The ascent was so easy that I rode the whole way. On both sides of the trail grew an extraordinary of high bushes laden with berries, hanging so conveniently that we could pick handfuls without dismounting: blackberries ... raspberries.... High above these bushes towered huge, stately forest trees; one cedar having a diameter of eight or nine feet, and a spruce being the largest any of us had ever seen ... flowers, such as asters, the hardy blue-bell and the well-known fire-weed ... and a rich abundance of ferns.... After three hours of this, we emerged from the forest into an open saucer-shaped valley covered with tall rich grass, and flanked on both sides with mountains that rose high above the snow line. "There," said Major Rogers, pointing to a streamlet, "is Summit Creek, and there" -- pointing to the other end of the valley, "is the summit where our zero stake is located." ... We took our seats on a moss-grown rockery beside the creek.... A grander and lovelier scene could scarcely be imagined.

-from Rev. George Grant's description of Rogers Pass in summer 1883.

Rogers Pass is a high point of Glacier National Park (elevation 4,534 feet/1382 m) between Revelstoke and Golden near the boundary between Alberta and British Columbia. To the west, the Shuswap Highlands level out into the interior in a series of gently rolling valleys; to the east, the Rockies rise into the Alberta border before falling away into the foothills. The turning point is the Selkirk range, and Rogers Pass is the way through.

This area is one of the most forbidding in the Rocky Mountains, to the point that no First Nations peoples ever lived here: it was simply a no man's land in between the fertile valleys of the interior and the Alberta prairies, to be traversed only when the need was extreme. Heavy winter snowfall made hunting for game unfeasible; the rocky and windswept soil, much of it above the timber line, made agriculture impossible. Extreme avalanche and rockslide hazards made certain that no-one ventured into the Selkirks unless it was absolutely necessary.

British Columbia entered Confederation as a province in 1871, with the caveat that a transcontinental railway be constructed within ten years. Suddenly, the mountains that separated the populated areas of British Columbia from the rest of the country became an obstacle to be surmounted, instead of something to be avoided at all costs. Surveying of the area began in earnest, with the aim of finding the easiest route across the Selkirks into the interior.

After the initial difficulties presented by the Pacific Scandal were unsnarled, construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway could proceed. Building across the Canadian Shield and the prairies was uncomplicated enough; by early 1882, the line had reached Medicine Hat, and this was where the trouble started.

The easiest route suggested so far for the CPR route through the mountains was the Yellowhead Pass, two hundred and fifty kilometres north of the railway's projected path. Though building through here might save trouble in the short run, any benefits would be quickly offset by the cost of going hundreds of kilometres to circumvent the Selkirks on each run. Also, the threat of American expansionism had not gone away; the railway's alternate purpose was that of territorial marker, and moving the route even further from the American border would be counterproductive. Evidently a more southerly route was necessary.

In the 1860s, surveyor Walter Moberly had found a route between the Shuswap lands and Golden via the Gold range, apparently by observing the flight of eagles. The pass -- Moberly claimed that it was the only pass through these mountains -- opened in the east on the Columbia River, at what is now Revelstoke.

Fortunately enough, across the river another pass could be seen, this one leading through the Selkirk range and opening at the Illecillewaet River valley. Moberly's assistant, Albert Ferry, explored some distance up the river, but never ventured far enough to confirm the existence of a passage through the mountains.

Nearly two decades after Moberly came Major A.B. Rogers, a New Englander employed by the CPR as a surveyor over mountainous territory. At the same time that Rogers was hired, the CPR made the decision to build the line through the Kicking Horse Pass rather than diverting it north. This meant that the pressure was on to finish surveying where Moberly had left off -- and there had better be a pass through the Selkirks, or else the CPR would be out millions of dollars.

Rogers, nicknamed the "Railway Pathfinder", lived up to his reputation. In summer of 1882, working from the east on foot, he found the pass that Moberly had seen from across the river.

Conditions were miserable; hiking through the Rockies in July through mostly impenetrable forest swarming with mosquitoes and black flies is no task for the faint of heart. Another surveyor, Sandford Fleming, described working in the Illecillewaet Valley:

The walking is dreadful, we climb over and creep under fallen trees of great size and the men soon show that they feel the weight of their burdens. Their halts for rest are frequent. It is hot work for us all. The dripping rain from the bush and branches saturates us from above. Tall ferns sometimes reaching to the shoulder and Devil's Clubs through which we had to crush our way make us fell as if dragged through a horsepond and our perspiration is that of a Turkish bath. We meet with obstacles of every description. The Devil's Clubs may be numbered by millions and they are perpetually wounding us with their spikes against which we strike. We halt frequently for rest. Our advance is varied by ascending rocky slopes and slippery masses, and again descending to a lower level. We wade through Alder swamps and tread down Skunk Cabbage and Prickly Aralias, and so we continue until half-past four, when the tired-out men are able to go no further...

When Rogers emerged from the forest, exhausted and limping and swollen from insect bites, CPR awarded him $5000 and named the pass in his honour.

