Train 2: Winnipeg, Manitoba

Train 2: Into Manitoba

I'm awake at about 0700hr. It's a bright sunny day, and we're rolling towards the border between Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The scenery begins flat... completely, unadulteratedly, unblinkingly, perfectly flat. Albertans seem quick to point out that if you think their province is flat, you should go east for a while. They have a point.

We cross into Manitoba, and the train begins to follow an attractive river valley. With the sun above us, the dome car nice and quiet, and the conversation on board more developed that 'so, where are you going then?', it's a nice morning to be on the train. With the trees and bushes coming into leaf and still marshland water reflecting a blue blue sky, it's a beautiful day.

My Vancouverite travel companion sleeps solidly. She appears to have found the perfect position for sleeping on a pair of VIA Rail coach class seats, because she doesn't wake before we reach Winnipeg around midday. I scribble her a note, wishing her a good trip, and get my things together to leave the train once more.

Train 2: Saskatchewan

Train 2: the second night on board

As darkness settles over Alberta, our train maintains it's speed across the prairies. The engine horn is still sounding every few seconds, and the nocturnal rhythm is returning to the train.

I talk some more with the girl sitting in front of me who is going to Quebec. It's fun to talk with a west coast Canadian about the prairies and what she's looking forward to seeing in Quebec. Montreal seems a long way away to me right now. Not so much in terms of distance, but it terms of culture and memories. It feels like a lifetime since I was last there, even though it's only a few weeks. It will be strange to return next weekend, when I make a brief stop en route to Halifax.

My cunning headphone splitter plug (a great tool for making friends and exploring other people's iPods on train trips) allows me to enjoy some excellent reggae. I get a hot chocolate from the take out counter in the Skyline dome, and on the way say hello to Jenny and Sally, the two Yorkshirewomen I met a few days earlier (they'd got off the train in Jasper and spent a few days there).

I return to my seat, enjoy some more reggae, and then curl up to sleep.

Train 2: the Canadian (part 2)

I'm getting back on board VIA's flagship service, the 'Canadian', and it'll be carrying me overnight from Edmonton to Winnipeg. This time I don't need to do any platform exercises to bring you the elegant sounding list of cars that make up our train; there's a magnetic board in the station which lists the long make-up of our train:

Locomotive, locomotive, locomotive, baggage car, coach, coach (that's me again), Skyline dome, Cabot Manor, Bliss Manor, Oscar Manor, Skyline dome, Imperial (restaurant), Wolfe Manor, Cameron Manor, Bell Manor, Chateau Jolliet, Chateau Cadillac, Chateau Richelieu, Skyline dome, Emerald (restaurant), Craig Manor, Christie Manor, Rogers Manor and Tweedsmuir Park car.

At every major stop, the population of the coach cars changes dramatically. As I board I spot the nervous looks on the remaining passengers, hoping to get a good bunch of new companions on the train. I sit down just a row behind where I sat on the last train, and watch as others board. The coach attendant warns that it may be necessary to sit more than one person on each pair of seats, and we all reluctantly (and as slowly as possible) re-arrange our possessions to be ready to share our precious space. But it soon looks like everyone is on board, and shortly after, the train begins to pull forward. I start talking to the the girl in front of me (a Vancouverite who is going to Quebec for a five week language course) that I am not sure whether I should be pleased or offended that no-one wanted to sit next to me...

I am happy to be back on the train. I have had a very relaxing few days break in Alberta, and have met many old friends it pains me to leave behind. The Albertan hospitality that first touched me four years ago is alive and well, and I have not been able to leave without a bag of food which will make the next day or two much more cost effective. I settle down into my comfy green chair, recline the seat back and lift up the leg supports. We're beginning to pick up speed over the prairies that just yesterday, we were exploring by car. Leaving the city, the engine's horn is almost constant, as we cross dozens of paved and unpaved roads, which divide the prairies up into their neat quarter-mile section fields.

