AMERICAS BEST VALUE INN MAINGATE https://blog.dnevnik.hr/americas-best-value-inn-mainga

Past God's Endurance

The history of Canada is inextricably linked with the history of the railroad. The building of the transcontinental rail line was what brought British Columbia into Confederation but that rail line serviced only the southern part of BC in an east-west direction. British Columbia had to built its own railroad to service the rest of the province.
British Columbia Railway began its history as the Howe Sound, Pemberton Valley, and Northern Railway in 1907. The first tracks were laid north from Squamish, then Newport Beach in 1910. On February 12, 1912 the ten mile line was sold and renamed the Pacific Great Eastern or PGE. Over the years PGE stood for Prince George Eventually, Please Go Easy, and Neither Pacific, Great, nor Eastern.
In 1911 the company surveyed between Lillooet and Squamish, at the south end on the west side of the Cheakamus river (although the line was ultimately built on the east side of the river), and rails were laid from Squamish to Cheekeye. Foley, Welch, and Stewart were given the contract to build the line. Construction began at both ends, in North Vancouver and north of Squamish. Tracks were laid to Alta Lake (Whistler) by 1914 and to Lillooet in 1915, an amazing feat when one considers the steep hillsides and numerous chasms along the line.
In 1913 they began laying thirteen miles of track from North Vancouver to Whytecliffe and in January 1914 service commenced between the Lonsdale terminal and Dundarave. It wasn't until 1956 however that the line was completed to Squamish so until then passengers and cargo boarded the train in North Vancouver, rode the rails for thirteen miles, got off the train and onto a Union Steamship company boat operated by the Terminal Navigation Company for the ride up Howe Sound, got off the steamship and back onto the train in Squamish. An interesting journey.
In 1918 Foley, Welch, and Stewart Company gave up on construction and the BC government took over the line. The line reached Prince George in 1952 and to Fort St. John and Dawson Creek in 1958, and to Fort Nelson in 1968. In 1972 it was renamed the British Columbia Railway for public relations reasons by W.A.C. Bennett who felt that having 'PGE' on railway cars wasn't adequately promoting the province as they traveled across the country.
The construction crews enjoyed building the line around Alta Lake because Myrtle and Alex Phillips were already running their fishing lodge there. That meant the crews could sometimes eat at Rainbow Lodge. They took every opportunity to do so.
As the rails were laid to Rainbow Lodge and to the Mons Wye, near the Nicklaus North golf course, the engineer on the work train would give a big whistle blast about a mile before he got to the lodge. Mrs. Phillips would get up and meet him when the train arrived at Rainbow Lodge. He'd ask when the crew could be fed and she would invariably reply, "Give me half an hour." When the train returned from the Mons Wye (a wye was a track for turning a steam engine around if it couldn't back up) the crew would be greeted by porridge, bacon, eggs, toast, and hot coffee, all cooked on a wood stove. The Phillips's were paid in meal tickets which would be redeemed by the PGE for thirty-five cents each.
Once the line was up and running Mrs. Phillips continued to feed passengers because there were no dining cars on the trains in those days. She would be contacted from Squamish and told how many passengers would want lunch and the train would stop at Rainbow Lodge long enough to feed the hungry train passengers. She would feed the passengers dinner when the train came through on its southern run.
The old PGE was described as an easy going railroad. If a passenger missed his stop the train would back up to drop him off. It would stop if someone shot some game from the train so the kill could be retrieved and quickly dressed. It was rarely on time, but it was always a memorable ride.
In 1916 a snowplow and train got stuck in MacDonald's cut, about a mile south of Pemberton, in twenty feet of snow (ah, the good old days). It took the crew over two hours to break trail into Pemberton where they put up at the Pemberton Hotel. As no trains were moving, supplies quickly ran low so the crew made skis out of split cedar, bought buckskin thongs as bindings, and headed south. It took them all day to get to Rainbow Lodge where they were treated to good food and warm beds.
When they left the next day it was eight degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Supplies were running low at Rainbow so Mrs. Phillips decided to head out with the railway men. She put her skis on and had no trouble keeping up with the men. It was so cold the eggs they were carrying froze solid. They made it to Brandywine where they discovered an engine had managed to punch through the snow to meet them.
That trip would have been nothing like a few laps around the Lost lake loop today on a pair of six

Myrtle Beach in July of 2007 near Sea Dunes Hotel. Check out the hot lifeguard. She looks a lot like Lara Croft from this angle.

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