Railway Construction

C.I. 5 certificate (head tax) - Lee Don, 1918 (front). VPL 30625

In the early 1880s, many Chinese workers were recruited for the construction of the B.C. section of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Chinese labourers were initially hired between 1880 and1881 from the U.S., and about 1500 came to B.C. from San Francisco and Portland. To recruit these workers, the construction company used the services of the Lian Chang Company, a company established by a San Francisco businessman of Toisan origin, Li Tianpei. The company had offices in Victoria and Hong Kong.

Lian Chang and several other companies, both Chinese and non-Chinese, subsequently undertook the recruitment and transport of thousands of railway workers directly from Hong Kong. These workers were unaccompanied by their families and about 8000 arrived in Victoria during 1882. Chinese railway workers endured very harsh conditions, and it has been estimated that at least 600 died during railroad construction.

Unfortunately, the likelihood of locating information on ancestors who worked on the construction of Canadian railroads is remote. This is true not only of the Chinese, but also of others who were employed in railway construction. There is a Canadian Pacific Railway Archives, but its holdings relate to the operation of the railway, not to its construction. The contractors who built the railway and the sub-contractors who hired railway workers on their behalf, were usually not Canadian, and it is doubtful that their records have survived. The genealogical search is further complicated because, in the case of the Chinese, labourers were not hired as individuals, but in large groups of perhaps one thousand men.

Although you are unlikely to find specific information on an individual Chinese ancestor's role in the building of the railway, Julia Ningyu Li uses numerous archival photographs to provide a vivid visual impression of the experience of early Chinese railway workers in her book Canadian Steel, Chinese Grit. The author also includes a series of "Our Family's Story" articles, derived from taped interviews with Chinese Canadians whose ancestors included the following railway workers: