the Canadian Pacific sought a narrow inlet where there was no city and very little settlement. Since It was built for 2,000 miles through country which seemed to offer but very little traffic the Canadian Pacific Railway has always been considered a very bold enter• prise; at the time of its conception the project was vocifer• ously branded as foolhardy. The critics of the project — 1. The Northern Pacific and Great Northern Railways may be considered with the Canadian Pacific as outstanding exceptions. - 2 - and they were many -- could see nothing but bankruptcy and failure in the undertaking. But the critics were proved wrong by the completion of the line and its subsequent prosperity. Their miscalcula• tions were largely due to the fact that they placed too much emphasis on the barrenness of the prairies and the many moun-> tains of British Columbia and underestimated the great poten• tial wealth of the Canadian West. They failed to see that the possible development of the great resources of the North-West and British Columbia was ample justification for building a railway to the Pacific. Fortunately for the Canadian Dominion the opponents of the Pacific railway project were of relatively little im• portance. The Railway was built, although after some years of delay, by those who had imagination and foresight enough to conjure a vision of a prosperous and populated Dominion from Atlantic to Pacific. The economic development of the Canadian West was to be an important factor in the success of the road, and the possibility of this valuable development was not un• foreseen by those who conceived and built the Canadian Pacific Railway. For this reason, British Columbia, though only a part of the western territory which the Canadian Pacific Railway was built to save and develop for the new Canadian nation of 1867, was of great importance in bringing the numerous projects and dreams of an all-British route across the North American continent to a final realization. Her history and development 3 "before the beginning of the railway must be considered to understand why Canada and the Canadian Pacific Railway Com• pany were willing to take the great risk of building a rail• way into an undeveloped country, and why it was an agreement between, the new Canadian Federation and a poor and sparsely populated Pacific colony that began the difficult history of the Canadian Pacific Railway. British Columbia first became of importance because 1. of her great wealth in fur-bearing animals. The sea-otter and. the beaver brought men half way round the world and across the American continent to her coast. From 1821 to 1858 the. Hudson's Bay Company, taking up the work of the maritime and North West Fur Traders, laid the beginnings of a new British Colony on the Pacific. The Company's servants attracted atten• tion not only to furs but also to the great resources of the country, minerals, fish and lumber. Agriculture became of some importance in maintaining the fur-posts; barrels of dried salmon were exported, and timbers cut by saw-mills built by the Company entered into the trade of the territory. These activities, however, were subsidiary to the fur-trade. They developed not from any deliberate effort to exploit the resources of the country but because they aided in the main- 1. For the early history of British Columbia vide Howay, F.W., British Columbia; the Making of a Province, Toronto, The Ryerson Press, 1928; Howay, F.W. and Scholefield, E.O.S., British Columbia, Vancouver, S.J. Clarke, 1914; Sage, W.H., Sir James Douglas and British Columbia, Toronto, Toronto University Press, 1930, and Scholefield, E.O.S., and Gos• nell, R.E., A History of British Columbia, Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia historical association, 1913. - 4 - tenance of the fur-trade. In addition to pointing to the great wealth of the country, the Hudson's Bay Company developed the first system of communications in the territory, utilizing water transport wherever possible and supplementing it with pack trails and horse brigades. Before the fixing of the international bound• ary along the 49th parallel, by the Oregon treaty of 1846, the principal transport route was the Columbia river into the Okanagon and thence north by horse-brigade to Kamloops and Hew Caledonia. After 1846 the transport, system was reorganized. Victoria On Vancouver Island was established as a depot in place of Fort Vancouver on the Columbia and a new route to the interior was developed up the Fraser to Hope and Yale and thence by trail and horse-brigade through the canyon of the Fraser and the Thompson to Mew Caledonia. The route along the Fraseir river was to prove of great value in the development of the country. At first one of the routes followed by the fur-traders, it became a base for the development of gold mining which followed the discovery of gold in 1856. The same route was followed in 1862 by the builders of the Cariboo Road; and in 1880-1883 the builders of the Canadian Pacific Railway built along the same highway. The Hudson's Bay Company failed, however, to supply the basis of a permanent economy. In the period of its priv• ileged position in British Columbia there was very little settlement, apart from the fur-trade, on either Vancouver Island, which became a crown colony under the Company in 1849, or on the mainland. The lack of settlement was due partly to the policy of the Company, which was opposed to settlement apart from the requirements of the fur-trade, and partly, and more fundamentally, to the fact that the Pacific North-West was far removed from Europe and the east of North America. It could he reached hy sea only via Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. Between Canada and the Pacific coast stood the Rocky Mountains, a wide desolate prairie country and the barren country north of Lake Superior. A more powerfully attractive force was required to people the isolated wilderness of British Columbia than furs and latent resources. Gold in 1858 accomplished what probably no other agent at that time could have done. It peopled Brit• ish Columbia and gave a tremendous Impetus to her economic and political development. The influx of gold-seeking men, principally from the gold fields of California^ forced the Hudson's Bay Company from its privileged position west of the Rocky Mountains and led directly to the establishment of the Crown Colony of British Columbia in 1858; it kindled the interest.of British North America and Great Britain in the Pacific coast; and it presented the new colony with economic problems which were largely responsible for the demand of its inhabitants for improved communications both within her own boundaries and with the outside world. The gold of British Columbia in a very short time attracted thousands of men, principally from California where gold had long been becoming more difficult to find. The move• ment of these men up the Eraser to the gold fields produced a multiplicity of problems. Inevitably the migration of a large "body of men into the wilderness of the interior called for the formation of civil government, the enforcement of law and order, the raising and collection of revenue, the con• struction of roads, trails and bridges, and the exploration and development of the country. Great Britain immediately showed her interest in these new problems of the territory. The Colony of British Columbia was proclaimed with James Douglas as its first Governor. And to aid the new colony in preserving orderly government and executing necessary public works, such as road building, the Colonial Secretary despatch• ed a detachment of the Royal Engineers to the new colony.