March 4th 1910 Rogers Pass Avalanche Monument

The evening of March 4, railway worker crews were dispatched to clear a big slide which had fallen from Mount Cheops and buried the tracks just south of Snow Shed 17. The crew consisted of a locomotive-driven rotary snowplow and over 200 men. Time was critical as westbound CPR Train Number 97 was just entering the Selkirk Mountain, bound for Vancouver. Half an hour before midnight as the track nearby the Snow Shed 17 was nearly clear, an unexpected avalanche from Avalanche Mountain swept down the opposite side of the track to the first fall. Around 400 meters of track were buried and 9 meters depth of snow covered those men. The 91-ton locomotive and plow were hurled 15 meters to land upside-down. The wooden cars behind the locomotive were crushed. Billy Lachance who was the locomotive fireman was believed the only survivor until more research was done in 2012. After the 1910 pay stubs were found at the Revelstoke Museum and Archive in 2012, there were three more Japanese were survived. When news of the disaster reached nearby Revelstoke, a relief train consisting of 200 railmen, physicians and nurses was sent to the scene. It became a mission to clear the tracks and recover the bodies beneath 9 meters of snow for 7 weeks. Many of the dead were found standing upright, frozen in position. 58 workers were killed. Among the dead were 32 Japanese workers who were buried at the Vancouver Mountain View Cemetery.