The snowshed interior of the newly-renovated Rogers Pass Discovery Centre.

13 September 2011

Glacier Park 125th Celebrated with a Bang

Rogers Pass British Columbia - Parks Canada marked Glacier National Park's 125th anniversary with a 10 Sep 2011 ceremony at Rogers Pass featuring a big military display and speeches from politicians, military leaders, and local dignitaries.
 
The Edmonton-based Royal Canadian Artillery Band showed their diversity and talent as they anchored the proceedings with a wide variety of musical numbers, ranging from full orchestra pieces, regional tunes, and a vocalist accompanied by an acoustic guitar.
 
The ceremony culminated in a a performance of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture with accompaniment by six artillery pieces from the Royal Canadian Artillery, who blasted away through the composition, leading to a dramatic crescendo involving all six artillery pieces.
 
Mr. Robert Sandford delivered a memorable historical address. "I think you can always tell a great deal about a nation by the way it celebrates its history," he said. "In the American images of the driving of the last spike in 1869, you see two locomotives nose-to-nose. An engineer on one smokestack pouring champagne into the glass of another on the adjacent train. And in the foreground, dignified railway executives are shaking hands, while in the background hundreds of drunken railway workers are raising hell."
 
"Now if you compare that to the one of the driving of the (CPR) Last Spike in November of 1889, you'll notice I'm sure, that no one in that picture is even smiling. I've always suspected that they're not smiling because they realized they made a terrible mistake. What they'd done is they'd put the railway in the wrong place. And that place was here," he joked.
 
He continued to describe the geographical challenges created by the Rogers Pass since then, and how it had helped define the nation of Canada and the Canadian mountaineering spirit since then.
 
The event also marked the official grand opening of the newly-renovated Rogers Pass Discovery Centre. The building features new displays and a renovated interior.
 
Aaron Orlando.
 
Editor's Note: This article has been abridged.