Rocky Mountaineer from Banff to Vancouver
Story by Carol Canter. Photos by Carol Canter and Jack Heyman.
The train whistle blew, signaling the arrival of the sleek Rocky Mountaineer into Banff’s heritage railway station. It was “All Aboard” by 9 a.m. and, within minutes of departure, we were raising glasses of champagne and peach juice to toast our two-day rail journey through the Canadian Rockies from Banff, elevation 4540 feet, down to Vancouver, at sea level.
We would travel by daylight only, so as not to miss a single emerald lake, sawtooth ridge, soaring eagle, bighorn sheep, or any of the seven different river systems flowing by. An overnight stay at a hotel in Kamloops is built into the itinerary. We had spent the past week driving, paddling, hiking, cycling, and hot-spring soaking our way through the Canadian Rockies, reveling in every twist and turn along the way. And now we were seated upstairs in the Rocky Mountaineer’s plush Plexiglas bi-level dome car, enjoying warm scones and coffee as we gazed at the dreamlike canvas unrolling before our eyes.
This is the way to travel. One couple called it the trip of a lifetime, a trip they had repeated six times. National Geographic has recognized it as one of the “World’s Greatest Trips,” and for many years, Rocky Mountaineer has been honored with a World Travel Award as the “World’s Leading Travel Experience by Train.” I named it “A Moveable Feast,” with a nod to Hemingway.
Our first breakfast confirmed the moniker. We descended the spiral stairway to the elegant private dining room set with white linens and fresh flowers, joined a couple from Nova Scotia, and began the meal with a plate of sweet fruit garnished with a Cape gooseberry, served with a pot of coffee and flaky warm croissant. Scrambled eggs, paired with smoked steelhead salmon and topped with kelp caviar and lemon chive crème fraiche was one of five tantalizing menu items offered as part of the GoldLeaf Breakfast, named for the high-end class of service we were enjoying.
The menu focuses on seasonal ingredients indigenous to the bountiful regions we were traversing: Alberta and British Columbia, prairie to Pacific Rim. The lunch menu included Alberta pork tenderloin, wild BC salmon, Fraser Valley chicken breast pan-seared in herb butter, black bean ragout and smoked corn salsa, and a vegetarian dish of creamy prairie barley, risotto style, with wilted spinach, roasted button mushrooms, and grape tomatoes.
Conversation and camaraderie developed at meals and throughout the journey as strangers excitedly gestured at the quickly evolving scenario beyond the train: a mountain goat scaling an impossibly rocky vertical cliff, a field of wildflowers, or a mountain lake of improbable clarity. We traded photography tips on the outdoor platform between cars, as we took turns leaning out to shoot a raging river, weathered bridge, or landscape of painted bluffs glowing greenish purple from oxidized copper in the soil.
“If we can’t export the scenery, we’ll import the tourists,” said William Van Horne, President of Canadian Pacific Railway from 1888–1899. And we’ve been coming, since the last spike of Canada’s first transcontinental railway was driven into place at Craigellachie, BC on November 7, 1885, uniting Canada from east to west. We come to marvel, not just at the scenic splendor, but at the “feat of construction which amazed the world.”
Entering Connaught Tunnel, we envisioned the labor of boring through Mount Macdonald for five long miles. At the steep gorges of Hell’s Gate, we imagined workers lowered on ropes and makeshift ladders, drilling holes to pack full of dynamite above the raging waters below. But the pièce de resistance of stories and visuals, even for the non-engineers among us, are the Spiral Tunnels. Built along a Swiss model, the system took 1,000 men 20 months to complete, and reduced a dangerous 4.5 percent grade to a more manageable 2.2 percent. Described in a railway timetable of the day: “The whole thing is a perfect maze, the railway doubling back upon itself twice, tunneling under mountains and crossing the river twice in order to cut down the grade.”
The Rocky Mountaineer staff of onboard attendants who cater to our every need included historians and storytellers, along with chefs, servers, and engineers. They give us the scoop at each key milepost, as we retrace the steps of 19th century explorers. Young, smart and charming, these adventurers who live life on the rails, in season, helped make our Rocky Mountaineer journey a moveable feast for the mind and spirit, as well as body and soul.
IF YOU GO: For the Rocky Mountaineer visit: https://www.rockymountaineer.com where the routes are described. Westjet serves Calgary (YYC) and Vancouver (YVR) from San Francisco (SFO) with seasonal non-stop service.
An earlier version of this story appears on Travel Examiner where you can view dozens of award-winning national and international travel destination articles. Visit here: https://travelexaminer.com/
Continue the extraordinary journey through the Canadian Rockies with my story published in BATW Travel Stories: https://medium.com/batw-travel-stories/summer-tripping-through-the-canadian-rockies-5bcdcf693293
For more on superlative rail travel, view another of my BATW Travel Stories: https://medium.com/batw-travel-stories/the-best-way-to-travel-through-switzerland-a9441df0a72
