Kesur Singh, a Risaldar Major in the British India Army, is credited with being the first Sikh settler in Canada. He was amongst a group of Sikh officers who arrived in Vancouver on board "Empress of India" in 1897. They were on the way to Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Sikhs found employment in laying the tracks of the Canadian Pacific Railway, in lumber mills and mines. Though they earned less than white workers, they made enough money to send some of it to India and make it possible for their relatives to immigrate to Canada. The first Sikh pioneers came to the Abbotsford area in 1905 and originally worked on farms and in the lumber industry.