Few stories in the annals of railroading are as compelling as the construction, evolution, and astounding successes of the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railways. This sprawling volume combines two of Voyageur Press' most successful Railroad Color History titles into one volume taking in the grand scope of both railroads. Author Tom Murray presents fastidiously researched and concisely presented histories of each railroad, along with more than 300 photographs, including rare archival black-and-white images and modern and period color photography sourced from national archives and private collections.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Problems of Staple Production in Canada" by Harold Adams Innis. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

In the four years between 1881 and 1885, Canada was forged into one nation by the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The Last Spike reconstructs the incredible story of how some 2,000 miles of steel crossed the continent in just five years — exactly half the time stipulated in the contract. Pierre Berton recreates the adventures that were part of this vast undertaking: the railway on the brink of bankruptcy, with one hour between it and ruin; the extraordinary land boom of Winnipeg in 1881–1882; and the epic tale of how William Van Horne rushed 3,000 soldiers over a half-finished railway to quell the Riel Rebellion. Dominating the whole saga are the men who made it all possible — a host of astonishing characters: Van Horne, the powerhouse behind the vision of a transcontinental railroad; Rogers, the eccentric surveyor; Onderdonk, the cool New Yorker; Stephen, the most emotional of businessmen; Father Lacombe, the black-robed voyageur; Sam Steele, of the North West Mounted Police; Gabriel Dumont, the Prince of the Prairies; more than 7,000 Chinese workers, toiling and dying in the canyons of the Fraser Valley; and many more — land sharks, construction geniuses, politicians, and entrepreneurs — all of whom played a role in the founding of the new Canada west of Ontario.

A large federal cash subsidy aided CPR construction of the Crows Nest Pass Railway from Lethbridge, Alberta, to Nelson, British Columbia. The line, completed in late 1898, was designed to en-courage mining and smelting in the Kootenays and to link this region with Central Canada. From 1989 to 1914 the Great Northern Railroad in the United States also built lines into southern British Columbia to tap this valuable mining traffic. The CPR completed a line to Vancouver in 1915, by which time it dominated the regional traffic. However, it still faced competition for this traffic from the Great Northern which had allied itself with the Canadian Northern Railway. John Eagle examines the lengthy and bitter conflict which resulted between the two railways. Eagle provides the first scholarly analysis of the Crows Nest Pass Agreement of 1897. Under this historic agreement, the CPR stimulated prairie agriculture by lowering its freight rates on grain, matching both the lower rates of the Canadian Northern on grain and the rates on wheat established under the Manitoba Agreement of 1901. The development of southern British Columbia also opened a new market for prairie grain and cattle. The Canadian Pacific Railway and the Development of Western Canada challenges the prevailing view that CPR land policies were designed primarily to promote settlement in order to generate traffic for the railway. Eagle argues that the railway adopted policies which maximized profits from its agricultural lands so that proceeds from prairie land sales became an important source of revenue for the company.

During the first two decades of the twentieth century, the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway played an important role in the development of the north-central corridor of British Columbia. Running from Winnipeg via Edmonton and the Yellowhead Pass to Prince Rupert on the northwest coast, the GTP was built to challenge the primacy of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The 1,500-kilometre British Columbia line, built at great cost over some of the country's most rugged terrain, was completed in 1914. But traffic on this line fell far short of company expectations, and this contributed to the collapse of the GTP in 1919.