Episode
Empire of Steel | The Canadian Pacific
- Podcast
- The Hatchet
- Published
- Sep 3, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 2088
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Summary
Most countries have a founding myth of some kind, a moment in time that serves as an anchor for the grand national story. For the United States, it’s the American Revolution and the founding of the republic. France’s history goes back centuries, but their national narrative begins with the storming of the Bastille. Which is why Bastille Day is their most important holiday. England has the Norman invasion and the Battle of Hastings. And Mexicans usually trace their history back to the fall of Tenochtitlan. But Canada, as usual, is strange. Some will inevitably point to the Charlottetown and Quebec City conferences as the moment when our national story begins. And sure, that may be where the idea of Confederation was born. But the country that emerged was simply a union of what are today only four of our provinces. The real Canada, the one made up of a massive landmass that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, across the entire length of the North American continent, the country we have today, wasn’t born on July 1st, 1867. That nation came into existence on November 7, 1885, when the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway was driven into the ground at Craigellachie, British Columbia. It seems fitting to me that Canada wasn’t created out of some spirit of revolutionary zeal or war of conquest or high-minded ideal. Instead, our grand national story is about an industrial project. And I find that apt. Because the story of the CPR truly does speak to what it means to be a Canadian. You can see so many of the themes of our history, so much of what it means to be Canadian, in this monumental endeavour. There’s the resistance to the American behemoth. The taming of a wild, unforgiving landscape. The ingenuity and persistence and grit of thousands of Canadians workin…