The biggest little honkey tonk

The Via Rail system has to share the tracks with commercial freight trains, and we now know that freight traffic has the right of way.  I suppose we had heard that or read it somewhere and let the information just slip on by, but it’s no joke.  I guess I’m saying you should build a day in at the end of any sizable Via Rail journey just to allot for the delays.  Our original arrival time was to be 9:30am tomorrow, but that’s not even within the realm of possibilities.  In fact, today at lunch, the staff explained how tomorrow’s lunch would work.  That was them just presupposing we would still be on the train around lunchtime.  

No matter- there are worse places to be than a scenic train across Canada. We didn’t have anything booked in Toronto during the day, and the only place expecting us is a hotel tomorrow night.  

Every time the train stops for more than a few minutes, Cas and I get off and walk around outside. The last time was in Sioux Lookout, which is such a speck on the map that I had never heard of it before.  The people of Sioux Lookout do have a rather enticing sounding bar, though.  It’s just a shame we didn’t have time to visit: 

I think I would have liked to visit the biggest little honkey tonk in northwestern Ontario.  Alas, we had to get back in the train.  

That town was also the last time I had cell service or Internet.  In fact, this bit I am writing right now will have to wait to get posted until we have some Internet again.  Just the way it goes.  That would be the one upgrade I would recommend to the folks at the train company- a little WiFi.  

In the meantime, it’s nice to unplug a little.  Cas and I have talked with some Australians, a couple from New Zealand, several folks from Montreal and a guy from somewhere in England on this leg of the journey.  When the conversation gets to the “Where are you from?” pleasantries, most of them respond to the idea of Texas with whatever their preconceived notion is.  Usually, there is an association with cowboys, both professional football playing ones and horseback riding, cattle roping ones.  Honestly, though, I have seen more horses from the window of this train than I ever see in my hometown- and before today, I hadn’t seen a honkey tonk in a while.  

Sunny Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Greetings from sunny Saskatoon!  I don’t entirely know what there is do to in Saskatoon, nor did we have much time to find out.  We stopped there on our train for about 45 minutes to resupply and allow for a little walking outside and fresh air.  I was pretty excited to set foot in a spot with such a strange name.  Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.  I mean- it sounds made up. 

Anyhow, we’re chugging along on our path to Toronto at the moment, having left Saskatoon in the dust.  We are predictably behind schedule, as we assumed we would be.  The passenger trains have to yield to freight trains on these tracks, and when that happens, it slows us a little.  It’s okay, though, because we’re not on a super-tight schedule.  Our original arrival time on Thursday in Toronto was 9:30am, so even if they’re way off, we still have time to enjoy a little bit of that city before we head off to Niagara Falls the following morning.  

But while we’re headed away from Saskatoon, I wanted to talk about the old-world luxury of the train.  It really is something special to ride across a country like this.  I took an Amtrak ride once, and elegance was the farthest thing from my mind, but here, it almost seems that elegant is a word you may use.  

We have a room in a sleeper car, which is very nice.  On the way from Vancouver to Jasper, we had a room, as well, but this time around, we got the end room in a row of rooms.  They don’t tell you this, but it’s not hard to figure out when you see the end room- it’s a little bit bigger than the other ones.  

Part of what is included in the ticket price is someone to change the sheets and bring fresh towels, but the more impressive thing you get as a part of the package is the food.  They apparently have multiple professional chefs working for the train company, and different ones cook in different legs of the journey.  The food so far has been pretty remarkable.  Today’s lunch was shrimp and scallops over salad.  Typically, Cas and I get two different things and share half of each, but we both went for the same item this time.  It just sounded too good.  

Three meals a day in a fancy dining car makes this feel like so much more than just transportation.  This is a real experience.  I snapped a quick photo of the dining car just before lunch began, because I wanted to capture what I meant: 

We’re headed to our next spot along the path when we may be able to get out and walk around- Winnipeg.  I think the guy we asked said we would be arriving at around 1am, though, so we may sleep right through it.  No matter, we have dinner reservations, you know, and because we have a room, they said we could bring our own wine on board, provided we don’t leave the room with it.  Sounds like our night is all figured out.  

Un deux trois

When Cas and I went to Australia and New Zealand, we had a French tour guide.  She would load all of the members of our tour up on the bus and count the heads to make sure we’d all made it.  Her counting was just above a whisper, but always done in French.  When we went to Greece, we somehow ended up with another French woman as our guide.  She also liked to count heads in French.  Cas and I are making our own path across Canada without a large tour group, so we figured this sort of thing would have come to a stop, but today, we were on a wildlife viewing tour complete with a trip around Lake Maligne.  The woman who drove our bus was a French Canadian named Marie, and when she tallied up all the members of our party, she did so in French.  We were so amused that we had to tell her about our history of being accounted for by native French speakers.  

