A Toronto-based author, Ray Argyle grew up in Creston, B.C. in a house owned by Edward Mallandaine. Mallandaine, in turn, as a boy, appears in the historic photo of the Last Spike being driven to complete the CPR railway. As an adult, Mallandaine was hired to ride dispatches over the unfinished stretch of British Columbia railway. Argyle met Mallandaine in Creston before his family moved to Simcoe Street in Victoria. Argyle subsequently became a journalist.

Argyle's historical novel The Last Spike: The Craigellachie Kid and the Driving of the Last Spike (Dundurn, 2010) chronicles Mallandaine's adventures through remote railway camps, midnight rides on flatcars and encounters with Chinese labourers.

Books:

The Last Spike (Dundurn, 2010) 978-1-55488-787-3 $11.99

[BCBW 2010]