Description of Historic Place

The CN Railway Station is prominently sited at the head of Main Street in downtown Smithers, British Columbia, adjacent to the railway tracks. The historic place is confined to the building.

Heritage Value

The Smithers railway station has both aesthetic and social value. Built in 1919 by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company. It is a rare example of a custom designed "special" station, built at a divisional headquarter location halfway between the major centres of Prince George and Prince Rupert (terminus of the GTP line). It is the largest GTP station in the northwest and was the last one constructed before the company went bankrupt and became Canadian National Railway (CNR) in 1921. The station typifies the GTP both in terms of the quality of the station, but also the high costs that led to its demise. At the time of its construction the station was one part of the larger complex of railway buildings in this section of Smithers that included a roundhouse, switching yards, storehouses, and water tower. The station was federally designated as a heritage building in 1989. The municipality followed suit in 1997.

This site is also valued for its historical significance related to the removal of Indigenous children by train to Lejac Indian Residential School in Fraser Lake. The station is emblematic of the dispossession of Indigenous peoples in the path of the railway throughout the northwest, and the corresponding loss of traditional territory due to the influx of settlers and the implementation of the reserve system throughout the northwest of British Columbia.

Today the station valued by the community for its modern use as a community services building.

Character-Defining Elements

The Character-Defining Elements of this historic place include its:

- Irregular rectangular footprint, 2.5 storey massing & medium-pitched, hipped bell-cast roof with projecting dormers and chimney.
- Scale, symmetrical proportions, and cottage-like appearance.
- Layered balance in its vertical definition reinforced by the use of contrasting colours, materials, and forms.
- Rhythmic but irregular placement of its apertures in single and double forms of similar height.
- Prominence of its roof definition from all four perspectives.
- Smooth aesthetic integration of special railway features such as a projecting telegrapher's bay and platform canopy to provide passenger shelter.
- Picturesque inspiration of its details: dormers and bellcast eaves, multi-pane windows of varying width, the presence of a platform canopy softening its vertical lines.
- Varying colours and textures of its original materials: concrete foundation, red brick walls, stucco second storey walls and dormers, roof and platform cover shingles, smooth glass windows, wooden doors and trim.
- Platform frame construction.
- Original fabric surviving inside the station.
- Continued legibility of its original interior functional and spatial configuration.