Few figures did more to build modern Canada than William Van Horne. The irrepressible railroad executive drove the laying of the ribbons of steel that brought commerce and settlement to the West, sealing British Columbia’s membership in Confederation and knitting the country together from coast to coast.
As a leader of the Canadian Pacific Railway company, Mr. Van Horne connected citizens of the new country together in ways many had considered impossible, delivering transportation and telegraph communication across thousands of kilometres. Doubt hung so heavily over the project that at one point Ottawa offered B.C. a wagon road instead. Alexander Mackenzie, the country’s second prime minister, had predicted the line would take more than a decade to build, even “with all the power of men and all the money of the Empire.”
