The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1912-09-21

FOUND
(By United Press.)

10y OAAGCU 1 AC0S./
st. Paul, Mimi, Sept PA great
tragedy has occurred in the Canadian
Rocky mountains, involving an ap-
palling loss of life, and surrounded
by an element of mystery that has
defied the best newspaper talent of
Canada, many experienced reporters
having for weeks been on the case in
an effort to secure names of the miss
ing and further particulars concern
ing a number of recovered bodies,
with but meagre success.
Six weeks ago a body of men from
Minnesota, engaged in surveying and
construction work on the northern
most railroad now stretching it's way
across the American continent-the
Grand Trunk Pacific-were reported
to have been drowned when an i'm
,provised trestle over the Framer riv-
er gave way, dropping a score of men
into the surging mountain stream,
in an isolated and almost inaccessi-
BILE region 100 miles below Fort
George, B. C.
A month later news item filtered
through by way of Fort George, stat
ing that twenty bodies had been
washed up along the shore and re-
covered, but no names were given and
it was intimated that the construc-
ton companies declined to assist in
the identification of the victims, re-
fusing even to give out list of their
missing employees.
Then the machinery of the United
Press was set in motion. Its CORES
pondents throughout Western Canada
were notified to exert every effort to
identify the recovered bodies and to
confirm the neagre reports of a heavy
loss of life among those engaged in
the hazardous undertaking of laying
the roadbed of railroad along the
perpendicular wall of deep canyons
and towering mountain peaks.
The first correspondent to report
has just wired the following story to
the Northwest Bureau of the United
Press at st. Paul:
For the past two months the Fra
ser river has been in flood. Its wa
tiers have been higher than ever
known before. Ten days ago the
swollen river began to recede. AS
the waters subsidized between twenty
and thirty bodies were left high and
dry upon the shore. Some of them at
least are believed to have been men,
bers of a Minnesota party engaged
in the engineering and construction
work for the Grand Trunk Pacific
which is blasting it's way through
the mountains to Prince Rupert, it's
terminal on the Pacific ocean, 500
miles north of Vancouver.
G. J. George was assistant engineer
of the Minnesota party. John Henry
of Crookston, Mimi, and Leo Sulli-
van, of Grand Forks, N. D., are known
also to have been members of the
party. AS none of these men have
ever been heard from since the re-
ported accident, it is entirely probable
that they were among the casualties.
The Fraser river tragedies, so far
as the other victims are concerned,
will in all probability never be iden
titled. The construction companies
were unwilling or too busy at the
time to assist in the work of identi-
flying the recovered bodies. And now
it is too late. It is impossible to
learn what disposition was made of
the bodies after they were found
along the shore, whether they were
returned to their watery grave or
buried on land. This fact may be
disclosed some day, but unless one of
the officials should make it public it
will not be until the crews now at
work have completed their task and
return to civilization.