Chinese Construction Workers on the Pacific Railway — Yale, BC
Posted by: 
Dunbar Loop
N 49° 33.750 W 121° 25.920
10U E 613388 N 5491170
Building the Canadian Pacific Railway from Montreal to Vancouver required a massive amount of labour. For British Columbia it required the immigration of Chinese workers - approximately 15,000. They were assigned the most dangerous work.
Waymark Code: WMQ6H0
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Date Posted: 12/29/2015
Views: 5
While treated as secondary people, the Chinese men who came to Canada to help build the Canadian Pacific Railway was incredible contribution to the building of Canada.
The Fraser Canyon section of the CPR was considered the most dangerous section to construct. And during the 1880s this mostly by hand pick and shovel. The hard rock was blasted with dynamite but it has very dangerous work. Work that was assigned to the Chinese labours who came. Many died during the blasting and falling down the sheer canyon walls.
Incredulously for the most part of the century since the completion of the railway 1885 the efforts of the approximately 15,000 Chinese men who came to Canada to build the railway went unrecognized. This plaque is dedicated to them and honours the incredible contribution and sacrifices they made to help Canada develop.
The plaque is three languages - English, French, and Chinese. It reads:
In the early 1880's contractor Andrew Onderdonk brought thousands of labourers from China to help build the Pacific Railway through the mountains of British Columbia. About three-quarters of the men who worked on the section between the Pacific and Craigellachie were Chinese. Although considered excellent workers, they received only a dollar a day, half the pay of a white worker. Hundreds of Chinese died from accidents or illness, for the work was dangerous and living conditions poor. Those who remained in Canada when the railway was completed securely established the basis of British Columbia's Chinese community.
It was dedicated on June 6th, 1977.
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