Imagine a country as large as Canada before the times of semi-trucks and planes, or massive cargo freighters. Before the 1900s when cars started to develop more and more, and before planes could even fly, how would you transport goods and people across the second largest landmass in the world? It’s simple: a train system. That was the magnificence of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Starting as a means to incline BC (British Columbia) to join the federation, the railway connected the eastern provinces to BC. The CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway) train system went through massive mountains in Alberta and expansive plains in Manitoba. The conditions for building the railway were different across all of the provinces too. For example, the mining conditions in Alberta were especially dangerous as workers (mostly Chinese immigrants) would use the dynamite they would light—by hand—to carve tunnels through the Rocky Mountains. The CPR would hire surveyors to scout the terrain ahead of the tracks to decide where was best to install new tracks. After the railway was completed, it went through every single mainland province through its many stops, delivering supplies, passengers, and communications. Today, the Canadian Pacific Railway is used by Canada as a means to link the eastern provinces to the western ones, like how it was used one hundred years ago. However, the company has fragmented into other separate and independent companies to increase the value of each business. The company that has railway tracks across Canada is branded ‘CP’, and spans 22,500 kilometers across both Canada and the United States. Across this display, you will see the actual survey maps used to help overseers decide on track placements, passenger logs of people going to and from different provinces, and other relevant artefacts to the Canadian Pacific Railway as it was all the way back in the 1880s!