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On the opposite side of the Rogers Centre from the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre is the Chinese Railway Workers Memorial, located in a parkette where Blue Jays Way curves off to the west towards Spadina Avenue. In the 1880’s, contractors building the Canadian Pacific Railway in British Columbia imported 17,000 workers from Kwantung Province in China.
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This aspect of our railway history was virtually unknown to most Canadians until the 1970’s when Pierre Berton described it in his best selling books The National Dream and The Last Spike. Subsequently this story has been dramatized in a CBC television series and a recent movie called Iron Road.
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The TV Historica Minute about the Chinese workers has been seen so often in the last several years that many Canadians believe that virtually the entire Canadian Pacific Railway from Montreal to Vancouver was built by Chinese labourers. “They say there is one dead Chinese man for every mile of track,” intones the old man to his grandsons. In fact, the Chinese workers were mostly concentrated on a 250-mile section in British Columbia contracted out to Andrew Onderdonk and it would appear that approximately 700 of them were killed in industrial accidents largely due to unsafe working conditions.
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The memorial in Toronto was dedicated in 1989 and was built due to the efforts of Toronto businessman James Pon. The sculpture designed by Eldon Garnet depicts two life-sized workers precariously moving a beam into place to complete the construction of a railway trestle. The huge rocks at the base of the monument were transported to Toronto from Crowsnest Pass in the Rockies.
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It has become an important and moving rail landmark in the city and an impressive annual rededication ceremony is held every Canada Day and attracts hundreds of people, most of them of Chinese origin. Every July 1, Heritage Toronto participates in this rededication ceremony at the memorial, along with local politicians and a CPR official. In his capacity as an Heritage Toronto Board member, TRHA historian Derek Boles will be saying a few words about the importance of the memorial as part of Toronto’s railway heritage.
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The rededication is at 10:30 AM on July 1 and everyone is invited to attend.
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Posting by Derek Boles, TRHA Historian