The sun descends in the west, and I am content. I still have no desire to live in this part of Canada. But the landscape sooths me as we roll past. It is understandable, and I think that is why I miss the prairies so much when I am not there. Although intensively farmed, I can see the history of the landscape in what is extant on the ground. It's a tough, modest, but very honest place.

Leaving Edmonton

My most generous hosts are rounding up a wonderful three days in Edmonton by giving me a lift to the station. I'd like to tell you that VIA Rail's station is Edmonton is centrally located and convenient for tourists who want to visit the city for a few days between trains.

But it's not. It's in the stupidest and most inconvenient location for a railway station imaginable, squeezed into a slice of land between the city's municipal airport, the Yellowhead Trail expressway and acres of CN railroad yards. When I arrived here the other day, a man approached me and asked me where the bus stop was. I said that it was probably about five kilometres away, in the downtown area. I pointed towards the clump of skyscrapers visible on the horizon. Trying to be as helpful as possible, I directed him towards the free taxi phone in the station lobby.

And now that I've returned to the station, it seems he wasn't the only one to be disappointed by Edmonton. I chat to a couple from New Zealand who I had briefly met a few days earlier on the train from Vancouver (I noticed many people from that train who had taken a few days in Edmonton and were rejoining the train today). The couple, who I suspect were doing a reirement coast to coast tour, had had a mixed time. The bed and breakfast was nice, but not exactly convenient, and she had found the city's art gallery to be an appalling waste of time.

I did my best to defend the city. It is, after all, where Canada's fringe festival season finishes off, and in August and September it's a great place to come to see live music, dance and comedy. But at any other time of the year, it is not a tourist friendly place, sprawling for mile upon mile in every direction, with a windswept and characterless downtown. The river valley is scenic and great to explore on foot, but to really see everything it's virtually impossible to get around without a car.

Right now, Edmonton's economy is booming, and house prices are sky rocketing. But without friends to show you around, I wouldn't recommend it as a good value place to break your trip on the Canadian. It hurts to say that, because I love the place, but I have to admit it's true. If anyone from VIA Rail is listening, may you go to your graves repenting that the downtown railway station was ever sacrificed.

But it's not all grim news. Our train is late, but this allows for a timely comparison between VIA Rail Canada and Amtrak. Once I've checked in, the ticket agent directs me to one end of the waiting room, where they've set up a table with complimentary tea and coffee. That's always there for departing passengers. But when the train is late, they like to make sure we appreciate their sincere apologies. So they've ordered in five large boxes of Tim Horton donughts.

I share a joke with the ticket agent. No prizes for guessing why Amtrak doesn't give it's passengers donughts when their trains are late...

Update: to Churchill, Manitoba

It's Saturday afternoon in Edmonton, and it's raining. But I've got a train to catch, so hopefully it'll be sunny by the time I reach Winnipeg, Manitoba, tomorrow lunchtime. Tonight marks the beginning of what is, to me, the most exciting part of the trip. What follows over the next couple of days is the part of the journey for which I've said "why not?"

I'm going to Churchill, in the far north of Manitoba on the shore of the Hudson Bay. I don't have any real reason to go to Churchill - I'm going because I can and because I'll never have a reason to go there again.

Come to think of it, I don't have much reason to go there now... but the journey will be a once in a lifetime experience. Over thirty-six hours each way, the 'Hudson Bay' train will carry me north across some of the most beautiful and most remote parts of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, over almost 3,400km of track. I've been warned to expect a very slow and bouncy ride: the seasonal freeze and thaw of the land in the north of Manitoba leaves the track in pretty rough shape. And after Thompson, Manitoba, we'll be travelling to communities that have no other land connections with the rest of the province: Churchill itself can only be reached by train or by plane. But this mystical sounding town with the most English of names isn't just the end of dead end railway line: it could well be one of Canada's most important ports in years to come: I'll tell you why when I come back.

I'm stocking up on food and reading material for the trip, and will be writing my journal by hand over the next week for updating here when I return to Montréal next weekend. So no updates are expected for a while, but I'll be back online by Sunday 14 May with news and photographs of Canada's north.

