preview

The Importance Of The Railway In Canada

Decent Essays

Canada is a great country but it wouldn't be the same without the Trans Canada Railway. The great achievement of this railway helped form and unite this great country in many ways. These are some of the reasons why I think the CPR helped in forming a strong, united Canada.
Confederation on July 1, 1867, brought together the Eastern Colonies of Canada, but as a country, Canada was interested also in making a connection with the West Coast Colonies. One of the ways this was accomplished was by promising to build a railway from coast to coast. The province of Manitoba was convinced to join confederation by 1870, and British Columbia joined in 1871, but only when the Canadian government promised to build the railway within ten years. Unfortunately, that government was unable to follow through with it’s promise and true construction only began in 1881 and finally completed in 1885. The first train ran in 1886 from Montreal to Port Moody. The CPR was an important way to connect the large country of Canada.
The communities on the West Coast naturally felt like they had more in common with other communities on the coast, such as Oregon and California and may have eventually chosen to …show more content…

The railway also allowed for further development of different areas of Canada that otherwise would have seemed too remote in order to create settlements. As a company, the CPR was involved in land settlement and land sales early on in our country’s history. They also installed telegraph lines along the railway lines, which allowed quicker cross country communication. The company also ended up finding natural gas in Alberta when they were digging a well to find water for their steam engines. In this way, the CPR ended up being more than a railway company but got involved in transporting goods in different ways such as steamships and

Get Access