"Dedicated to the Chinese railway workers who helped construct the Canadian Pacific Railway through the Rocky Mountains of Alberta and British Columbia thus uniting Canada geographically and politically."

"From 1880 to 1885 seventeen thousand men from the province of Kwangtung (Guangdong), China, came to work on the Western section of the railway through the treacherous terrain of the Canadian Rockies. Far from their families, amid hostile sentiments, these men labour long hours and made the completion of the railway physically and economically possible."

"More than four thousand Chinese workers lost their during construction. With no means of going back to China when their labour was no longer needed, thousands drifted in near destitution along the completed track. All of them remained nameless in the history of Canada."