So, that's all for now folks. I've got a train to catch...

*j*

Alberta

Day trip: the big things of Alberta

Following a little free time project earlier this year in which I started plotting a place marker map of all of Canada's 'big things' (strange and unusual roadside attractions) using Google Earth for bigthings.ca, it seemed only sensible that while I was in Edmonton I should take a day out of the city for a mini road trip, to see just a few of Alberta's big things. Many thanks to Tara and Crista for driving, and to Mana for drooling.

From top to bottom:

• Cowboy boot, Edmonton


• Baseball Bat, Edmonton


• Psyanka (Ukranian Easter Egg), Vegreville


• Kielbassa (Ukranian Sausage), Mundare


• Mallard Duck, Andrew


• Mushrooms, Vilna


• Pumpkins, Smoky Lake

Seen from a train: Edmonton, out of focus

Train 2: the afternoon slump

We do indeed leave Jasper on time. There is now only one scheduled stop for us before we reach Edmonton this evening, and that's to offload three coach passengers in Hinton, Alberta. They're picking up a truck and helping a friend move back to Vancouver over the next couple of days. They've been playing cards with a brother and sister from Ontario in the Skyline car this morning, and it's been fun to have the spirit of the car lifted by a group of wise cracking and chatty younger passengers. Otherwise it would just be silent Japanese tourists, retired couples and solo travellers like me.

By two thirty in the afternoon, however, everything goes quiet. For many people this has been the first night on board a train in a while, and everyone who didn't get a full quota of sleep last night is now hitting the afternoon wall. With only caffeine from the take out counter, mountainous scenery and enthralled conversation about how we all slept to get us through the morning, pretty much everyone in the coach has started dozing. After my vast soup and sandwich lunch, I too am beginning to feel drowsy. I'm not a good nap person. If I'm sleeping, I'm going all out and sleeping properly. Afternoon napping just leaves me groggy and confused as hell.

The scenery has also quitened down. Whereas this morning was spent enjoying a 360 degree symphony of Canada's finest landscapes, the mountains are gently receding into hills, and the forests are begining to thin out. Soon we will be in the flat agricultural prairies of Alberta, and the long slog to Toronto will begin. On the one hand, it's true to say that only the Vancouver to Edmonton portion of the journey has any scenery worth seeing. But if you're going to do this trip properly, you need to appreciate the sheer scale of this country and the sparseness of the population. The 'Canadian' takes more than two days to travel from Edmonton to Toronto... so just remember to bring some books.

I read, fill in my Sudoku puzzles and drink tea front the take out counter. I chat with the attendant, who used to live in Montréal, about the city and what it means to live there. While we both love the city, we agree that it can get boring quickly. Having now seen a massive sweep of North America, my mind is more prepared to start thinking about the changes in my situation that are likely to follow this trip. Like many tourists, I find that I no longer travel to see things, but to find the things I miss the most from back home.

The Skyline dome is now virtually empty. The card games were abruptly terminated when we reached Hinton and two of the players realised that this was their stop. The attendant stalled the locomotive driver by saying that the disembarking passengers had lots of lugagge to get together, not mentioning that they had nearly missed their stop.

I'm very content, curled up in my seat in the subdued carraige. Although I'm leaving the train soon, I'm returning to a landscape that I remember well. When I first came to Canada four years ago, it was to this region that I headed first. I came not as a tourist, but as a wedding guest, and found here in the backwoods of rural Alberta some of the warmest hospitality and friendliest people I'd ever met. Rural Alberta is not a top notch tourist destination, but it is a place that has a very special place in my heart. Although I've now spent much longer living in the French speaking part of Montréal, far away in Québec, I feel a much stronger affinity with the prairies. My first visit here was an important moment of cleansing for me. A naïve 18 year old Englishman (i.e. from a very small island), I was initially knocked sideways by the vastness of this province. But in the empty roads that stretch out for miles without a curve, and the fields divided into neat quarter sections for hundreds of square kilometres in every direction, I found a deep emotional connection. This landscape is so alien to me, and to what I gew up with in England, I can't help be enchanted.

