The CPR West: The Iron Road and the Making of a Nation

J.V. Rahilly was an engineering librarian in Ontario.

In 1883, the CPR came to Fort Calgary. To celebrate this, the Glenbow Institute ran an exhibit and sponsored a four-day conference in 1983, at which twenty leading authorities from across Canada participated. Fifteen wrote expanded versions of their papers for this book, which has been edited by Hugh Dempsey, the Chief Curator of the Glenbow Institute (and who has authored or edited many other books about Western Canada).

The topics here are many and varied, being held together only by the theme of the CPR and by a common index: construction challenges, Indian and Chinese employees, land settlement and immigration, promotion of tourism (with a look at their hotels and tourist-car operations), as well as some letters from various persons instrumental in the development of the CPR. There are historical photographs as well as extensive footnoting.