Avalanche At Roger’s Pass

High in the snowy summit
of the British Columbia Rockies
Canadian Pacific Railroad workers
toiled to clear the line.

An earlier slide had tumbled
down the west side of the Pass
covering the rails with snow and trees
ripped from the side of Cheeps Mountain.

But half an hour before midnight
on the 4th day of March in1910
the fate of Roger’s Pass
would be forever sealed in snow

When in the east was heard
a deep and ominous rumble
the sound of cracking timbers
filled the clear night air.

The avalanche that would be known
as the worst in British Columbia history
raged in perilous fury
down the side of Avalanche Mountain.

Sixty-two unsuspecting railway-men
met their untimely death that night
buried forever beneath the snow
of Roger’s Pass.

When Connaught tunnel was burrowed
through the foot of Mount MacDonald
the C.P.R. abandoned sixteen kilometres
of some of the most treacherous railway in the world.

Two hundred avalanche deaths since 1887
The mountains had won at last, 
and Roger’s Pass 
was left alone with its dead.





june 2003