CELPIP Reading Part 3 Practice Test: The Last Spike and the Railway to the Pacific

Paragraph A

When British Columbia joined Confederation in 1871, it did so on one key condition: within ten years, a railway would link it to the rest of the country. At the time, the idea seemed almost impossible. The line would have to cross thousands of kilometres of rock, forest, prairie and mountains, through land with very few settlers, and many critics argued that the cost was far too high for such a young country. Political scandal and economic trouble delayed the project, and the ten-year deadline passed with little track laid. Serious construction began only in 1881, when the Canadian Pacific Railway company took on the job. It hired William Van Horne, an experienced American railway manager, to lead the work, and progress soon sped up dramatically.

Paragraph B

The route presented enormous challenges. North of Lake Superior, crews had to blast through the hard rock of the Canadian Shield and lay track across swampy muskeg that sometimes swallowed sections of the line. In the West, the railway had to climb through steep mountain passes in the Rockies and the Selkirks. Much of the most dangerous work in British Columbia was done by thousands of Chinese labourers, who were paid less than other workers and given the riskiest jobs. Many died from accidents, rockslides and illness, and their contribution was long left out of the official story. In 1885, the year the line was finished, the federal government imposed a head tax on Chinese immigrants, and in 2006 it formally apologized for that tax.

Paragraph C

The tracks being built from the east and the west finally met at Craigellachie, in the mountains of British Columbia, on November 7, 1885. Donald Smith, one of the company’s main financial backers, was given the honour of driving the last spike. According to most accounts, his first blow bent the spike, which had to be replaced before he could finish the job. Unlike the gold spikes used at some American railway ceremonies, it was a plain iron one. Van Horne, who was present, was asked to make a speech and kept it to a single sentence, saying that the work had been well done in every way. A photograph of the moment, showing a crowd of men in dark coats gathered around Smith, became one of the best-known images in Canadian history. The railway had been completed years ahead of the deadline set in the company’s contract.

Paragraph D

The first scheduled passenger train set out from the East in June 1886 and reached Port Moody, on the Pacific coast, less than a week later. The railway transformed the country. It carried settlers and supplies to the Prairies, moved grain to eastern markets and helped tie the distant provinces together. New towns sprang up along the line, many of them built around a station. To earn money from passengers, the company also built grand hotels in the mountains, encouraging tourists to come and admire the scenery. Today, the line is used mainly for freight, but the story of the last spike remains a symbol of national ambition.