I have been a railfan for a long time and have an excellent (although recently frayed) memory. I’ve read books galore, can tell you all about the Mount Sicker two foot gauge, the Vancouver Fire Clay Co. Railway at Abbotsford, and I rode behind Englewood’s #113 in the 1970’s long before there were forestry tours there.

So, I felt pretty confident that I knew of just about all of BC’s railways (including all kinds of useless trivial pursuit knowledge such as a great mass of Texas Electric Railway data that Bob Gevaert used to needle me about)! But I was astonished recently to find out about a real, live, standard gauge common carrier railway that I had never heard about - right here in British Columbia!

This railway has had more lives than could be reasonably expected, having operated from about 1910 to 1913, again from 1928 to 1930, and almost again in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Part of its roadbed now serves as the highway into town. I’m speaking of the Portland Canal Short Line as its second incarnation in the Roaring Twenties was known, originally it was a Donald Mann project known as the Canadian Northeastern.

I first got a vague hint of the line’s existence on my newest grandson’s first birthday, September 11, 1999 down in Algona, WA. Escaping the din of his birthday party by going out to the workshop, I started leafing through a reference book that my son had gotten for our Chicken Expedition, which was to start the next day. (Chicken, Alaska is named Chicken because the miners couldn’t spell Ptarmigan!). My son’s book, the 1999 edition of the “Milepost”, has mile by mile listings for the Alaska Highway and almost all the other roads leading to it. For the road leading to Stewart, B.C. and Hyder, Alaska, the log mentions that the long stretch of straight road past the cemetery is built on an old railroad grade.

What railroad? The nearest rail lines built are the old Grand Trunk Pacific (many miles to the south) and the White Pass & Yukon (equally distant to the north). The nearest proposed railroads would have been the twin narrow gauge routes out of Telegraph Creek, at the head of navigation of the Stikine River. The CPR got as far as building the steamboats on the river, while the Canadian National actually graded about 20 miles and shipped in some rails on the steamboats in 1899, but neither ever drove a spike. The Canadian Trackside Guide lists some mine mules at two mines south of Hyder, but nothing at Stewart. Suddenly, a visit to Stewart seemed a much higher priority!

Two days later we roared through Stewart and drove the five km around the point and under the banner into Hyder, Alaska. There were no US Customs to slow us down, but the road sure deteriorated real quick. We drove through town looking for a restaurant or motel, but finding neither settled for a gift shop. We had to retreat to Stewart where we found the King Edward Hotel open. Next door was the Bitter Creek restaurant, which proved to be a modest treasure trove of historic photos, maps and booklets of - and on - the Portland Canal Short Line.

Three pictures were on the wall; one showed a crowd of labourers in front of a freshly painted (and lettered for the owner) 1910 vintage flat car photographed in 1928. Another showed one of these flats, converted to a side board gondola, being loaded by wheel barrows off an overhead plank across the tracks. The third showed two flats behind an 1898 vintage locomotive, either a ten wheeler or a consolidation, all lettered “Portland Canal Short Line”, the 1928 version of the name.

On the entry way wall I found a map of the area which showed the railroad. The line ran about 12 miles north from Stewart to a mine, or proposed mine, at Red Cliff. It also ran about 2 miles south of Stewart, partly on trestlework, across the mudflats to a deepwater anchorage and wharf complex at the head of the Portland Canal. Also on sale was a booklet entitled “Stewart”, which I bought thinking it was a history of the town and might include its railroad dreams. It proved to be a reprint of the enthusiastic prospectus of the plans of the 1928 promoters, and was quite interesting.

The proposed rail route turned east at Red Cliff, led across Bear Pass (at that time blocked at the summit by the Bear Glacier) and followed river courses to the huge anthracite coal deposits at Groundhog Mountain, less than 100 miles from Stewart. A further 300 mile extension would have got them to Fort St. James in the Peace River country - another dream shot down by the Great Depression! It is not known if this 1928 company actually built any new trackage or not.

From authoritative sources, I learned that the Groundhog Mt. mine actually was proven out by diamond core drilling in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The beds are badly folded but numerous, wide and thick. If a market could have been found at the time, the coal would have been taken out by rail - either to Stewart or down the Dease Lake extension of the B.C. Railway. The Bear Glacier has now receded quite a bit at Bear Pass, making construction of a line easier than it would have been in 1930. Perhaps this inability to find a market for the anthracite was actually the straw that broke the camels back on the Dease Lake extension - who knows?

This little rail line may never have prospered, but just think of the modeling possibilities! Camelbacks with Wootton fireboxes! Car barges to Prince Rupert! Third hand wooden Pullmans operating until well into the 1950’s! The mind boggles at the possible scenarios for this interesting little line in Northern British Columbia.