The romance of the Canadian Pacific Railway

by R. G. MacBeth

As we have followed the story of railway construction across the continent, over the North Shore, athwart the vast plains and on into the mountains, our eyes have been on the Western sea. It was to win and hold the illimitable spaces of the North-West that the Canadian Pacific was first conceived, and it was specially to link up British Columbia with her sister Provinces to the east that the iron horses were being driven on steel trails to drink on the sunset shore of Canada.

But we must always keep in mind the fact that this railway was to be transcontinental in its extent, and that it was down by the Atlantic, first of all, that men who saw visions and dreamed dreams forecasted its great destiny by land and sea. They saw it spanning the continent, continuing across the Pacific, and finally, under one system, girdling the globe. Others, earlier, made conjectures and expressed vague hopes, but the most clear and confident note of prophecy was sounded by Joseph Howe at Halifax, in 1851, in the famous speech quoted in our first chapter. Later, in the old Province of Quebec, where in a sense Confederation was first definitely outlined at the Conference of the Fathers of Confederation in 1864, this prophetic note was taken up and rendered more emphatic. Thus were the Atlantic statesmen planning ahead.

Moreover, it is interesting to recall that it was Mr. Sanford Fleming, the engineer of the Intercolonial, peculiarly an Atlantic Railway, who was called on to explore a railroad way to the Pacific. It was his secretary on that expedition, the brilliant and versatile Rev. (later Principal) George Munro Grant, then of Halifax, who made the expression “Ocean to Ocean” current coin in Canada, by publishing a book under that title. And still another Halifax writer, Robert Murray, immortalized the expression, by composing a remarkable hymn with the same designation. Thus were the oceans early linked prophetically by patriotic seers and mystics.

Just now I am looking at the realization of these dreams as portrayed in a unique picture which ought to be found on the wall of every school in Canada. This picture is commonly called “Driving the last spike,” and to the superficial observer, unacquainted with the history of the Canadian Pacific, it means simply the act of joining together the steel rails which met at a given point in the mountains, as the track-layers, working from East and West, finished their protracted task. But, in reality, it means much more than a single isolated act along the progress of the years. It is a composite deed into which is merged and concentrated a long series of astonishing achievements wrought by men of brain and brawn. It represents many mental, moral and physical forces converging into a climax which could only have been attained by the persistent, determined efforts of those who believed that obstacles are thrown in life’s pathway in order that men may wax strong through the overcoming of them.

In this picture, “Driving the Last Spike,” there is nothing to suggest “the shouting of captains and garments rolled in blood.” But for those who will study and enquire, it holds the story of victory snatched from the jaws of defeat, by a gallant constructive army whose mission was not to destroy but to build, for the welfare of a nation and lands beyond its borders. That is why I say it should be on the walls of our schoolrooms, in order that teachers might relate to young Canadians the story of an amazing accomplishment on the fields of peace.

Just how amazing and how dangerous was the task of building through certain parts of the mountains, not far from the scene portrayed in the picture, may be gathered from the experiences of the engineering staff. As I am writing I recall that Mr. Noel Robinson, a Vancouver newspaper man who deserves much credit for his work in connection with the work of old-timers, elicited once from Mr. Henry J. Cambie, who put the road through the Fraser River canyons, a few words on the subject. Mr. Robinson says: “In response to some pressure as to the difficulty of laying out the work—apart altogether from the difficulties of construction—Mr. Cambie admitted that these were great. Mr. Cambie spoke particularly of the Cherry Bluffs section, and said that quite a stretch of it was laid out by a few men, as there was only room for a few to work. Two agile men, with experience on sailing vessels, sprung ropes from rock to rock or from tree to tree. Then a few engineers, steadying themselves with these ropes, went along in their bare feet to lay out the work, with a precipice and then Kamloops Lake, of unknown depth, down below them. Mr. Cambie admitted that he was one of these engineers. One of the engineers, Mr. Melchior Eberts, in 1881, while climbing over a bluff covered with snow and ice, slipped and fell head first down a steep slope, to his death.” Speaking of the difficulties, Mr. Cambie went on to say: “We had to increase the curvature beyond anything we had ever seen up to that time on a main line of railway, and in order to get round the face of some of the bluffs we had to construct what we called grasshopper trestles, that is, trestles with long posts on the outside, standing on steps cut in the rock, and on the other side a very short post, if any, because very often we had half a road-bed. These things have since been done away with and their places taken by retaining walls.” In my own conversation with Mr. Cambie he has spoken to me feelingly about the loss of life through the canyons of the Fraser during construction days. Practically all the work was through rock which had to be dynamited in places where it was very difficult to get shelter when shots were fired. Men were drowned also here and there along the river. Thus again we are reminded that this battle in time of peace was only won, like other battles, by great sacrifice. These are things we must never forget when we enjoy the results of the struggles of others in our own or earlier days.