Industrial sprawl begins to creep up alongside the tracks. We are approaching my first Canadian layover: Edmonton.

Jasper, AB

We arrive in Jasper a little behind schedule. VIA Rail cushion their long distance train schedules with service stops like the one here, so with fifty minutes to service the train and for passengers to stretch their legs, there's every chance we'll be leaving on schedule again. Our coach attendants make absolutely sure we know how long we have to get off the train, and make sure that all our watches are now on the same time zone. Horror stories are recounted of passengers left behind, and who have sometimes been seen running back to the station by helpless train staff as the train pulls away. Once the train starts moving again, it's very hard to stop it in time, and you're likely to be left here for up to three days until the next train passes through. So you don't want to get left behind.

A sign on the side of the station advises anyone who has trouble with VIA's metric timetable that Jasper is 534.9 miles from Vancouver and 2408.8 miles from Montréal. I have a long way still to go.

Once on the platform I decide to take some exercise, and begin the quarter mile walk from one end of the train to the other. Now, as I have already mentioned, I'm not too hot on train identification, and I certainly haven't been spending much time noting train names and numbers. But to help me find my way around, I usually doodle a diagram of our train as a string of little boxes in my sketchbook to work out where the different coaches are. The sleeper cars on this train are all named, so I jot down the names as I walk past. From front to back, our train looks like this:

Locomotive, locomotive, baggage car, seated coach, seated coach, Skyline dome car, Laird Manor (sleeper), Hunter Manor (sleeper), Dunsmuir Manor (sleeper), Skyline dome car, Palliser (restaurant), Cornwall Manor (sleeper), Hearne Manor (sleeper), Monck Manor (sleeper), Chateau Lasalle (sleeper), Skyline dome car, Louise (restaurant), Abbot Manor (sleeper), Brandt Manor (sleeper), Burton Manor (sleeper), and the Kokanee Park car.

Once I've reached the other end of the train, it feels like I've reached the end of the town's short main street. I cross into town and search out a post office to buy some stamps. I have some food with me (again, thanks to my kind hosts in Seattle) but I stop by a diner to take out a freshly made toasted turkey sandwich with a big cup of cream of brocolli soup. I return to the platform, but the train is closed off while it's cleaned and serviced. I chat with the sleeper attendant who explained the berths to me earlier in the day. I'm impressed that even during their precious off train breaks, the VIA staff are more than happy to answer my dumb questions and pass the time of day with me. These folk love their job, and just love talking to us, even though we must make the same jokes and ask the same questions as every other group of passengers.

Just after 12.10, the train re-opens for boarding, and I take my lunch with me on board. It's a gorgeous sunny day in Jasper, warm enough for just a t-shirt. I'd love to stay, of course, but my journey continues.

Train 2: Skyline car in Jasper

Seen from a train: Moose Lake

Train 2: towards Jasper, AB

We're on time heading towards Jasper. I pass the next hour or two in the dome of our Skyline car, joining other passengers in the usual digital camera frenzy that is spurred on every time something vaguely photogenic comes into view. We manage to maintain order and share the view from the forward facing windows comfortably. The mountains are spectacular. We're too late for the heavy winter snow that makes this route so special in the winter, but the scale and beauty of the deep valleys we're running through is hard not to appreciate.

Mount Robson comes into view. It's the highest peak that we'll be seeing on this journey, and the train approaches it more or less head on. Lots more digital photo opportunities for us in the dome car. Whenever wildlife (goats, elk, bald eagles) is spotted from the locomotive at the front of the train, the engineers radio back to the on board crew and give us plenty of advance notice. The crew recall seeing brown bears on the way into Jasper a few days ago, but today we have no luck with the bears.

Thirty minutes later, the train runs alongside the glorious expanse of Moose Lake. This vast body of water is perfectly still in the morning sun, and the mountains beyond are casting a perfect reflection on the water. It's just another jaw droppingly beautiful view that we're treated to.