Construction of the railway through the pass after its discovery was no easy matter, either. To reach the pass itself, the flanks of the Selkirks needed to be ascended, via the Beaver Valley; it was deep and wide, carved out by millennia of mountain streams. Work crews moved in during summer of 1884, and were forced early on into building a series of bridges to accommodate the valley's twists and turns. At first, the crews were plagued by forest fires; moving into autumn, heavy rains washed out the railbeds as they were built and turned innocuous creeks into torrents of water that flooded out bridge foundations.

In winter, a different hazard presented itself: the Selkirk range is renowned for its spectacular avalanches, as snow resting on inclines becomes unstable, then suddenly gives way. CPR Manager of Construction James Ross wrote in February 1885:

The men are frightened. I find the snowslides on the Selkirks are much more serious than I anticipated, and I think are quite beyond your ideas of their magnitude and danger to the line.

So far, two men had been killed by avalanches. The death toll would later rise to over two hundred.

August 17, 1885 saw the crew gain the summit of Rogers Pass, with the rail line they had built stretching out behind them; now all that was left was the descent to the west, which in itself presented more trouble. The western slope of the Selkirks is perilously steep; the only way to descend safely was through a series of switchbacks, criss-crossing the south side of the valley to the bottom. A path was made and the track was laid; though the loops lengthened the track by a full five kilometres, at least it was safe.

Pressing on through Moberly's Eagle Pass, the line from the east met the line being built from the west at Craigellachie on November 7, 1885. Only months later, however, Rogers Pass was devastated by avalanches resulting from heavy snowfall (the hazards of which had inexplicably been overlooked during construction). With more than twelve metres piled on the track during the worst part of the season, and several sections torn off the mountainside completely, some means of defence was necessary: Ross decided on a series of thirty-one snow sheds, built over top of the track at the worst slide paths, and made from timber heavy enough to hold off the weight of the snow.

The snow sheds cost millions of dollars to build and even more to maintain, but they were solid enough to withstand nearly anything. Driving through the pass today you can see them across the valley; they still work well, and have effectively saved the line from certain destruction for more than a century.

Despite the trouble taken to build the Rogers Pass, the CPR was forced to admit defeat in 1910. On March 4, a work crew was clearing snow from an avalanche near the summit of the pass; then, without warning, half the mountainside gave way. Sixty-two men were killed, and railway managers had to concede that the benefits of the rail line weren't worth the risks of keeping it open.

Instead, plans were laid to construct Canada's longest railway tunnel underneath Mount Macdonald, on which Rogers Pass had been built. An engineering marvel for its time, the eight-kilometre Connaught Tunnel took three years to build, opening in December 1916. Now obsolete, Rogers Pass was abandoned.

The work of surveyors like Rogers and Moberly did not go to waste, however; in the 1950s, during the construction of the Trans Canada Highway, the federal government saw fit to use Rogers Pass as the highway's route through the Selkirks. Snow sheds were built again, this time covering the road; everyone driving the Trans Canada between Golden and Revelstoke passes through them. Avalanche cannons are set off at regular intervals during the height of avalanche season; a series of ditches and fences has been set up to keep the hazard under control, though occasional road closures are inevitable.

The view from the top of Rogers Pass is dizzying, but it is no longer as pristine as it was when George Grant described it in 1883. It has become vaguely touristy, with an interpretive centre, gas station, restaurant, and hotel at its summit. The side of the highway is littered with pieces of blown-out car tyres, and it smells unremittingly of diesel fuel. It is still worth the drive.

The Rogers Pass interpretive centre has available a number of information pamphlets, describing the area's history and illustrated with photographs from various time periods. If you can't make it there in person -- though I recommend that you try, it is worth as much effort as it takes to get there -- they can be acquired by writing to the following address:

The Superintendent
Mount Revelstoke and Glacier National Parks
P.O. Box 350
Revelstoke, B.C., Canada, VOE 2S0

For further reading on CPR history, Pierre Berton has written an excellent account in his books The Last Spike and The National Dream. Another book, now sadly out of print, is A.O. Wheeler's The Selkirk Range, first published in 1905; I found a copy at a university library, and wish you the best of luck in doing the same. Also, the National Film Board of Canada has produced a 16mm film entitled Snow War, which portrays the difficulties faced in avalanche control; the film can be seen at the interpretive centre, or gotten through the NFB.

Sources:
Waite, P.B. Arduous Destiny: Canada 1874-1896. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1971. Rogers Pass, British Columbia, Canada. http://www.britishcolumbia.com/regions/towns/?townID=3496 Rogers Pass National Historic Site. http://www.alberta-travel.com/files/Rogers-Pass.html The History of the Rogers Pass crossing of the Selkirk Mountains of B.C. Canada by the Canadian Pacific Railway and later by the Trans-Canada Highway. Environment Canada Parks Service. http://cdnrail.railfan.net/RogersPass/RogersPasstext.htm