The Golden Spike Days Festival is an annual family festival held in Rocky Point Park, Port Moody, British Columbia. The festival commemorates the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway to the city and the Confederation of Canada. The festival includes many live musical performances, dancers, parades, comedians, rides, and food shops. This festival attracts an average of 40,000 people every year. The first Golden Spike Days Festival was held in 1976.
A decades-old tradition in the Tri-Cities area, the Golden Spike Days Festival recognizes the heritage contribution of the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Barkerville Gold Rush to Port Moody as the true Western Terminus of the cross-Canada CPR line. [1]
The festival organized and planned by the Port Moody Golden Spike Days Society, a registered not for profit. The volunteer board of directors meets and plans the event starting in September to the festival. [2]
British Columbia is the westernmost province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, forests, lakes, mountains, inland deserts and grassy plains. British Columbia borders the province of Alberta to the east; the territories of Yukon and Northwest Territories to the north; the U.S. states of Washington, Idaho and Montana to the south, and Alaska to the northwest. With an estimated population of over 5.6 million as of 2024, it is Canada's third-most populous province. The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, while the province's largest city is Vancouver. Vancouver and its suburbs together make up the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada, with the 2021 census recording 2.6 million people in Metro Vancouver. British Columbia is Canada's third-largest province in terms of total area, after Quebec and Ontario.
The Canadian Pacific Railway, also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited, known until 2023 as Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001.
Thunder Bay is a city in and the seat of Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada. It is the most populous municipality in Northwestern Ontario and the second most populous municipality in Northern Ontario; its population is 108,843 according to the 2021 Canadian Census. Located on Lake Superior, the census metropolitan area of Thunder Bay has a population of 123,258 and consists of the city of Thunder Bay, the municipalities of Oliver Paipoonge and Neebing, the townships of Shuniah, Conmee, O'Connor, and Gillies, and the Fort William First Nation.
New Westminster is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It was founded by Major-General Richard Moody as the capital of the Colony of British Columbia in 1858 and continued in that role until the Mainland and Island colonies were merged in 1866. It was the British Columbia Mainland's largest city from that year until it was passed in population by Vancouver during the first decade of the 20th century.
Coquitlam is a city in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada. Mainly suburban, Coquitlam is the sixth-largest city in the province, with a population of 148,625 in 2021, and one of the 21 municipalities comprising Metro Vancouver. The mayor is Richard Stewart.
Port Coquitlam is a city in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of 21 municipalities comprising Metro Vancouver. Located 27 km (17 mi) east of Vancouver, it is on the north bank of the confluence of the Fraser River and the Pitt River. Coquitlam borders it to the north and west. Pitt Meadows lies across the Pitt River from it. Port Coquitlam is bisected by Lougheed Highway and the Canadian Pacific Kansas City railway. Port Coquitlam is often referred to as "PoCo". It is Canada's 93rd-largest municipality by population.
The golden spike is the ceremonial 17.6-karat gold final spike driven by Leland Stanford to join the rails of the first transcontinental railroad across the United States connecting the Central Pacific Railroad from Sacramento and the Union Pacific Railroad from Omaha on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory. The term last spike has been used to refer to one driven at the usually ceremonial completion of any new railroad construction projects, particularly those in which construction is undertaken from two disparate origins towards a common meeting point. The spike is now displayed in the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University.
Andrew Onderdonk was an American construction contractor who worked on several major projects in the West, including the San Francisco seawall in California and the Canadian Pacific Railway in British Columbia. He was born in New York City to an established ethnic Dutch family. He received his education at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Port Moody is a city in British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It envelops the east end of Burrard Inlet and is the smallest of the Tri-Cities, bordered by Coquitlam on the east and south and by Burnaby on the west. The villages of Belcarra and Anmore, along with the rugged Coast Mountains, lie to the northwest and north, respectively. It is named for Richard Clement Moody, the first lieutenant governor of the Colony of British Columbia.
Burrard Inlet is a shallow-sided fjord in the northwestern Lower Mainland, British Columbia, Canada. Formed during the last Ice Age, it separates the City of Vancouver and the rest of the lowland Burrard Peninsula to the south from the coastal slopes of the North Shore Mountains, which span West Vancouver and the City and District of North Vancouver to the north.
Rocky Point Park, also known as Rocky Point, is situated along Burrard Inlet in Port Moody, British Columbia, next to the PoMo Museum. It is 3.8 hectares in size, and is the most well-known park in Port Moody.
POMO Museum is owned and operated by the Port Moody Heritage Society and is part of their effort to promote increased awareness and knowledge of Port Moody, British Columbia's heritage and history.
The Tri-Cities are an informal grouping of the three adjacent suburban cities of Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, and Port Moody, along with the two villages of Anmore and Belcarra in the northeast sector of Metro Vancouver in British Columbia. Combined, these five communities had a population of 246,701 residents in 2021.
Port Moody station was a stop on the West Coast Express commuter rail line connecting Vancouver to Mission, British Columbia, Canada. The station was located on the south side of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) tracks in Port Moody, at the north foot of Williams Street, approximately 200 metres (660 ft) north of St. John's Street. The station opened in 1995, when the West Coast Express began operating. All services were operated by TransLink.
Inlet Centre is a below-grade station on the Millennium Line of Metro Vancouver's SkyTrain rapid transit system. It is located in Port Moody, British Columbia, Canada and opened for service on December 2, 2016, along with the rest of the Evergreen Extension.
This is a timeline of the history of Vancouver.
CentrePort Canada is a tri-modal dry port and Foreign Trade Zone located partly in northwest Winnipeg, Manitoba and partly in the Rural Municipality of Rosser, and situated adjacent to the Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport (YWG). With 20,000 acres (81 km2) of industrial land, it is the largest tri-modal inland port and foreign trade zone in North America.
Moody Centre station is an intermodal rapid transit station in Metro Vancouver served by both the Millennium Line—part of the SkyTrain system—and the region's West Coast Express commuter rail system. It is located in Port Moody, British Columbia, on the south side of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) tracks, at the north foot of Williams Street, approximately 200 metres (660 ft) north of St. John's Street.
Rick Glumac is a software engineer, environmentalist, and Canadian politician, who was elected to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in the 2017 provincial election by defeating one-term Liberal Party MLA Linda Reimer.
Bonita M. Zarrillo is a Canadian politician and is the Member of Parliament for Port Moody—Coquitlam elected in the 2021 Canadian federal election. She had previously narrowly lost the riding in 2019 to the Conservative Party's Nelly Shin. Zarrillo is a member of the New Democratic Party. Prior to her election to the House of Commons, she served as a city councillor for Coquitlam City Council.