As the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) expanded west in the late 1880s, so did the influx of immigrants seeking a new life and opportunities. The people Karl encountered east of Fernie arrived to work the land, while those he would encounter as he travelled west to Fernie were ranchers or miners.
Dear reader, let’s go back to October 2 1899 when the headline of the local Truro news proclaimed: Walked Miles with his Bicycle on His Back. Encountered Snow, Sleet, Rain and Wind. In the letter from Karl that accompanied the newspaper headlines written from Fernie, BC, he writes:
“I have passed the prairies and ranching countries, and am now in the Rockies; 38 miles West of the summit, Crow’s Nest. I was three days coming from Crow’s Nest Lake, 41 miles East. The road used during the construction of this railway is all blocked and torn up and has been swept by forest fires, so I have been walking the ‘tie path’, or the railway tracks. For quite a distance the track is not ballasted, and it is very rocky, so most of the way, I had to carry my bike on my shoulder. From the ‘foothills’ until I took to the track, in one forenoon, I had to wade through ten swift streams, and carry my bike.
There is plenty of snow on the hill tops, and on Saturday I encountered quite a snowstorm on my route of travel. I struck this country at just the right time. Until about a week ago, it was raining all the time, and two weeks hence, snow will be tumbling down in good style, so I have to hurry through or get caught in a snow drift. This is the town where so many miners from Cape Breton have been located. The mountains everywhere are full of coal of the very best quality. The people here, and for quite a distance East of this place, are typical ‘Westerners’ - free and easy and more rushing than in the East. This is a pretty hard country to wheel. It is all that a freight train could do to get through, so you can imagine the difficulties of a Red Bird over such a district. No bicyclist ever attempted to wheel here before, and the next one that comes along is not going to have a summer’s picnic of it either.
I will go to Nelson and Rossland, thence to Robson, where I will start for Arrowhead and Revelstoke. All along this present route that I am on, there is an abundance of the finest timber. The forests are magnificent, and as rich to the owners as lots of the gold mines.”
William Fernie, BC, 1899
Before Karl’s journey, William Fernie, a prospector, expected to find coal in this valley area due to earlier discoveries at Crowsnest Pass and information provided to him from the First Nations people of British Columbia. Fernie arrived in 1887, working to raise money to mine coal and build the railway so that he could export the coal. In 1897, he founded the Crowsnest Pass Coal Company, and then the following year, the CPR line arrived in the town we now know as Fernie.
As a result of the lucrative mining activity, the town began to expand with the development of sawmills, hardware stores, and other business supply stores. Most of the communities in this part of Karl’s journey along the Crowsnest Pass resulted from the coal companies, but if a mine suddenly closed, the town’s buildings were simply moved to the next town. During the next few weeks, we will venture into these towns as I follow Karl's journey.
By the way, while Karl was pedalling out of Fernie, his friends back home in Bible Hill, Nova Scotia, received a photograph of Karl mounted on his wheel on the prairies near Blairmore, Alberta — which at the time was part of the North West Territories. Karl is there as natural as ever, on his Red Bird, dressed in his Oxford suit, and with his little travelling bag, showing the letters “Karl M. Creelman, Around the World.”
* All photos: Courtesy of Glenbow Library and Archives Collection, Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary. Photos were taken by William Arthur Carlyle, who taught mining and metallurgy at McGill from 1891 to 1895 and was provincial mineralogist and director of the Department of Mines in British Columbia.
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