It’s a quiet scene at the station. During the upcoming months, we will publish little known stories of old Canada –since Jacques Cartier in 1534, the take-over by England in 1763 following the TREATY OF PARIS, how Confederation came about and its aftermath. We already featured a steamer trip from Québec City to Charlottetown in a February 2017 History Corner. Today, we have another very interesting story that features the first Prime Minister of the new Canada, Sir John Alexander Macdonald. The scene is in the Fraser Canyon in British Columbia in July 1886 and he and his second wife Agnes, are riding on the front end of the Canadian Pacific Railway locomotive! Yes, now age 71, Macdonald is “reviewing” the incredible feat that was the building of the Canadian Pacific transcontinental railway up to the British Colony of British Columbia, with the driving of the last spike at Craigellachie in 1885. The author of the book FIFTEEN MEN by Gordon Donaldson states of Macdonald: “The old man and his wife sensibly bundled against the tearing winds of the mountain passes, never before had they seen such sights and never before had they been further west of Ontario. Few men had seen their life’s work spread out before them as he did on that tremendous train journey.” Indeed this story is fascinating and there will be more to show that Macdonald was involved in other little known events.
Contact Terri Lefebvre Prince,
Heritage Researcher,
City of Yorkton, Box 400
37 Third Avenue North
Yorkton, Sask. S3N 2W3
306-786-1722
[email protected]
.JPG;w=120;h=80;mode=crop)
