ds of railway workers died setting
explosive charges that carved groundwork
to put down tracks from sea to shining sea

YALE, BRITISH COLUM-
BIA, 1880—What role did
nitro-glycerine play in unit-
ing Canada?

By Marsha Boulton

Contributing Writer

If you knew that this awesome-
ly unstable liquid was used to blast
through mountains of granite dur-
cing the construction of the national
railway system, you mzy also
know that pundreds of the 30,000
workers whe: toiled on the railway
died setting the explosive charges
that carved the groundwork for
tracks from sea to shining sea.

There are segments of the
Canadian landscape where nature
seemed to have gone to extremes
to thwart the railway builders.
Muskeg, bogs and sinkholes pre-
sented their own unique problems,

but, when it came to the Rockies
. the. builders ‘confronted wrinkled
- canyons, criss-crossed by deadfalls
and sheer walis rising to lofty
- heights above rushing rivers.
- An American named Andrew
Onderdonk purchased the con-
» tracts to build the railway line west
"of the Fraser Valleysc.7 0 Ls
‘-: In 1880 he’ established: his
headquarters in Yale, B.C. on the
: Fraser. River. There were four tun-
‘nels to be drilled within a three-

~- kilometre (1.86 mile) radius and it

‘took 18 months ‘to blast.them out

LEER
ee

(2)
DEF OWRSL Si st:
AUSCHIGINAN B72E S86

of the rock of the canyon. Twenty-
three more tunnels were drilled on
the Onderdonk line.

Onderdonk built an explosives
factory at Yale.

When the factory blew up, shat-
tering every window in the town,
Onderdonk simply shrugged his
shoulders and built another facto-
ry. By 1882, the Yale factory was
turning out nearly two tonnes of
nitro-glycerine a day.

Hel)’s Gate on the Fraser was
aptly named, according to the
“navvies” who blasted holes into
the rack face above a sheer drop
into the foaming waters below.

Men had to be lowered on lad-
ders secured by ropes which were
attached to trees on the summit
until they reached the level where
the tracks were to be placed. The
canyon walls were slick, so they
worked in bare teet to try for bet-
ter footing but the hard rock sur-
face often frayed critically on the
rope.

Falling rocks er a premature
blast meant certain death. Blasting
holes were drilled into the granite,
which was. striped with quartz —
the hardest of all rocks.

Once the charge was set, the
worker was hauled to the surface
or took refuge in a “secure” hiding
place. Then the fuse was lit. None
of this work took place under ideal
circumstances and some of the
workers did not make it when the

charges failed to do what they
were supposed to do.

Some men died when explo-
sions were improperly timed, and
rocks had a dangerous habit of cat-
apulting off the canyon walls and
into the “hiding” places. Rock
slides and avalanches were trig-
gered by the continual blasting.

Most of the railway workers
had no previous experience with
explosives or safety provisions.

One tried to light his pipe after
handling blasting powder, Others
were killed when they vigorously
dumped dynamite down a chute
into a waiting boat.

One Chinese worker near Yale
hid behind a tree 60 metres (197
feet) from a tunnel that was to be
blasted, only to have a flying
splinter shear off his nose.

Fortunes were made and
boundless opportunities were
opened by the building of the rail-
way.

But the human price, the lives
of the laborers--French and
English, Scots and Irish. Italians
and Slavs, Swedes and Americans,
Canadians and Chinese—was
exacted in an immeasurable toll
that was written in blood on the
tracks.

For more information about the
Heritage Project, a CRB
Foundation project for which this
article was produced, call 1-800-
567-1867.

MUCH OF the work done to connect the coast of British
Columbia to the rest of Canada via rail lines was done with
nitro-glycerin. Hundreds of the 30,000 workers who helped
build the link were killed using the unstable liquid.

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