The Last Spike
On November 7, 1885, the last spike in the Canadian Pacific Railway was driven at Craigellachie, British Columbia. The ceremony, pictured above, marked the completion of a national railway that linked British Columbia to eastern Canada.
Determination of a route for the railway and the raising of capital to pay for it took the better part of a decade, while actual construction was completed in four years. The railway was constructed in three sections: northern Ontario to Winnipeg, Winnipeg to the Rockies, and from the Rockies to the Pacific. The latter two sections came together at this site, with Donald Smith (senior-most of the four CPR directors present) driving in the last spike at 9:22am.
Also visible in the photo above are Major A.B. Rogers (discoverer of Rogers Pass), William Cornelius Van Horne (vice president and general manager of the CPR at the time), Sir Sandford Fleming (engineer-in-chief of the CPR until 1880, and inventor of standard time), Sam Steele (of the North West Mounted Police), and Tom Wilson (packer and guide).
The complete story of the CPR can be read in Pierre Berton's quintessential tomes "The National Dream" and "The Last Spike".
The coordinates of this cache mark a cairn placed on the 100th anniversary of the driving of the Last Spike. The final cache itself is located within 200m of the cairn, and can be found by projecting a waypoint as follows:
- On the cairn, find the psammitic granulite from Craigellachie, Scotland. This is 1.
- Find the Northwest Territories. This is 2.
- Continue counting the rocks until you reach New Brunswick. This is X.
- The distance to the cache is 167m plus X.
- The bearing to the cache is 213 degrees (true) plus X.