The spot at which the last spike was driven was named Craigellachie, as already intimated. The story of the name has not always been correctly told in this connection, beyond saying that the word was sent as a cablegram from Stephen to his fellow-directors in a crisis hour to encourage them not to give way, though the position seemed hopeless at the time. The expression is in reality not one word, but two, Craig Ellachie. This was the name of a grey rock in a Scottish glen, the home of a famous clan. And the legend is that when the clansmen went forth to war, the windswept pines and heather on the lonely hilltop whispered to the forth-going men the war-cry “Stand Fast, Craig Ellachie.” And now, in a new land, at a place where rails met through the steadfast persistence of these Scottish men and others, the mountains heard the echoing blow of the hammer which is in the forefront of the picture, “Driving the Last Spike.” Contrary to a general impression, created by the importance of the occasion and by some writers, the last spike was not of gold, but iron, like the other millions of them that had been driven all along the line. The event itself was so intensely dramatic that it needed not any conventional setting to give it éclat. Mr. Van Horne, who was not disposed to waste in any case, perhaps felt that iron was more significant of the spirit in which determined men had accomplished the apparently impossible. And so he had said in a matter of fact way, which was in itself abundantly thrilling: “The last spike will be as good an iron spike as there is between the two oceans, and any one who wants to see it driven will have to pay full fare.” The Directors who had passed through the fierce fire of the economic struggle to build the road could not afford, without a sort of sacrilege, to have anything conventional to bring people from the ends of the earth for the occasion. There was grim, but splendid, simplicity about the ceremony that was profoundly appropriate under all the circumstances.

It was on November 7th, 1885, that the rails met in the Eagle Pass section of the road, and a group of men alighted from the train to be present when the last spike would be driven. By general concensus of opinion, the hammer to drive it was placed in the hands of Donald A. Smith. It was a great honour, but worthily bestowed on the white-haired veteran and victor in a hundred fights against obstacles. It was a far cry from the little village of Forres, in Morayshire, to the way station of Craigellachie in the mountains of Canada. But Donald A. Smith, the lad who had left Forres with all his worldly possessions in a carpet bag, and endured cold and snow-blindness in the Labrador till he rose to the higher places in the Hudson’s Bay Company, had now come to stand on Canada’s pioneer transcontinental steel trail and drive the spike that would link up, into a true Confederation, the scattered Provinces of the Dominion.

Mr. Smith had not done much manual labour in recent years. But he was no stranger to physical toil. While in Labrador he had run with his dog trains in winter, and in summer cultivated an astonishing garden and farm, which was a surprise to all who visited the bleak locality. So, despite the years that had elapsed since that time, Smith swung the sledge hammer with a will that day, and the iron spike was driven home to forge a new link of Empire. I have been listening in imagination to the echoes of the hammer-blow through the passes and along the mountain sides, and thence around the seven seas of the Empire. For this was a right royal event, which evoked swift messages from good Queen Victoria, the Marquis of Lorne, and many others who recognized the enormous Imperial significance of what had taken place in the heart of the great mountains under the Red Cross flag. And the day would come when a great war was to break suddenly over the face of the world. In that day of the Empire’s danger she would realize, even more vividly, the value of this Canadian transcontinental road which, by the time of that war, had transformed the Middle West of Canada from a wilderness into a vast storehouse of food supplies. In that day of war the Canadian Pacific would transport by land and sea hundreds of thousands of soldiers and labourers to the sphere of conflict, and, from its own employees, would furnish for the safety of the Empire not only a large quota of fighting men, but some of the most expert railway builders and transportation officers in the world. All this was wrapped up potentially in the thrilling incident of driving the last spike at Craigellachie.

So once more I look at the picture. The camera could not take in a large group, but it is representative in some fair degree of the men who made the event of that day possible. Tracklayers and sectionmen, engineers and contractors, superintendents and Directors, and others, were present, for they all had a share in the victory. Some of them I can pick out in the crowd; others are to me unknown. Some one, whose face is hidden by a bystander, is holding Donald A. Smith’s overcoat, for the veteran had taken it off in order to swing the hammer in workmanlike fashion. The tall figure of Mr. Sandford Fleming, his beard and hair white with the snows that never melt, is conspicuous near the foreground. He will be remembered as the engineer-in-chief who blazed the way through the mountains in the early days, and who, though not then on the staff as engineer, was called from the Old Country in 1883 to help in finding a way through the Selkirks. After retiring from the engineering staff he became a Director of the Company and so remained to the end of a distinguished and highly useful life. Other engineers whom I see in the group are Marcus Smith, a quite remarkable man who had general charge of the Coast section; Major Rogers, the famed finder of Roger’s Pass through the Selkirks; and Henry J. Cambie, who put the railway through the Fraser River canyons, one of the most picturesque, but one of the most difficult, portions along the line. Van Horne did not always love the engineers, whose care in location did not entirely chime in with his ideas of speed in building. But after letting them know his mind in emphatic language, he recognized the sphere of their responsibility, and, after discussing other possible ways, let them have their way if they made out a case. The three above named were near enough to be present at Craigellachie on that eventful day, but they represented a band of very gallant men in the same vocation—men who often ventured their lives in the dangerous places they were investigating. Representing the contractors, who were a legion, we find in the group James Ross, who had much building to do in the mountain section, and who had witnessed many difficulties in dealing with a large army of men of many nationalities. Generally speaking it can be said that the contractors gave themselves with enthusiasm to their work, and the Canadian Pacific was the training school for a host of young Canadians in the business of railway building. In after years many of these men became famous in railway work. Their ambitions, begotten and intensified by their experience on the pioneer transcontinental road, led them into very large enterprises of their own in the same line. Some of their undertakings were premature, in view of Canada’s population, but some day they will enure to the benefit of the country.