1 Dollar - Elizabeth II Trans-Canada Railway

The 1981 dollar commemorates the centennial of the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the transcontinental line whose construction was a condition of British Columbia's entry into Confederation in 1871. The federal government had promised a railway within ten years; it took a decade longer than that, and only the financial intervention of a syndicate led by George Stephen and Donald Smith rescued the project from collapse in 1884. The last spike was driven at Craigellachie, British Columbia, on November 7, 1885.

Two varieties exist — a flat relief and a modified high relief — accounting for the dual Ch# references RC-810 and RC-811.