Map of Canada - Rogers Pass, British Columbia
Posted by: 
wildwoodke
N 51° 17.398 W 117° 30.943
11U E 464038 N 5682197
This mosaic near the summit of historic Rogers Pass is a map of Canada and the provinces. You will note the path of the TransCanada Highway, which these arches celebrate and that the mosaic pre-dates the formation of Nunavut.
Waymark Code: WMDE10
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Date Posted: 12/31/2011
Views: 6
"Working for the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, Major Albert Bowman Rogers first discovered this gap through the impenetrable Selkirk Mountain barrier in 1881, and he returned to confirm the existence of the pass a year later.
Construction of the railway line on the steep mountainsides and over the deep gorges of the Selkirk Mountains required engineering solutions that represented innovative breakthroughs during Victorian times.
Operation of a railway line through the incredible avalanche danger and 12 metre (40 foot) annual snowfall of Rogers Pass demanded new technologies and new skills from the railroaders.
People of many cultures contributed their labour to the search for the pass and construction and operation of the railway. Railway employees and contractors included Aboriginal people, new immigrants from many Asian and European countries, American contractors and people from the new country of Canada.
Completion of the railway fulfilled Prime Minister John A. Macdonald's promise of a land connection to British Columbia, made when the colony joined the Canadian Confederation in 1871. It also realized Macdonald's vision of a trans-continental nation, ended British Columbia's isolation from the rest of Canada, and helped to prevent the absorption of the colony into the United States.
At the urging of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the construction of the rail line led directly to the establishment of Glacier and Yoho national parks in 1886, the country's second and third national parks after Banff was established in 1885.
Rogers Pass National Historic Site is a large cultural landscape at the heart of Glacier National Park - a situation that is unusual in the Canadian national park system. Parks Canada staff must actively manage natural processes in order to protect and stabilize in situ cultural resources (eg: removal of new vegetation growth to prevent disruption of stone ruins).
After the war, Canada was bursting at the seams from the millions of new immigrants from all corners of the globe. In the 1950s, the railway was still king in Canada's transportation system, but the country was working to build and pave roads between the major cities fueled by the post-war growth of automobiles in Canada's cities. By 1949 the Trans-Canada Highway act was passed by Parliament right after. Newfoundland's decision to join Canada. It became important to connect all the provinces together by highway, and build the Canso Causeway to join Cape Breton to the Nova Scotia mainland and speed travel and shipping time to Canada's new island province. By 1956, the federal and provincial government came to a cost-sharing agreement to encourage the provinces to upgrade existing roadways to "Trans-Canada" standards, and receive 90% of the cost of building new stretches to fill gaps in the roadway. This was most notable in mountainous British Columbia, the rugged Canadian Shield north of Lake Superior, and across much of Newfoundland. The goal was to connect all 10 provinces by paved road by 1967, Canada's centennial year.
By 1955, much of the roadways designated as part of the Trans-Canada was unpaved, and significant sections were not even yet built as a rough roadway.
The Rogers Pass route followed some of the early tracks of the trans-continental railway that were abandoned years ago as too steep for trains, with the addition of a number of snow sheds to protect the highway from the many winter avalanches (the area gets about 200 ft of snowfall each year) and rockslides This stretch was opened in July 1962, and marked the official completion of the Trans-Canada.
See the Parks Canada website for a description of this location: (
visit link)