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Visionary Michael James Heney (known as “Big Mike”) was born to Irish immigrants and ran away from home at 14 to work on the Canadian Pacific Railway, graduating from waterboy to track layer to foreman.
During the Klondike rush, Heney was hired as a contractor, without any technical education, to build two railroads – the White Pass and Yukon Route (with a workforce of 35,000) and the Copper River and Northwestern Railway – which were considered impossible by engineers of the time. The line for the latter crossed between two glaciers and was finished hours before the spring ice would’ve destroyed it.
– Eve Lederman, The 100 Companies