The Canadian Pacific Railway's last spike is driven at Craigellachie
Roughly 15,000 Chinese labourers built the mountain sections, and none appear in the famous photo
Quick facts
- Completion date
- 7 November 1885
- Location
- Craigellachie, British Columbia
- Chinese labourers
- Up to 15,000
- Estimated Chinese deaths
- At least 600
What happened
At 9:22 a.m. on 7 November 1885, CPR financier Donald Smith drove a plain iron spike, not the ceremonial gold or silver one originally planned, into the final rail at Craigellachie, British Columbia, joining the eastern and western sections of the Canadian Pacific Railway. American contractor Andrew Onderdonk had begun construction of the British Columbia section in 1880, and up to 15,000 Chinese labourers were brought in to build the most dangerous mountain and canyon sections through the Fraser Canyon, working for lower pay than white workers in extremely hazardous conditions; historians estimate at least 600 died in blasting accidents, rockslides, and other construction hazards, with Onderdonk himself estimating three deaths per kilometre of track through the canyon. In the historic photograph of the ceremony, every Chinese worker had been cleared from view.
Why it matters
The railway fulfilled the promise that brought British Columbia into Confederation in 1871 and physically bound the new Dominion from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but its construction rested on a workforce paid and protected far less than its white counterparts, whose exclusion from the completion photograph became a lasting symbol of that unequal history.
How we know
CPR company records, Onderdonk's own contemporaneous estimates of Chinese worker deaths, and the surviving 1885 photograph of the ceremony are cited directly by the Canadian Encyclopedia's Canadian Pacific Railway and 'Other Last Spike' entries.
Sources
- The Canadian Encyclopedia. Canadian Pacific Railway · Reputable sourcethecanadianencyclopedia.ca · The domain "thecanadianencyclopedia.ca" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- The Canadian Encyclopedia. The 'Other' Last Spike · Reputable sourcethecanadianencyclopedia.ca · The domain "thecanadianencyclopedia.ca" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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