The story of the railway has never been told in such a charming
voice as in these letters by Bernice Medbury Martin. Bernice
Medbury married railroader Leslie Martin in 1912 and arrived later
that year in Prince Rupert at the height of rock blasting and
railroad building. Lonely for her family in Wisconsin, Bernice
wrote frequent letters home in which she described in striking
detail the machinery and mudslides, the weather and the wilderness,
the local characters and the outrageous cost of supplies. She wrote
of her frustration at the slow pace of the railway work and her
happiness at an invitation to a social event many miles away. She
lived in a tent at Kitselas, a hotel in Hazelton, a shack in the
Bulkley Valley and a hand-hewn log cabin at Decker Lake. Bernice's
letters span the two final years of Grand Trunk Pacific Railway
track building and are neatly woven together by Jane Stevenson's
well-researched narration. This is a stunning collection of
photographs that illustrates the enormous task of constructing a
railway along the Skeena River, through the Bulkley Valley and on
to Burns Lake. Bernice travelled to a land her friends and family
could not imagine, where she experienced the challenges and joys of
the Canadian western frontier and witnessed the construction of the
truly 'Grand' Trunk Pacific Railway, until the last spike was
driven near her home early in the spring of 1914.
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