Canadian Northern Railway

CANADIAN NORTHERN RAILWAY was founded in 1899 in Manitoba by 2 entrepreneurs, William Mackenzie and Donald Mann. It expanded across the prairies and in 1909 announced its intention to build all the way to the Pacific, using the YELLOWHEAD PASS through the ROCKY MTS and descending to VANCOUVER via the THOMPSON and FRASER river valleys. The BC section was officially called the Canadian Northern Pacific Rwy. The railway was strongly supported by the provincial government of Richard McBRIDE, which guaranteed the company's bonds. The company agreed not to employ any Asians on the project. Construction began at PORT MANN in June 1910 and proceeded up the Fraser Canyon. During the summer of 1912, work in the canyon was disrupted by a strike involving several thousand labourers protesting low wages and poor living conditions in the camps. Joe Hill, balladeer of the INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD, visited the strike and wrote a famous song, "Where the Fraser River Flows," about it. Special police eventually forced the men back to work and the last spike was driven south of ASHCROFT on 23 Jan 1915. The first passenger train from the east arrived in Vancouver on 28 Aug. The railway also built lines on southern VANCOUVER ISLAND. One of these, running north from VICTORIA to Patricia Bay, went into service in 1917. The other, intended to run from Victoria to PORT ALBERNI, was not completed before the Canadian Northern—debilitated by cost overruns, insufficient traffic and the impact of WWI—was nationalized by the federal government in 1918 and folded into the publicly owned CNR. See also LABOUR MOVEMENT.