=Source.=--_The Making of a Great Canadian Railway_, by Frederick
A. Talbot. London, 1912. (The story of the Grand Trunk Pacific
Railway.)
The swamp occasioned many anxious nights, and much burning of
midnight oil. At places it appeared to be bottomless. The ballast
locomotive would haul train after train-load of spoil excavated
from the ballast-pit, and push it cautiously along to the end of
the dump, where the trucks would be discharged. The rubble would
rush down the declivity, and as it came into contact with the
surface of the morass there would be a wicked squelch. Then the bog
would open, and slowly, but surely and silently, the discharged
mass would disappear into the viscous mass until the last vestige
had slipped from sight, and the slime had rolled over the spot,
concealing all evidences of the few hundred tons of material
emptied on to the spot but a few minutes before. The engineer would
sound the bog anxiously for signs of the bottom. Yes, he could feel
it all right--10, 15, perhaps 20 feet below the surface. The trains
would continue to rattle up and down with heavily laden trucks,
and send the contents crashing pell-mell into the swamp below. Ten
train-loads of gravel, rock, and what not would disappear from
sight, and the engineer would probe the treacherous sponge once
more. But the soundings did not vary a foot. Where had the dump
gone? The ballast had sunk simply to the bottom of the bog, and had
spread itself out on all sides, finding its own level like water.
The bed of the morass was as broken as the hill-side near by,
and was intersected in all directions by ruts and gullies. Until
these holes were filled, there could be no possible hope of the
embankment appearing above the surface of the bog....
While the upper stretches of New Ontario and Quebec were
occasioning the engineers many anxious moments, owing to the
eccentricities of the muskeg and swamp, the graders advancing
eastwards from Winnipeg were in close grips with rock, which
offered a most stubborn resistance....
For hour after hour, day after day, month after month, nothing was
heard but the chink-chink of drills and the devastating roar of
explosive with its splitting and disintegrating work. Advance was
exceedingly slow, some of the blasts requiring as much as six weeks
or more to prepare, and then only breaking up sufficient of the
granite mass to permit of an advance of about 200 feet....
It was on work of this nature where the greatest number of
accidents occurred, the majority of which might have been avoided
had the men engaged in the operations displayed but ordinary
care.... Dynamite was responsible for more deaths on this
undertaking than any other accident--the collapse of the Quebec
Bridge notwithstanding--and sickness combined....
The slush on the lakes was one of the greatest obstacles which
those in the field were doomed to face. From the bank it looks
safe enough, but to venture upon its surface is to court certain
death. Why? It is very simple to explain. The lakes freeze up under
the advance of winter, but before the encrustation has assumed
a sufficient thickness there is a heavy fall of snow. Under the
weight of the white, fleecy mantle the ice slowly and steadily
sinks below the level of the water, which, pouring over the
mirror-like armour, saturates the snow. Under successive falls of
snow the ice sinks lower and lower, and the slush assumes a greater
and greater thickness, until at last it measures from 4 or 6 to 10
feet in depth. What is more, it persistently refuses to freeze.
The appearance of its smooth surface tempts the daring to advance.
It withstands his weight until he has ventured a fair distance
from the shore; then, without the slightest warning, suddenly it
opens up, drawing the unwary into its icy depths, where he is soon
suffocated. One cannot escape from its embrace, no matter how great
the struggle, and, when the end is reached, the slush gathers over
one, giving no inkling of the ghastly secret beneath....
The greatest summer peril was from bush fires, which rage with
terrific fury and are of frequent occurrence throughout New
Ontario, the spruce, jack-pine and other indigenous resinous trees
providing excellent fuel for the flames. The danger from this
terror of the forest was not so much in regard to human life, as
to the destruction of precious provisions hauled in and cached for
the succeeding winter, the loss of which might have jeopardised
the welfare of a whole survey party. Once this devastating fiend
secures a firm grip it roars viciously. The forest through which
it sweeps with incredible speed becomes a fiendish furnace, which
either has to burn itself out, or to suffer extinction by a
tropical downpour of rain.