end of the line
If you follow these railway lines the other direction, they head north and west and across a continent. The great Canadian railway project was a great pioneering adventure, a huge achievement in its time, traversing disparate geographies and climates, crossing swamps and rivers and mountains. When the last spike was hammered in at 9:22 am on November 7, 1885, in British Columbia, the country was symbolically unified, and the pioneer age came to an end.
People still go west, seeking adventure, opportunity, jobs. You don’t hear of people going east. East is the edge, the ocean, where the “gold” of boundless sea resources has already been spent. To many people across Canada, the Maritimes is a quaint place to visit but not to live. They may think this is the end of the line, but they are wrong; this is the beginning.
Taken on October 2, 2010
