Zephirin Malhiot was born September 9, 1856, at Becancour, Lower Canada. He studied a few years at Nicolet College, than at Trois-Rivieres Seminary, and finally at Richmond College (Quebec), to improve his English.

In 1876 he took a position with the Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa & Occidental Railway. In 1878 he was sent to Montreal, to the Eastern Division of the Railway. Based on the certificates received in 1877 (two), 1878 and 1879, he was authorized to perform railway surveying and construction.

During the winter of 1879-1880, he was charged with all the work in progress on the extreme division (40 miles) of Section 'A' of the railway between English River and Eagle River, including railway revision and building railway stations and houses for the permanent engineers. He was member of the reception committee who welcomed Canada's General Governor Marquis de Lorne at the end of his transcontinental trip, in 1881. In 1882 he was in Winnipeg, with most of the contractors, surveyors and engineers who used to work for the railway. The same year he was charged with the reconstruction of the Broadway Bridge on Red River, which was completed at the beginning of 1883. He than assumed the responsibility for a 40 mile section of the railway between Ottawa and Port Arthur, from Magpie River to the last crossing of Dog Lake, and also for the construction of a route for the heavy supplies needed for the railway.

In 1886 he was charged with establishing the direction of the railway from Montreal to Levis, in Quebec. Zephirin Malhiot married Domiltide (Tilly) Hart in 1887. In 1899 he was appointed District Engineer for the Northwest by the Department of Public Works in Manitoba, with his office in Winnipeg. He spent most of his last years of activity in Alberta, leaving behind him railways, bridges and energy stations across Canada, from Quebec to Alberta, and also in the United States.