These Gentlemen
Have Looked At Difficulties Merely In Respect To The Most Summary Way
Of Surmounting Them; And, Certainly, The
Great and bold works around
the head of Lake Superior, the many river and ravine crossings of
unusual span and
Height, and, especially, the works of the 600 miles of
mountain country between Calgary and the last summit of British
Columbia, so successfully traversed, would make the reputation of a
dozen Great George Streets.
CHAPTER IV.
Canadian Pacific Railways.
The pioneer suggestion of a railway across British territory to the
Pacific has been claimed by many. To my mind, all valuable credit
attaches to those who have completed the work. The christening of "La
Chine" - the town seven miles from Montreal, where the canals which go
round the rapids end, and the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa rivers join
their differently coloured streams - contained the prophecy of a future
great high road to the then mysterious East, to China, to Japan, to
Australia; and it is to the Sieur de la Salle, who, 200 years ago,
bought lands above the rapids from the Sulpician Fathers of Montreal,
and began his many attempts to reach the lands of the "setting sun,"
that we owe the name; while the resolution of Sir Charles Tupper,
carried in the Dominion Parliament, finally embodied in an Act which
received the Royal assent on the 17th February, 1881, and was opposed
throughout by the "Grit" party, was really the practical start. It
would be inadequate to write of the Great Canadian Pacific Railway
without some reference to the history of railways in Canada itself.
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