This week is the sad anniversary of the crash of the prairie steel gang – still the worst loss of life ever experienced in an accident on the Trans-Canada Highway. I’d never heard of it two years ago when I drove past the lonely memorial in south-west Saskatchewan. The cross, made from railway track, commemorates the 22 young men killed when their school bus struck an overturned tanker filled with thousands of litres of super-heated asphalt oil. The tanker was knocked into their lane by a car driven by a man who’d been drinking at the Swift Current Legion. The crash happened on May 28, 1980, and is remembered every year in Rushoon, Newfoundland, where some of the victims had lived.
When I heard the story, it snared me, and in 2023, I searched for and met with the person who donated a flag pole to the site, to mark it for drivers speeding past. I learned of how CP Rail quickly distanced itself from responsibility, and of how there was no assistance provided to any of the families of the victims. I spoke with the sister of one of the victims, who told me of her brother’s short life, and I spoke with one of the eight survivors, who shared his astonishing story reluctantly but dutifully, as a mark of respect for those who died. When I typed his words into the manuscript for The Drive Across Canada, I cried.
The highway can be romantic and inspiring, but it can also be cruel and we must never forget that. Even 45 years later, the scars are deep and do not fade.