Canal memorial book available for pre-sales

There were 4,000 labourers at a time, hard at work digging a 43 kilometres long channel from Port Colborne to Port Weller.

It was also a transition period between animal power and heavy equipment, said Arden Phair, one of a team of volunteers who have spent years working towards the development of the Welland Canal Fallen Workers Memorial.

“There were just as many mules and horsedrawn wagons out there as there were steam shovels and draglines.”

He said articles contributed by Historical Construction Equipment Association of Canada president Frank Rooney illustrate the dangers those thousands of labourers faced as a result of working alongside animals and large modern machines.

Niagara also had the busiest railroad in Canada at the time.

“At its peak, 384 trains in one day were operating on the canal,” Phair said.

And to Phair’s knowledge, the articles contributed by Andy Panko from the Canadian Railroad Historical Association, Niagara Division, are the first major features anyone has ever written about the Welland Canal construction railway.

Phair said those stories and many more included in Triumph and Tragedy: The Welland Ship Canal illustrate the dangers the workers faced.

“It’s not surprising that amidst all of that construction effort there were accidents and in some cases, unfortunately, fatalities,” Phair said.

More than three dozen authors have contributed to the stories and photographs within the book’s 385 pages, produced during the past four-and-a-half years as part of efforts to make the Welland Canal Fallen Workers Memorial a reality.

It includes articles by experts, and the decedents of some of the 137 workers who lost their lives during the canal’s construction.

“The range of people who are contributing to this is pretty remarkable,” Phair said.

And although the volunteers who put the project together hoped it would be available at the same time as the upcoming unveiling of the memorial itself, Phair said the book won’t be available until sometime in 2018.

The book, however, can still be pre-ordered at the St Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Centre, by filling out an online order form that can be downloaded at www.stcatharines.ca/en/governin/Fallen-WorkersMemorial.asp, or by calling 905-984-8880.

“We’ve had a really good response to the book and a lot of people are ordering it for next year,” he said.

In addition to the stories chronicling the lives and tragic deaths of the 137 workers, the book also includes hundreds of historic photographs.

“We’ve had families come forward with unique images of their ancestors who died on the canal, and photographs of the canal itself,” he said. “It’s going to be an amazing visual history of the canal that anyone can appreciate.”

And for residents of Niagara, “where the canal is so much a part of our geography and our history,” he said the book will be “a tremendous addition to all the other works that have been done on the canal previously.”

Phair urged people who want a copy of the book to order it as soon as possible.

“It’s a limited print run,” he said. “If people think they’re going to wait and see what it’s going to look like before deciding to buy it, it may be too late.”

Museum supervisor Kathleen Powell said only 350 copies of the book are being printed at this time, and there are currently no plans to print additional copies.

Powell said the museum can provide gift cards for people who order it before Christmas as a gift. ABenner@postmedia.com twitter.com/abenner1