Identifier: makingofgreatca00talb (find matches)
Title: The making of a great Canadian railway ; the story of the search for and discovery of the route, and the construction of the nearly completed Grand Trunk Pacific Railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with some account of the hardships and stirring adventures of its constructors in unexplored country
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Talbot, Frederick Arthur Ambrose, 1880-
Subjects: Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company Railroad engineering Pacific railroads
Publisher: Toronto, Musson Book Co.
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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litude and silence were suchas could be felt. For over 320 miles we saw scarcely avestige of civilisation. Here and there we met a hardyprospector toiling among the creeks and tributary riversfor signs of gold and other minerals, and for the most parttheir intrepidity was meeting with inspiriting reward. Atone or two places signs of embryonic settlement were inevidence, but it required considerable pluck and deter-mination to penetrate and homestead among those tree-bound wastes with the railway over 300 miles away, andthe little patches of hay and garden produce were asisolated as if on the planet Mars. Yet this country is proving another surprise for therailway. The dormant timber wealth alone representsmany millions sterling, and for the most part it has escapedthe ravages of the forest fire. The valley is of considerablewidth, and the ground slopes gradually upward from thefringes of the depression to the bases of the mountainswhich hem in the vale on every hand. The mighty Fraser
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FERTILITY OF THE LAND 205 rolls from side to side in the most bewildering manner,doubling and redoubling upon itself to an amazing degree.More than once in our paddle down-stream in the dug-outwe were called upon to make a huge curve nine miles inlength to make barely a miles advance in an air line. Hadwe portaged across the chord of the arc we could havesaved many miles time after time. A convincing evidence of this extraordinary winding onthe part of the Fraser may be gathered from the fact thatthe distance by water between Tete Jaune Cache and FortGeorge is 320 miles. The location of the railway is suchthat the distance between the two points is reduced to190 miles, owing to the iron road describing practically abee-line through the valley. At one place the Fraser isleft no less than 22 miles to the south. The fertility of the belt which the line is threading isastonishing, and the surveyors brought down wondrousstories of the vast wealth merely awaiting the invasion ofthe hardy se

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