The transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) was a crucial project that helped transform Canada into a modern nation-state by connecting it from coast-to-coast. In 1882, the CPR hired thousands of Chinese workers, including those who had previously worked on transcontinental railroads to California, to construct the section of the CPR located in British Columbia. In need of manpower, the CPR deliberately sought out Chinese labourers. The CPR assigned Chinese labourers to the most dangerous tasks when constructing the railway in the challenging geography of the Fraser canyon and the coastal and Rocky Mountains, leading them to experience disproportionately high death tolls. Common causes of death for Chinese workers included exposure to the cold, explosions, rockslides, and avalanches.

Andrew Onderdonk, an American construction contractor, created a system of labour recruitment for the CPR that relied on Chinese labour. This system often left Chinese workers in debt to recruiters, who paid for their travel across the Pacific and yet paid them less than European workers.  With the completion of the CPR in 1885, more Europeans could now migrate to western Canada. Racism against communities whom European migrants deemed non-white, such as Indigenous peoples and Chinese people, was built into the political and economic development of British Columbia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Despite the virulent anti-Chinese racism in British Columbia, Chinese workers took the CPR across Canada looking for opportunities, finding work as houseboys and cooks or pooling their money with relatives and opening cafes, restaurants, laundries and “market gardens” (farms that grew produce for sale).

Chinese Railway Workers Image Gallery