n avalanches by erecting diverting timbers
near the summits and building mile upon mile of snow-sheds, over which
the avalanches passed harmless. As a result of these expedients and of
raising the road-bed across the prairies unusually high, the Canadian
Pacific lost less time through snow blockades than the great railways
of the eastern United States.

It was not until 1884 that the wilderness north of Lake Superior was
attacked in strong force. Nine thousand men were employed here alone.
Rock and muskeg, hill and hollow, made this section more difficult to
face than even the Fraser Canyon. In one muskeg area to-day seven
layers of Canadian Pacific rails are buried, one below the other. The
stretch along the shore of the lake was particularly difficult. The
Laurentian rocks were the oldest known to geologists, and, what was
{164} more to the purpose, the toughest known to engineers. A dynamite
factory was built on the spot and a road blasted through. One mile
cost $700,000 to build and several cost half a million. The time
required and the total expenditure would have been prohibitive had not
the management decided to make extensive use of trestle-work. It would
have cost over two dollars a cubic yard to cut through the hills and
fill up the hollows by team-haul; it cost only one-tenth of that to
build timber trestles, carrying the line high, and to fill up later by
train-haul.

An unexpected test of the need of this section came before it was
completed. Early in 1885 the government realized too late that serious
trouble was brewing among the half-breeds and Indians of the
North-West. Unless troops could be sent in before the grass grew, Riel
would have thousands of Indians on the war-path, and a long and bloody
contest and a serious setback to the West would be inevitable. The
railway was far from complete, with a hundred and twenty miles of gaps
unfilled, and the government considered it impossible to get the troops
in in time. But Van Horne, who had had much experience in handling
troops in the Civil War, did not have {165} that word in his
vocabulary, and astonished the authorities by offering to take men from
Kingston or Quebec to Qu'Appelle in ten days. Part of the gaps were
bridged by temporary rails laid on ice and snow, only ninety miles
being uncompleted by spring. In one stretch the men were marched
across the ice to save a long detour. Through the rest they were
carried, covered with furs