Then, after surviving wilderness hazards we were suddenly back in a bustling Vancouver, the guard yelling a theatrical, "All aboard!" as we joined the Rocky Mountaineer. There is a choice of classes: Silver Leaf is a normal train coach, but Gold Leaf has a restaurant car with a glass-roofed observation car.
The railway across Canada was completed in 1885, after years of tunnelling, dynamiting and accidents -- it is estimated that a Chinese worker died for every kilometer of track. Somehow, the first train crossed the entire country and arrived only a minute late.
The first day covers 459km from Vancouver to Kamloops, leaving the skyscrapers of Vancouver via the huge Fraser river swing bridge for the Okanagan valley, the farmlands of British Columbia.
We followed the annual migratory salmon route along the Fraser. According to the onboard commentary by our guides -- both called Lisa -- every town has a story, although some have better stories than others. Hope, at the meeting of the Fraser and Coquihalla rivers, was so named because it was hoped that the fur hunters of the Hudson's Bay Company would have easier access to the interior here. It was also where Sylvester Stallone's First Blood was shot.
No exaggeration was needed concerning the cabaret about the 19th century train robber Billy Miner in Kamloops, a laid-back town of 87,000 spread over a valley where we stopped for the night.
On the train to Calgary, we passed the spot where Billy and his gang pulled off their last robbery, netting an impressive US$15 and some liver pills. Apparently his problem was that he was too polite.
Shuswap Lake was bordered with osprey nests on telegraph poles and luxury houseboats where you can get pizza delivered by boat. In Glacier national park, the broad pebbled Bow river widened and turned a cold green, dead pine trees lying underwater like ghosts.
As the air freshened it rained, then snowed, as the Rocky mountains appeared at last, snow defining the crevices, and cloud enveloping the peaks of Mount Temple and Castle Mountain. East of Banff, the 3,048m Three Sisters were a fitting climax to the Rockies. Then they faded into the sunset as we moved into the dry grass plains. I spotted a lone coyote in the thinning trees at the edge of the prairie, a suitable farewell from the wild interior where the lights of Calgary don't reach.
TRAVEL BOX:
☆ LINKS: rockymountaineer.com; travelcanada.ca
☆ TLink Travel Service Co Ltd
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Fly By Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong to Vancouver:
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