The town of Fort Langley

Photo: CNR caboose stands at the old Fort Langley train station.

The town of Fort Langley, in some ways the birthplace of British Columbia, has lovely old buildings and amazing spring gardens. I'd be willing to bet that Fort Langley properties have more magnolias, rhododendrons and azaleas per square metre than any other municipality in BC, except possibly Victoria.

The now disused train station is visible from the windows and balcony of Wendell's, the Fort's popular bookstore-cum-restaurant. Built in the typical CNR/CPR style, it is one of numerous similar station buildings along the rail lines that across Canada. Like the wooden grain elevators, these souvenirs of our history are going.

In the beginning, it was the railroad that made the great sprawling nation of Canada possible. The rails tied the early provinces and territories together and made it feasible to ship the wheat and other farm products of the prairies to the the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic on one coast, and the Pacific on the other.