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From In the Canadian Bush  F. C. Cooper BSc. Heath, Cranton, Ouseley, Fleet Lane London (no date)

Englishman F.C. Cooper published a memoir about his experiences working as an engineer for the Canadian Northern Railroad, in Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay) in 1909. His experiences likely echoed Norman Nicholson's in Quebec in 1909 and just a little bit north and east in Cochrane, Ontario in 1911-12. Norman didn't like to talk about the dangers of his job in his letters, not to worry his wife. Luckily Cooper was more candid. I've excerpted passages that relate to topics in Norman's letters.

Norman measured boulders (so they could measure the size of the blast needed to dislocate them).

"Only a few days after my arrival several of us were watching a big blast, with the sun in our eyes, when a boulder crashed on the ground only 2 ft from me."

Norman preferred staying with the contractors:

The contractor's officials had quite a well-made wooden building, with separate rooms for each of them, and this party was much more comfortable than the engineers."

Margaret is happy the new foreman is a Canadian, not English:

"The mail carrier was a thick set sturdy young fellow, a typical Canadian, with an innate hatred for everything English. I passed muster in his eyes. Canadians, that is to say the descendants of English or Scottish settlers, seem to imbibe even in the first generation a jealousy, hatred and scorn for anybody English. The Canadians, however, are really very American in their tastes and ways; hardly surprising with such near neighbours, who flood the country with their foods, goods and literature.

Railroading Toward the North Pole 1910 Article