A forgotten history: tracing the ties between BC’s First Nations and Chinese workers – The Globe and Mail

May. 09 2015

Forgotten ties

First Nations people and Chinese immigrants have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship since before B.C. joined Confederation. Now, archeologists are chronicling this chapter of history by documenting sites where the two communities lived together.
Justine Hunter reports

Atrain’s whistle echoes in an unfinished, abandoned railway tunnel near the banks of the Fraser River. In the quiet after the freight cars rattle past the entrance, the sound of dripping water in the dark cavern is amplified. Hundreds of Chinese railway workers died building the Canadian Pacific Railway through this treacherous terrain and it’s easy to grasp, in this haunting space, the perils of blasting through the granite with notoriously unstable dynamite.

Read More: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/chinese-heritage/article24335611/