Canada’s First Transportation
Canada’s First Transportation!!!!
Imagine getting around with only canoes and horses. So when you imagine that you think what was Canada’s first opportunity of quicker transportation? Well I know it was the CPR. The CPR represents the Canadian Pacific Railway. Once they got to Eagle Pass Andrew Onderdonk a New York engineer was given the contract to build the railway from Port Moody to Eagle Pass. The Chinese got paid less because they were *discriminated. The Chinese were getting paid $1.50 and the British were getting paid $2.50. Even though the Chinese got 1.50 they still built bridges over steep gorges, using dynamite to blast tunnels through solid mountains of the Canadian Rockies and to blow up large boulders to make way for the railway tracks. When they were working at night they got to sleep in tents at camp and when they got to different spots through the mountain they had to pack their stuff and go, they walked over 40 kilometers each day. Every mile about 4 Chinese rail workers died. Every mile about 4 Chinese people died from sulfur.at the end about 600 Chinese died while building the CPR and often their bodies were not found. Since they chose to hire the CPR ended up saving $3.5 million. That amount could have bought nearly half of Alaska (U.S. bought Alaska for $ 7.2 million from Russia in 1867!
Early life
Dong Yee was one of the thousands of people that came to Canada to work on the railroad. The reason that everybody came is because the Prime Minister of Canada wanted the Europeans to come to move to the Canadian west. They hoped that would save the United States from taking over. The Prime Minister of Canada promised the western provinces that a railway would be built to connect the east and west. That’s when the Canadian Pacific Railway came in to build the railway. Van Horne was hired to manage the hiring of the Chinese because he wanted to get the project done quickly.
Some of the railway values!
Some of things that the Chinese immigrant’s value is their peers because they all helped each other on the railway, their family because he almost never gets to see them so he hopes they are doing good. Commitment to what they are doing so they can get done even though they get paid less. Another thing is there money since they only have a little they spend it wisely on food like rice since you get a lot
The timeline of the railway
If you can put yourself in 1881 imagine banging spikes into a railway and starving because you work almost all day. That’s what the Chinese railway workers did. Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) began in 1881 and ended in 1885. This railway was built to connect Canada from the east coast to the west coast .In 1885 the first train left the station in Vancouver, BC July 1885.
Change
There is one big change and that is transportation. Transportation back then wasn’t that fast so when they wanted to get places far away the would have to walk get a horse or a canoe and they would take the whole week or even the month.
* Discriminated means the act of making or showing a difference in treatment: discrimination in race or creed when hiring against the law.
Sources used:
1. Ordinary people pages 50-52
2. Dictionary
3. http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/eppp-archive/100/200/301/ic/can_digital_collections/pasttopresent/settlement/chinese_yet.html
4.http://www.ourroots.ca/toc.aspx?id=8649&qryID=37e826d5-772e-45d4-b327-a1caa1f05af7
5.http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/settlement/kids/021013-2031.3-e.html
6.http://www.ccnc.ca/cccop/index.php?section=content/history.php&func=viewEntry&entryID=59