THUNDER BAY— Dozens of residents came to watch a re-enactment of Railway Day’s “Turning of the First Sod” ceremony at the Senator Paterson Sailors Memorial Park in Westfort on Sunday.
Exactly 150 years ago, MP Adam Oliver “turned the first sod” to launch the beginning of construction on the transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) to unite Canada from sea to sea in Thunder Bay.
“It happened on the banks of the Kam River a couple of hundred yards upstream. It’s a super important day in the history of this city in Canada,” said Stefan Huzan, the 2025 coordinator of the re-enactment.
Huzan said one of the most interesting things about this event that people don’t realize is Canada was at risk in 1875.
“If the railway did not get built, B.C. would not be part of (the) confederation, plain and simple,” said Huzan.
“So, for eight years, they struggled trying to decide who’s going to do what and there were controversies and there were scandals.”
These scandals, he explained, were why the first Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald, resigned and the next Prime Minister, Alexander Mackenzie decided they had to get it done for the country.
“He said, ‘let’s go and start the CPR from the absolute furthest point inland that we can up the Great Lakes, up the Kam River (and) to as far as you can by shipping and then build the railway from there to Winnipeg and out west,’” said Huzan.
Bryan Wyatt, the master of ceremonies for the re-enactment, played the role of Judge Delevan Decatur Van Norman. He agreed that when you look at it, the national railway was a “monumental achievement and it took a monumental effort to get it done.”
“We as a little group here thought that here’s an event that happened in our community 150 years ago and not many people take time to think about it, really,” said Wyatt.
“And this was a good opportunity to put this little play-act on this afternoon using the original speeches that were included… back in 1875.”
The re-enactment of the ceremony included speeches from June 1875’s Globe newspaper and the playing of Gordon Lightfoot’s Canadian Railroad Trilogy.
Wyatt said Huzan got the ball rolling for the re-enactment by asking if people wanted to get involved, leading to him signing up.
“We did our best with costuming and things like that with a limited budget and this is what we came up with and Stefan really got the ball rolling on this and he deserves a lot of credit,” said Wyatt.
He said everyone really did their part and they really had an excellent group of people involved and playing out the parts as well as they could.
