3-070-717 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Camp on the Skeena River, British Columbia, 1881. Engraving from a sketch by Mr. W. G. Pinder, assistant engineer to Division M of the Canadian Pacific Railway Survey, 1879. View of the '...encampment of that Division, while engaged in the survey, which must have been a laborious and arduous undertaking. But, although Port Essington is a good harbour, and the Skeena a fine river, with plenty of salmon, the geographical situation, approaching north latitude 55 degrees, seems entirely to forbid its being made the western terminals of the Continental line of railway. It is now settled that the Canadian Pacific line shall run four or five degrees more to the south, entering British Columbia, as we have observed, by the Horse Pass, near Moneyville, from Fort Calgary, on the Bow River, South Saskatchewan, and passing thence into the Thompson and the Fraser Valleys, and further crossing the narrow strait to Vancouver Island. The Skeena fishery, however, is the finest of salmon in all British Columbia, and the "Inverness" and "Aberdeen" canneries, at Port Essington, do a very considerable trade'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.