John G. Woods’s Snow War: An Illustrated History of Rogers Pass, Glacier National Park, B.C. chronicles the high-stakes engineering battles fought to maintain transcontinental transportation links through the heart of the Selkirk Mountains. Woods traces the initial 1881–1882 rail surveys by Major A.B. Rogers through the Illecillewaet and Beaver river valleys, documenting how engineers struggled against some of North America’s heaviest snowfall and slide paths. The narrative details the devastating March 4, 1910 avalanche that killed sixty-two railway workmen, leading directly to the abandonment of surface timber snowsheds and the 1916 excavation of the five-mile Connaught Tunnel. The volume further examines the mid-twentieth-century construction of the Trans-Canada Highway through Rogers Pass and Canyon Hot Springs, highlighting the pioneering mobile artillery avalanche-control programs established to safeguard the mountain corridor.

Avalanches British Columbia Rogers Pass History, British Columbia Canyon Hot Springs, British Columbia Rogers Pass, Canadian Pacific Railway Company History, Canyon Hot Springs (B.C.), Glacier National Park (B.C.) History, History, Illustrated works, Rogers Pass (B.C.) History

Published by the National and Provincial Parks Association of Canada in cooperation with Parks Canada.

Published by the National and Provincial Parks Association of Canada in cooperation with Parks Canada.