Chinese Immigration and the CPR


Targets

This lesson is about the large numbers of Chinese people who came to the Cordillera region to work on the building the Canadian Pacific Railway.  You will learn...
 
  • what the Chinese people called British Columbia
  • why they came to Canada
  • what the work was like
  • why the Canadian government imposed the Head Tax and the Exclusion Act
  • what the Chinese Canadian community in the Cordillera is like today

Introduction


"It is simply a question of alternatives: either you must have [Chinese] labour or you can't have the railway."

Prime Minister John A. Macdonald, 1882




The Last Spike:  driven in 1885 at Craigellachie, B.C. by Donald Smith,  to complete the railway that connected B.C. with the rest of Canada.





Completing bridges in the Cordillera was very challenging.


 
Watch to learn something important about the history of the Cordillera.  Then, go on to the lesson to learn more.