The National Dream: Building the Impossible Railway

Canadian popular historian, Pierre Berton, recounts the story of one of the most challenging and important political and engineering projects in Canadian history, the building of the country's first trans-continental railway. Beginning as part of Prime Minister John A Macdonald's deal in 1871 to have British Columbia join Canada, the project seemed foolhardy for such a young nation. Indeed, many regarded the idea of building a railway spanning from Ontario to BC through the rocks of the Canadian Shield, swamps, prairies and mountain ranges without even a clear route or destination as impossible. This series follows the long struggle to realize Macdonald's National Dream through the initial surveying, the political scandals and infighting even as the colourful builders struggle to conquer the difficult geography in their construction of a railway that would help secure and define a nation.