Last Spike (Grand Trunk Pacific Railway)

Last updated November 04, 2019

The Last Spike: Fort Fraser, BC, 1914 GrandTrunkLastSpike.jpg — The Last Spike: Fort Fraser, BC, 1914

The Last Spike of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was driven one mile east of Fort Fraser, British Columbia, Canada on April 7, 1914.

Fort Fraser is an unincorporated community of about 500 people, situated near the base of Fraser Mountain, close to the village municipality of Fraser Lake and the Nechako River. It can be found near the geographical centre of British Columbia, Canada, 44 km (27 mi) west of Vanderhoof on the Yellowhead Highway. Originally established in 1806 as a North West Company fur trading post by the explorer Simon Fraser, it is one of present-day British Columbia's oldest permanent European-founded settlements. The area around the community is also recorded as the site of the first land in British Columbia cultivated by non-First Nations people.

History

The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway commenced construction in British Columbia in 1908. This was one of the most difficult sections of track ever to be laid in North America and would cost approximately $112,000 per mile.^[1] There were two ends of construction, one being built from Prince Rupert, east and one from Winnipeg, Manitoba, west. In British Columbia, the railway had to cope with incredibly difficult terrain, extreme weather conditions and a shortage of workers. For example, the 186-mile (299 km) section of track from Prince Rupert to Hazelton took four years to complete (1908–1912), in part because the construction of the 80-mile (130 km) section from Prince Rupert to the Kitselas Canyon required 12 million pounds (5,400 t) of explosives that were used in the creation of three tunnels that had to be blasted through solid rock.^[2]

Grand Trunk Pacific Railway transport company

The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was an historical Canadian transcontinental railway running from Winnipeg to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, a Pacific coast port. East of Winnipeg the line continued as the National Transcontinental Railway (NTR], running across northern Ontario and Quebec, crossing the St. Lawrence River at Quebec City and ending at Moncton, New Brunswick. The Grand Trunk Railway managed and operated the entire line.

North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered by some to be a northern subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea.

Prince Rupert is a port city in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Its location is on Kaien Island near the Alaskan panhandle. This port city is the land, air, and water transportation hub of British Columbia's North Coast, and has a population of 12,220 people.

The costs of building the railway through the Northern Interior of British Columbia were much higher than the company had projected and disputes with rival town-site holders, especially at Hazelton and Fort George cut even deeper into the company's profits.^[3]

Prince George, British Columbia City in British Columbia, Canada

Prince George is the largest city in northern British Columbia, Canada, with a population of 78,675 ,, and is the province's "Northern Capital." It is situated at the confluence of the Fraser and Nechako rivers, and at the crossroads of Highway 16 and Highway 97.

Then, in 1912, the Grand Trunk Pacific was dealt another blow when its general manager Charles Melville Hays died in the sinking of the Titanic . Despite these obstacles and tragedies, the railway was completed and the vision of Charles Hays was finally realized.

Charles Melville Hays was the president of the Grand Trunk Railway. He began working in the railroad business as a clerk at the age of 17 and quickly rose through the ranks of management to become the General Manager of the Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway. He became Vice-President of that company in 1889 and remained as such until 1896 when he became General Manager of the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) of Canada.

RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died, making the sinking one of modern history's deadliest peacetime commercial marine disasters. RMS Titanic was the largest ship afloat at the time she entered service and was the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line. She was built by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. Thomas Andrews, chief naval architect of the shipyard at the time, died in the disaster.

Ceremony

On April 7, 1914, the Grand Trunk Pacific Last Spike ceremony was held 1.5 kilometres east of Fort Fraser, BC, approximately 135 kilometres west of what is now Prince George.

The president of the Grand Trunk Pacific, Edson J. Chamberlain and Alfred Waldron Smithers, chairman of the board of directors, and other officers of the company all arrived by train from Winnipeg and Montreal, while from Prince Rupert, more dignitaries came for the ceremony, among these, General Superintendent W.C.C. Mehan, Superintendent G.A. McNichol, Division Engineer C.C. Vanarsdol and Assistant Engineer W.H. Tobey.

Edson Joseph Chamberlin was the president of the Grand Trunk Railway from 1912 to 1917.

Montreal is the most populous municipality in the Canadian province of Quebec and the second-most populous municipality in Canada. Originally called Ville-Marie, or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-peaked hill in the heart of the city. The city is centred on the Island of Montreal, which took its name from the same source as the city, and a few much smaller peripheral islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard. It has a distinct four-season continental climate with warm to hot summers and cold, snowy winters.

The ceremony began with a race between the track-layers and crews from the eastern and western ends of construction. The last mile had been left unfinished and each crew was timed to see who could complete their last half mile the fastest. The eastern crew won by a margin of only a few minutes and then the western crew placed the last rail.

Edson Chamberlain drove the last spike, (not a golden one but a standard black iron one), and once he completed that task, he gave gold watches to the men in charge of each crew. Painted on the last tie was "Point of Completion April 7th, 1914". After the ceremony, that last 11-foot (3.4 m) section of rail was removed and sliced into sections and then polished and engraved. The pieces were given to railway officials as paper-weights. One of these is in the possession of the Prince George Railway and Forestry Museum.

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References

A Thousand Blunders: The History of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in Northern British Columbia Frank Leonard ISBN 0-7748-0552-8
Paddlewheels on the Frontier Volume One Art Downs ISBN 0-88826-033-4
A History of Prince George Rev FE Runnals

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Notes

↑ Leonard, Frank (1996). A Thousand Blunders: The History of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in Northern British Columbia . UBC Press. p. 52. ISBN 0-7748-0552-8.
↑ Downs, Art (1971). Paddlewheels on the Frontier Volume 1. Foremost Publishing. p. 72. ISBN 0-88826-033-4.
↑ Leonard, Frank (1996). A Thousand Blunders: The History of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in Northern British Columbia . UBC Press. pp. 188–243. ISBN 0-7748-0552-8.

External links

Prince George Railway and Forestry Museum: Pioneer letter describing ceremony

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[1] Leonard, Frank (1996). A Thousand Blunders: The History of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in Northern British Columbia . UBC Press. p. 52. ISBN 0-7748-0552-8.

[2] Downs, Art (1971). Paddlewheels on the Frontier Volume 1. Foremost Publishing. p. 72. ISBN 0-88826-033-4.

[3] Leonard, Frank (1996). A Thousand Blunders: The History of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in Northern British Columbia . UBC Press. pp. 188–243. ISBN 0-7748-0552-8.