But, no matter.  We were present in both French and in English for a bus tour out to Lake Maligne.  On the way, we saw elk and a few bald eagles.  We stopped at a beautiful waterfall and took a walk around.  We got to the lake, and our group split into those wanting to go on a hike and those who were going on the lake cruise.  We had opted for the lake cruise at the strong recommendation of a nosy, off-duty employee at the travel booking shop.  Good thing, too, because we managed to see Spirit Island, which was actually part of an advertising campaign by the Kodak company back in the ‘60s.  

Here’s my atttempt at the same photo: 

I hope I did okay...  Then again, with a place like that, it’s hard to take a bad photo.  Spirit Island on Lake Maligne is the photographic equivalent of training wheels on a bicycle.  

The cruise and island visit was about an hour and a half, and after that, we all reboarded the bus, were counted in French, and headed back to Jasper by way of a spot called Medicine Lake.  It’s beautiful, of course, but on the way, we were treated to a real live and totally unusual (if Marie is to be believed) animal encounter.  This little lady crossed the street right in front of our bus: 

None of us expected to be that close to a black bear or see it so clearly, but she was headed across to the patch of berries on the other side- or so we imagined.  It was pretty cool to get that up-close-and-personal with a bear while still feeling safe in a bus.  

When we got back to Jasper, Marie dropped us back off at the hotel, where the staff was kind enough to hold our luggage after check out.  From there, we walked across the street to the train station, got the latest information on arrival and departure time and headed back to the other side of the street to have a snack at a sidewalk cafe.  

We’re back on the Via Rail train now, heading through Alberta toward Edmonton.  It’s 10pm local time and still pretty bright out, and dinner wasn’t that long ago.  

The food on the Via Rail train system is pretty great.  I had lamb chops tonight, and Cas had chicken.  On the way to Jasper, we had salmon and a Yorkshire pudding.  They don’t mess around.  We probably shouldn’t have had a snack in Jasper, though, because we really overdid it at dinner, and it’s not exactly convenient to take a nice walk after a big meal around here or anything.  

We’re getting ready to settle in for the night, though.  We knocked out a crossword puzzle, and I finished reading one of the books I brought with.  We should be in Toronto in a few days, but I think that will be just fine.  It’s a very relaxing way to travel and we are covering some really beautiful ground.  

A 1.3 million dollar Mercedes

Today was our adventure out to the Columbia Ice Fields.  We booked a whole trip that started with Athabasca Falls, then took us to the Athabasca Glacier and finished up with the Glacier Skywalk.

Before we went on this trip, Cas and I got a lot of advice on what things to visit in different parts of our travels.  I kept a notebook and wrote down all the best suggestions, then I looked up a bunch of them and kept a list by location of the things I wanted to look into.  The trip today hit the top three items on the Jasper list. Here’s what they do- We had a very nice bus pick us up from the front door of our hotel.  That bus took us to Athabaska Falls, which was gorgeous.  

We left there on our bus and headed to the Columbia Ice field.  There was a guide telling us about the things we saw along the way, of course, and it was all very informative.  There are plenty of stories in the history of the Canadian Rockies, and we got a few of them today.  

Our standard bus arrived at the ice field, and we transferred to a snow-coach.  Our new driver told us we were in a machine with a 1.3 million dollar Mercedes engine.  He also let us know the dimensions of the tires- they are five feet tall and three feet wide.  Taller than my own car, to be sure.  It was just too bizarre: 

Anyhow, we took that ride down a very precarious road and on to the Athabasca glacier.  We walked on the ice and drank from the small streams of water that flowed over the top.  It was pretty amazing.  

I hear it’s been well over 100 degrees in Dallas this week, but I digress...

When we left the glacier, we went to the Glacier Skywalk, which is a marvel of engineering over a very steep drop off.  We went out and took some selfies, of course.  The wind moved the cantilevered suspension platform just enough to remind us that we didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time on it.  Maybe that was part of the design, as well.  From there, we had a buffet lunch and a bus ride back to Jasper.

It was a perfect morning and afternoon, and we spent a little time afterward just wandering the town and picking up some groceries for our train trip.  After that was done, we went to seafood restaurant that was very well reviewd in town.  The reviewers were correct- the seafood was very good.  The service was pretty mediocre, and the atmosphere would have been a whole lot better if the man at the next table had bothered to take his volume down a few decibels or permit one of the other five people in his party to get a word in edgewise.  No matter, though, when we left, we had eaten some really good seafood.  We had lobster, shrimp and salmon.  It was all pretty spectacular.  Tomorrow, we have another tour activity- a wildlife viewing with a lake cruise.  Should be pretty great, eh? 

