Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1907-06-26
NEW HIGHWAY TO
PIERCE VIRGIN
TERRITORY
Trail of Grand Trunk Pacific
Railway New BIazed Prac-
ticaIIy From Ocean to Ocean
Through Dominion,

Prince Rupert, British Columbia,
June 24.-The trail of the new trans
continental railway is now blazed
from ocean to ocean, already the
builders are receiving and sending out
mail at Prince Rupert, on the Pacific,
which was a voiceless wilderness yes
terday, and which will be a hustling,
booming city tomorrow.
The Canadian government, which
backed the builders of this road, be-
lieved that there was immediate need
of another transcontinental line, but
no one guessed hat 1907 would find
the development of the west outrun-
ming all the railways. The more there
is built. the more there is need to
build, for the developing west of Win
nipeg has barely begun.
The Grand Trunk Pacific manage
ment is bending every effort to rail the
new fields that lie between Winnipeg
and Edmonton at the earliest possible
moment, for there, in the great Sas-
katchewan valley, half way between
the Chicago n Denver of the
Dominion, Is the storm center of a
development that would be- called a
o were it not for the fact that 1t
had been of steady growth for a num-
Der of years.
vi GOuISt LHtN are NOIhlHS west
from Edmonton, and east from Prince
Rupert. but the task of locating a line
of railway, such as the Grand Trunk
Pacific proposes to build. is an intri-
cately difficult one. 1t will pass
through half a thousand miles of will
derness that was practically unknown
when the preliminary pathfinders set
their faces toward the three passes
which were supposed to lie somewhere
near the headwaters of the Peace.
Every river, gorge and canyon will
be sounded, every possible n doubt
less many impossible passes will be-
examined before the final selection Is
made, before the president and the
general manager 30. X" the profile,
before the chief engineer pens his
official Put her there"
If the men who are to be held re-
sponsible for the finished line were
satisfied to build as the early trans
continental lines were built in the
United States, the last spike could be
driven years earlier than it will be
driven. If they had less faith in the
future of Canada, If they cult fore
see a slump in the near future. they
could build cheaply. have less of fixed
charges to pay and earn something on
the money expended, even in lean
but they are building against a
future in which they have ~unbounded
faith. If fortune faVorS them, II the
good old earth continues to sweat
gold at the rate of nineteen bushels
to the acre, as it has lone for the past
years, they will be ounted
wise in their generation.
But, by the same token, If they were
to build cheaply, following the contour
of the country, rising and falling with
the swell and swale of the billowing
fields, and finish a line utterly made
quate and physically unfit for the traf-
nc thai Is almost certain to come to
them. they would be called bunglers
and the road would have to be rebuilt
at the cost of millions. PrOfiting by
the mistakes Of others they have set ?
standard for the construction of this
new national highway that is proving
a surprise to the contractors.