Voices of British Columbia by Robert Budd

Author:Robert Budd
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Canada
Publisher: D & M Publishers
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

A rotary plow used to clear rail lines, as Bill LaChance was doing when the 1910 Glacier Snowslide hit. Photo: HP059121

There’s No Sound...

There’s Nothing!

BILL LACHANCE

the Sole Survivor of the 1910 Glacier Snowlide

(RECORDED SEPTEMBER 3, 1965)

_____

THE CANADIAN Pacific Railway line over Rogers Pass was one of the toughest sections of railroad in North America. The pass has an elevation of 4,534 feet (1,382 metres), runs through the Selkirk Mountains in the heart of Glacier National Park and accumulates an average of fifteen metres of snow per year. Because the mountains in that area are so steep, avalanches (or “snowslides,” as Bill LaChance calls them) are common.

To protect the rail lines and allow trains to get through the pass in winter in LaChance’s time, thirty-one snowsheds were built—a tremendous project that used nearly five million metres of lumber. In addition, to clear the lines not covered by snowsheds, crews used rotary plows: essentially engines powered by a steam boiler and fitted with a large cutting wheel and blower mounted to the front to cut through the snow. However, for train crews, snowslides were a reality of the job: between 1885 when the railway over Rogers Pass was completed until 1916 when it was abandoned, more than two hundred men were killed in slides. The Connaught Tunnel, completed in 1916, is eight kilometres long and was, at the time, the longest tunnel in North America; it was designed to avoid the danger and inconvenience of train stoppages that snowslides caused.

Jack of all trades E. William “Bill” LaChance (b. 1887) came west from Ontario in 1907 to work on a ranch in Manitoba, before making his way to British Columbia to work in a logging camp in 1909. Eventually he got a job working for the railroad at Revelstoke, where he was hired to repair engines that would come from all over western Canada for service. LaChance was stationed at Rogers Pass to help engines through the pass.

LaChance’s story begins on March 4, 1910, when a large snowslide covered the tracks at the base of Avalanche Mountain. LaChance was among the crew that was called to clear the line with a rotary plow. They were joined by a crew of labourers to clear rock and timber from the debris. Sometime after eleven o’clock at night, a second slide came down and buried all sixty-three men and the engine in a split second. LaChance was the sole survivor of that second slide. It was the worst slide to hit the CPR in British Columbia and contributed to the decision to abandon the route over the pass in favour of the Connaught Tunnel.

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