The Great One

If I remember my Canadian folk heroes correctly, former Edmonton Oiler Wayne Gretzky is someone revered in Canada and referred to as “The Great One.” When we were in Vancouver, it was his image next to the Olympic torch statue shown lighting the flame on the adjacent plaque.  I didn’t know much about hockey as a child, but I knew his name.  

Wayne Gretzky gained his greatest notoriety as a player on the Edmonton Oilers.  Edmonton is in Alberta.  Turns out, Cas and I are in Alberta at the moment, as well.  

We got to town on our fancy train and got off in time to check into our hotel, ask around about some tourist attractions and wander about to pick up a bottle of wine on the way back to the hotel’s adjacent restaurant.  After booking a few adventures, we walked into a wine shop.  Not sure about Canadian wines, we shopped around until we saw what The Great One has been up to since he hung up his skates.  Just... look: 

I doubt we had much of a choice when we saw these options.  We had the wine this evening while winding down from the activities of the day, and we’re saving the Wayne Gretzky Canadian Whisky for the train.  We were thinking of having it when the tracks pass through Edmonton, in honor of their great hero.  

Jasper is a beautiful place so far, and tomorrow, we’ll check out some of the features of the national park.  Until then, cheers, eh? 

Why we travel

To some, travel is an opportunity to learn new things.  Others see it as an opportunity to meet new people.  There’s the just want to get away from it all crowd, and there are some who seem to be traveling on the same path as you with absolutely no idea about why they’re doing it.

We sat down to breakfast in the dining car this morning with a couple from Montreal who were the learn new things/meet new people travelers.  We liked them.  We just wrapped up lunch with a couple who seemed utterly unimpressed with everything.  I don’t know why they were on a trip.  I’m not sure they knew.  I feel for them, though, because they, like us, are surrounded with all of this amazing scenery and they seemed rather unmoved.  

Cas and I are more like the first couple- at least I hope we are.  We’ve had eyes fixed on the windows in every part of the train we’ve been on except the shower.  No window in the shower, I’m afraid.  I guess they don’t want you lingering there.  Makes sense.  

The train we’re on is 23 cars long- at least that’s what Carl the activities director said.  He answered lots of questions about the train in one of the two talks he hosted today.  He said that trains can run up to 30 cars long, and last summer, they had some that were 32 cars, but they become unwieldy at that point.  We’ve got a cabin for two.  It has two chairs in it during the day, and a train employee has to put the beds up at night.  The bottom bunk is a Murphy bed that folds down from the wall, and the top bunk comes down from the ceiling.  There’s a ladder for the top bunk, and I think they store it on the top bed.  

We’re actually about to get off the train in Jasper for a few days, but we’ve got this whole train thing mapped out for the next leg of the journey.  We’ll take a different train (same line) from Jasper to Toronto in a few days.  Thank God we’re experts, now, and we know what to look for when we’re trying to decide who to sit with in the dining car.  We certainly know how to look out thee windows in awestruck amazement- no practice necessary.    

And we’re off

Cas and I are on The Canadian, which is the name of the train line that goes from Vancouver to Toronto.  We spent the morning, though, checking out the Capilano Suspension Bridge and all the related activities, so before I get to this spectacular train, let me backtrack to the big suspension bridge that crosses over a pretty, little bit of water.

The Capilano Suspension Bridge is made of cables and wood.  It’s about wide enough for someone to walk one way on the right side, allowing for traffic on the left.  It wobbles quite a bit, and it’s pretty spectacular.  Lots of folks lingered to take selfies and peer down from the large cable edges that acted as handrails. 

Up at the place where one has to go to cross this bridge, there are also treehouse activities and a thing called the cliff walk.  Behold:

Pretty cool.  Thee whole thing connects two sides of what they call a temperate rain forest.  

When we finished what seemed like death defying walks around on bridges and platforms, we had lunch up near the bridge before we took the shuttle bus back down to the water front.  Our shuttle bus driver was pretty charismatic- maybe she was related to the man who drove us yesterday.  Then again, her name was Heather, so we instantly liked her.  

Anyhow, from there, we picked up our luggage and made our way to the train station.  We boarded our train and were underway at close to the scheduled time.  This train is a good deal more fancy than the one my mother and I took years ago from Dallas to Chicago.  The sleeper cars are cramped, but they are jut about perfect.  The crew greeted us with champagne, and we had a seat in what they call the panorama car for a while.  That is one with windows on the sides and the top.  Pretty cool if you ask me.  We’ve got one night here, and we’re off in Jasper for a few days.  After that, it’s back on the train to Toronto.  

Cas has photos, of course.  Now, not all the photos in the album are his.  Some are mine, but only the very well composed, artistic ones.  :-) 

Here you go, either way: 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/MyfqUt8bbqJLQinD8