The Last Spike: The Great Railway, 1881-1885 (2 page)

2. On the Great Divide

3. The Major finds his pass

4. The Prairie Gopher

5. “The loneliness of savage mountains”

FIVE

1. Onderdonk’s lambs

2. “The beardless children of China”

3. Michael Haney to the rescue

4. The
Sentinel
of Yale

SIX

1. The Promised Land

2. The displaced people

3. Prohibition

4. The magical influence

5. George Stephen’s disastrous gamble

6. The CPR goes political

SEVEN

1. The armoured shores of Superior

2. Treasure in the rocks

3. The Big Hill

4. “The ablest railway general in the world”

5. The Pacific terminus

6. Not a dollar to spare

7. The edge of the precipice

EIGHT

1. Eighteen eighty-five

2. Riel: the return of the Messiah

3. “I wish I were well out of it”

4. Marching as to war

5. The cruel journey

NINE

1. A new kind of Canadian

2. Stephen throws in the towel

3. Riot at Beavermouth

4. The eleventh hour

5. A land no longer lonely

6. Craigellachie

AFTERMATH

Chronology

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Maps

The Change of Route: 1881

The Prairie Line: 1881

The Land Boom: 1881–82

Regina: 1882–83

The Selkirks before the
CPR

The Far West before the
CPR

The Rockies before the
CPR

The Onderdonk Contracts

The Prairie Line to 1883

The Line in the East

The Kicking Horse Pass: 1884

Burrard Inlet: 1884–85

The Rogers Pass: 1884–85

The Saskatchewan Rebellion: 1885

The
CPR
in Ontario to 1885

Gaps in the Line: March, 1885

The
CPR
in Quebec in 1885

Drawn by Courtney C. J. Bond

Cast of Major Characters

The Politicians

Sir John A. Macdonald
, Prime Minister of Canada, 1867–73, 1878–91.

Sir Charles Tupper
, Minister of Railways, 1879–84; High Commissioner to London, 1884–96.

John Henry Pope
, Minister of Agriculture, 1878–85; Minister of Railways and Canals, 1885–89. Tupper’s deputy during his absence.

Senator Frank Smith
, Minister without Portfolio, 1882–91. Wholesale grocer and railway executive.

Edward Blake
, Leader of the Liberal opposition, 1880–87.

Edgar Dewdney
, Indian Commissioner, Manitoba and North West Territories, 1879–88; Lieutenant-Governor of the North West Territories, 1881–88.

The CPR Syndicate

George Stephen
, president of the
CPR
, 1881–88. Former president of the Bank of Montreal. He helped Donald Smith and James J. Hill organize the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway in late 70’s.

Duncan McIntyre
, vice-president of the
CPR
, 1881–84. President of the Canada Central Railway.

James J. Hill
, member of the executive committee of the
CPR
, 1881–83. Organized the Great Northern Railroad in the United States.

Richard Bladworth Angus
, member of the executive committee of the
CPR
. Elected vice-president in 1883. Former general manager of the Bank of Montreal.

Donald A. Smith
, Labrador fur trader who rose to become resident governor and Chief Commissioner of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada. A major
CPR
stockholder and a director after 1883.

John S. Kennedy
, New York banker allied with Hill, Stephen, and Smith in the St. Paul railway venture.

The Pathfinders

General Thomas Lafayette Rosser
, chief engineer of the
CPR
, 1881–82; former chief engineer for the Northern Pacific Railroad.

J. H. E. Secretan
, locating engineer, head of a
CPR
survey party on the prairies.

Charles Aeneas Shaw
, locating engineer, head of a
CPR
survey party on the prairies and later in the mountains.

Major A. B. Rogers
, engineer in charge of the mountain division of the
CPR
. Formerly locating engineer for the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad.

Tom Wilson
, packer and guide, friend of Major Rogers.

Henry J. Cambie
, former Canadian government engineer. Engineer for Andrew Onderdonk on Contract 60 in the Fraser Canyon area and later for the
CPR
between Kamloops and Eagle Pass.

Marcus Smith
, the Canadian government’s inspecting engineer on the Onderdonk contract between Port Moody and Emory in British Columbia.

Collingwood Schreiber
, the government’s engineer-in-chief, formerly chief engineer of the government-owned Intercolonial Railway.

The Builders

Alpheus B. Stickney
, general superintendent of the
CPR’S
western division, 1881; formerly superintendent of construction on the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway.

William Cornelius Van Horne
, general manager of the
CPR
, 1882; vice-president and general manager, 1884; president, 1888–99; chairman of the board, 1899–1910. Formerly general superintendent, Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad.

John Egan
, superintendent of the
CPR’S
western division after 1882. Formerly divisional superintendent, Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad.

Thomas Shaughnessy
, general purchasing agent of the
CPR
, 1882–85; assistant general manager, 1885; vice-president and general manager, 1888; president, 1899–1917. Formerly general storekeeper, Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad.

