Commemorating the 1910 Rogers Pass Snowslide

On March 4, 1910, a crew was working to clear the Canadian Pacific Railway mainline at Rogers Pass after a slide came off of Cheops Mountain, burying the line and stopping a passenger train east of the summit. Just before midnight, John Anderson, the roadmaster in charge of the clearing operations, went to the nearest phone to call Revelstoke to say that the line would soon be cleared. When he returned, he was met with an eerie silence. The crew had been buried under a second avalanche that came down from Avalanche Mountain. 58 men died, including John's younger brother Charles. Included in the crew were 32 Japanese laborers, all contract workers with the Canadian Nippon Supply Company, and men from Canada, Great Britain, Sweden, Denmark and Ukraine.

One hundred years later, this event is being commemorated in a number of ways. On the exact 100th anniversary, a community commemoration service was held in Grizzly Plaza in downtown Revelstoke. Buddhist and Christian services were held, along with reflections from relatives of John and Charles Anderson, and the Yamaji family of Japan, who had two ancestors lost in the slide. The plaza was decorated with over 10,000 origami cranes, folded by people from Revelstoke and beyond to carry the wish that should a tragedy would never happen again. The commemoration continued this past week with a ceremony at Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver where all 32 Japanese men and two Caucasian men are buried. Back in Revelstoke, the Revelstoke Railway Museum opened an exhibit on the snowslide itself and on the railway's response to that slide and others over the years. On August 14th, Revelstoke Museum and Archives opened an exhibit on the slide entitled, "Overwhelmed" which looks at the lives of the men who died and on the families and community who were left to mourn.

The commemorative events culminated in Rogers Pass National Historic Site on August 15, which is a significant day of remembrance of the dead in Japan. Coincidentally, it was also the day, 125 years ago, that the rails reached Rogers Pass during the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Parks Canada unveiled a beautiful memory garden, designed by the brilliant Rob Buchanan, honouring many aspects of the history of the Pass, including the victims of the 1910 snowslide and other tragic events. At the ceremony, we again remembered the dead, and again relatives of John and Charles Anderson were present, along with relatives of four of the Japanese victims. Many of the families had not known the fate of their relatives or their final resting places until Tomoaki Fujimura of Revelstoke was able to locate them in Japan and provide them with this information. It was thanks to Tomo's efforts that the families were able to come to Canada to pay their respects to their ancestors and to honour their memories.

A poignant feature of the services in March and August was the performance of the song, "The Ballad of William LaChance" by singer and songwriter Saskia Overbeek, accompanied by Darrel Delaronde. The haunting refrain, "and the headlines read, 58 dead," brought home the impact of the slide and helped all those present to remember them.

The day's events ended back in Revelstoke in the evening, when 58 small "spirit boats" were released into the Columbia River, each one bearing the name of one of the victims. A haunting melody, played by a flautist on the river bank, helped us to meditate on the events of 100 years ago, and how they continue to resonate now. Through my research on the snowslide and the people involved, I feel as though I have come to know them, and I truly felt that we were setting their spirits free and honouring them as they deserved.