Peace River Alberta - As you no doubt noticed we have not been on track this past couple of weeks, sidetracked you might say, pun intended.
 
Now, we are back on the main line.
 
All was not smooth during the railway's move west.
 
First Nations and Metis people on the Prairies were unhappy with the appearance of surveyors and railway construction on their land.
 
The numbers of buffalo, used for food, shelter, and many other purposes was diminishing.
 
To compensate, some had become less nomadic and more involved in farming.
 
Consequently, when the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) wanted to move them, they were reluctant to do so.
 
In the spring of 1885, they rebelled against the Canadian government with Louis Riel leading their various groups against government and railway forces, which decidedly outnumbered them.
 
Those who rebelled were put in prison and their families moved to new reservations.
 
Riel, found guilty of actions against the government, was hanged.
 
Finally, in the year same year, 1885, the laying of rails to the West came to an end.
 
It was time for the last spike to be hammered home to connect Eastern and Western Canada.
 
The rock formation in the area reminded CPR senior director Donald Smith of rock in Banffshire, Scotland, Craigellachie.
 
Smith was the man who pounded the Last Spike into place at Craigellachie, British Columbia.
 
He did so after two tries on an iron, not silver, spike, as planned, 7 Nov 1885.
 
Van Horne, CPR general manager, was called upon to speak, an uncomfortable action for him.
 
His brief comment:  "All I can say is that the work has been well done in every way."
 
It wasn't until 9 Jul 1886, that Prime Minister John A. Macdonald and wife, Agnes, rode a special train from Ottawa to B.C.
 
It is said Agnes was so impressed with the beauty of the British Columbia landscape she chose to ride for miles on the cowcatcher at the front of the engine, although railway officials advised against it.
 
On the occasion of John A.'s 186th birthday in 2001, former Liberal prime minister John Turner said in a speech quoted in the Kingston Whig-Standard:  "He not only did more than anyone else to bring Canada into being, but he also ensured her survival through the early difficult years."
 
O Canada!
 
There is more to this story, as evidenced by Gordon Lightfoot's 1967 Canadian Railroad Trilogy, "There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run, when the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun, long before the white man and long before the wheel, when the green, dark forest was too silent to be real. But time has no beginnings and history has no bounds as to this verdant country they came from all around. They sailed upon her waterways and they walked the forests tall and they built the mines, the mills and factories for the good of us all. And when the young man's fancy was turning to the spring, the railroad men grew restless for to hear the hammers ring. Their minds were overflowing with the visions of their day and many a fortune lost and won and many a debt to pay."
 
One of the men Lightfoot could have been writing about was John Duncan McArthur, railway contractor, lumberman, and businessman, known to people in this neck of the woods as the guy, who laid the tracks to the Peace River Country.
 
McArthur, a farm boy from Ontario, moved West in 1879 at age 25 to work with a special "flying gang", "twas a chosen band that was kept at hand in case of an urgent need".
 
The gang maintained Winnipeg's first rail connections with the outside world by way of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota.
 
He became a contractor for the CPR syndicate with work in Manitoba and northern Ontario.
 
Then came a contract for work on the mountain section of the CPR.
 
In 1888, he faced some turmoil when the construction of the railway, for which he was contracted, conflicted with the plans of the CPR.
 
Construction was halted by a snowstorm, the conflict matter was referred to the courts, which decided in Manitoba's favour.
 
McArthur returned to Glengarry County to marry Mary McIntosh in 1889.
 
The next year, he was listed by the Winnipeg telegram as one of Winnipeg's 19 millionaires.
 
From 1889-1897 Canadian railway construction slowed only to pick up in 1897 when the CPR received federal subsidies to build a branch line from Lethbridge, Alberta, to Nelson, B.C., the Crow's Nest Pass Railway.
 
McArthur received the contract.
 
His work was satisfactory, but allegedly his treatment of his crews was not.
 
The allegation went so far as a federal commission of inquiry.
 
OKthePK Joint Bar Editor:  Could this be The Clute Report of 1899?
 
No charges were laid.
 
The Canadian Northern Railway contracted McArthur to provide links at Edmonton between the lines north and south of the North Saskatchewan River.
 
The effort did not go smoothly as conflicts erupted between CPR employees and McArthur's crews.
 
The ambitious McArthur, in 1913, became president of the Central Canada Railway, incorporated to build a branch from the Edmonton Dunvegan & British Columbia Railway (ED&BC) main line north to Peace River Crossing and west to Waterhole "on the steep banks of the Peace River" approximately 13 miles north and east of Dunvegan.
 
As well, he was to construct a branch line north into the Battle River area, which was not built.
 
In the fall, 100 miles of track from McLennan to Waterhole was guaranteed at $20,000 a mile.
 
Peace River Crossing town site land was purchased in the name of the ED&BC, which became fondly known as the Extremely Dangerous and Badly Constructed.
 
Caches were supplied in readiness for the grading in the spring.
 
Track laying reached the 21 mile mark on the Central Canada Railway at Reno (original Reno) where there was a station agent.
 
That fall, wheat from the Vanrena District, beyond Waterhole, arrived at the station by sleigh to be the first carload shipped south.
 
The grading contract to Peace River Crossing from Reno was that of John Timothy, while steel work, track laying and the building of the bridge (trestle), went to Quigley and McPherson.
 
The first 30 miles caused relatively little grief.
 
On the other hand, the next 16 "required negotiation of a 2.6 percent grade into Peace River Crossing, a nightmare for civil engineers".
 
Surveys suggested two possible routes about which there were disagreements.
 
These and monetary woes halted construction on the branch.
 
In a 8 Mar 1915 telegram residents of the community were assured "no change affecting The Crossing was contemplated."
 
Apparently, McArthur had some difficulty financing the branch line from Winagami to Peace River Crossing, until the provincial government "peddled bonds that enabled it to provide the J.D. McArthur Company with a loan of $2 million".
 
By mid-October 1915, "residents of the Peace River Valley welcomed the sight of the smoke curling skywards from the stacks of steam locomotives on Judah Hill."
 
By the way, Judah Hill was named for Noel Fulton Judah, the railway's auditor, who preferred to be called Tom.
 
His reputation for his expertise with freight rates with other railway companies, which it is said was second to none, impressed McArthur, who lured him west from Montreal in 1915.
 
"The 590-foot-long and 140-foot-high steel bridge (trestle) over the north Heart was not finished when the Peace River Record reported on 10 Dec 1915, "Steel completed to Heart River Bridge. Residents were disappointed to learn that service would remain at the top of the hill until completion of the Heart River Bridge."
 
McArthur died, age 73, in Winnipeg 10 Jan 1927, following treatment in the States for a health problem.
 
This was nine years after the completion of the railway bridge across the Peace River.

Beth Wilkins.

       

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