Harry Abbott
, in charge of the eastern section of the
CPR’S
Lake Superior construction.

John Ross
, in charge of the western section of the
CPR’S
Lake Superior construction.

James Ross
, in charge of construction for the
CPR’S
mountain division. Built the Credit Valley Railway, 1878–79.

Andrew Onderdonk
, contractor in charge of government construction between Port Moody and Savona’s Ferry on Kamloops Lake, 1881–85. Also built section of
CPR
line between Savona’s Ferry and Craigellachie in Eagle Pass.

Michael J. Haney
, superintendent of the
CPR’S
Pembina Branch and Rat Portage divisions, 1882. General manager of the Onderdonk section, 1883–85.

The Native Peoples

Louis Riel
, head of the Métis provisional government in Manitoba, 186970, and leader of the Red River uprising. Member of Parliament for Provencher, 1873–74. Leader of the Saskatchewan Rebellion of 1885.

Gabriel Dumont
, Riel’s adjutant general, “the Prince of the Plains,” formed Métis government at St. Laurent, near Batoche on the South Saskatchewan, in 1873. Long-time chief of the Red River buffalo hunts.
Crowfoot
, head chief of the Blackfoot tribes, a noted warrior, veteran of nineteen battles, wounded six times. Refused to join in the rebellion of 1885.

Poundmaker
, a Cree chief, Crowfoot’s adopted son, one of the leaders agitating for concessions from the government for Indians along the North Saskatchewan between 1881 and 1885. Captured and imprisoned for his role in the Saskatchewan Rebellion.

Big Bear
, chief of the Plains Crees, organizer of first Indian council, 1884. His followers precipitated the massacre at Frog Lake during the Saskatchewan Rebellion. His capture on July 2, 1885, signalled the rebellion’s end.

The Bystanders

Sir Henry Whatley Tyler
, president of the Grand Trunk Railway, 187695; British Member of Parliament and engineer. Formerly inspector of railways in Great Britain.

Joseph Hickson
, general manager of the Grand Trunk Railway, 187491.

Sir John Rose
, former head of the British investment house of Morton, Rose and Company. John A. Macdonald’s confidant and unofficial representative in London.

Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt
, Canada’s first high commissioner to London, 1880–83. One of the Fathers of Confederation. Canada’s first minister of finance. A Conservative.

Charles John Brydges
, land commissioner for the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1882–83. Formerly managing director of the Grand Trunk Railway, 1861–74.

Arthur Wellington Ross
, Winnipeg realtor and adviser on real estate matters to the
CPR
. Member of the Manitoba Legislature, 1879–82; Member of Parliament for Lisgar, Manitoba, 1882–96. A Conservative.

Michael Hagan
, editor and publisher, Thunder Bay
Sentinel
, Port Arthur, 1874–79; editor and publisher,
Inland Sentinel
, at Emory, B.C., 1880, Yale, 1881–84, and Kamloops from 1884.

Nicholas Flood Davin
, editor and publisher, the Regina
Leader
, 18831900. Formerly with the
Globe
and the
Mail
, Toronto, and leading British papers. Secretary to the Royal Commission on the
CPR
, 1880–82. Poet and author.

Father Albert Lacombe
,
O.M.I
., roving missionary to the Indians of the western plains. Chaplain to railway navvies, Rat Portage, 1880–82.

Samuel Benfield Steele
, in command of North West Mounted Police detachments along the line of
CPR
construction. Member of the original detachment of the
NWMP
. Acting adjutant of the Fort Qu’Appelle district.

John Macoun
, naturalist. A member of Sandford Fleming’s “ocean to ocean” party, 1872. Explored the prairies for the Canadian government. Appointed botanist to the Geological Survey of Canada in 1882.

The Great Canadian Photograph

The men in the picture are like old friends, even though their names may not be familiar. There they stand in their dark and shapeless clothing, frozen for all time by the camera’s shutter, the flat light of that wet November morning illuminating an obvious sense of occasion as they lean forward to watch a white-bearded old gentleman hammer home an iron railroad spike
.

The setting is spectral. In the background the blurred forms of trees rise like wraiths out of a white limbo. The picture might have been taken anywhere, for there are no identifiable natural features. But, as every school child knows, the time is 1885 and the place is Craigellachie in the mountains of British-Columbia
.

It is not just the school children who know this picture; every Canadian knows it. Banks feature it on calendars; insurance companies reproduce it in advertisements; television documentaries copy it; school pageants reenact it. But who remembers that just seven years before the photograph was taken, Sir John A. Macdonald called that same old gentleman the greatest liar he had ever known and tried to punch him in the nose? Probably very few; but then, the Prime Minister himself forgave and forgot. The old gentleman’s name is Donald A. Smith and here, among the shrouded mountains in a damp clearing bearing a strange Gaelic name, he has managed once again to get himself into the foreground of the picture. That act will link him for all time with the great feat of railroad construction though, in truth, his has not been a major role
.