Glacier, British Columbia
Glacier, which once comprised small communities, is on the western approach to Rogers Pass in southeastern British Columbia.
[1] To avoid hauling additional weight up the significant gradient, Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) parked a dining car at this location for a passenger train meal stop.
Already ruled out were the summit, with its avalanche paths,[2] and the steep river gorges of the eastern slope, which provided little space to develop facilities.
[1] In 1885, Thomas Charles Sorby, future architect of the first CP Hotel Vancouver, designed a chalet for this site.
Acknowledging the whole facility required professional management, CP signed a lease agreement with Harry A. Perley in 1887 to run the enterprise, which appears to have been operating at a loss.
[15] The observation tower was likely built in 1890, but a telescope was not added until 1898 to view mountaineers climbing the glacier and peaks.
[19] After 1909, when dining car use extended to the mountains, the Glacier House catering staff worked only the summers.
[28] The more popular Banff and Lake Louise destinations were the CP priorities, and destructive fires at those hotels, in 1924 and 1926 respectively, drained investment capital.
[33] The Arthur O. Wheeler hut, a National Historic Site,[34] is 160 metres (520 ft) north of the stone bridge.
Accessed from the highway and opened in 1963,[35][36] but about 120 metres (390 ft) northwest of the stone bridge, the campground comprises 59 sites, two kitchen shelters, flush toilets, and showers, but no laundry facilities, or water/electric/sewer hookups.
[37][38] The switchback loop configuration, comprising bridging, embankments, and following the hillside, ensued because the preferred alternatives did not fit the terrain.
[39] (see Rogers Pass for further detail) The Loop Brook trail includes the stone pillars for the crossings south of today's highway.
Accessed from the highway and opened in 1963,[35][36] the campground comprises 20 sites, a kitchen shelter, and flush toilets, but no shower or laundry facilities, or water/electric/sewer hookups.
[48] After the tunnel route became operational, the Rogers Pass and Glacier House communities gravitated to the west portal locality in 1917.
The largely Japanese section crew moved down from the pass, and with the watchmen, fan house employees, and telegraph operators, comprised the main population.
The train station, a National Historic Site,[84] which increasingly deteriorated throughout the 2000s, became picturesque only when a layer of snow covering the partially collapsed roof masked the derelict eyesore.
[85] Concerned that the water-damaged structure would completely collapse upon the railway line, CP erected a trackside retaining framework around 2021.
[86] Although diesel generators had formerly provided electricity for residents, the CP hydroelectric substation in Revelstoke became operational in the mid 1980s, and a transmission line was extended from the Mount Macdonald Tunnel west portal.
[105] 1919: About 3 kilometres (2 mi) to the west, a freight train fatally struck two section hands hauling a sleigh along the track.
[107] 1974: A freight train fatally struck two section hands working on the track about 2 kilometres (1.3 mi) to the west.
