Summary
We made it on to the train for the trip to Jasper. Yay! Super comfortable and roomy seats upstairs in a glass dome car, dining room below. It was a lot like being on a cruise with an unlimited drinks package – mimosas; lovely, leisurely breakfast; drinks; lovely leisurely lunch; drinks, snacks, more drinks, cheese scones. The route we followed was along the North Thompson and Fraser Rivers. Most of the view was the rivers and trees but some waterfalls and snowy mountain peaks later (including Mt. Robson, the highest in the Canadian Rockies at 12,972 feet). At some point we crossed the Continental Divide and changed to Mountain Daylight Time. Arrived to rain, well after dark, which necessitated at wet ride on the rear of a golf cart to our (very nice) room.
Details
Our departure today is better than yesterday. Today we really do get on the train into the Canadian Rockies. First we wake and leave our bags in our room and head to the lobby at the appointed hour (7:30 am). The place is mobbed. Everyone’s talking at once, not sure what’s going on, and greeting each other. And at the center is a shorter, older soft-spoken Japanese woman who is our guide. Almost all of “us” are older and undoubtedly hard of hearing and the acoustics are bad so it’s a miracle we hear we’re to go to bus number (I forget).
On our bus we again have the same hostess as our guide. Mariko. She’s adorable, always smiling and nodding, very earnest and sincere. She takes her job seriously but with good humor. We learn what will happen for the next quarter hour for our trip to the train.
On the short drive to the train we are thankful that the smoke here today is a smidge better than yesterday. Checking online we find that Jasper, our destination for the day, is slightly degraded but still pretty good. The grass and brush past which we’re driving all looks tinder dry. What a way to live. Are summers here always like this?
On the train we’re taken to our seats. We’re in seats number 1 and 2 which we worry are at the very front, looking at the bulkhead. Thankfully our seats are actually are the very back of our coach so we do have good views.
Down the aisle we see and are introduced to our service team for the trip: Tony, Maria and James. There’s also Marrow and a raft of chefs and other service people downstairs to help with the formal seated meals. While we’re having our safety briefing (not unlike on a plane) mimosas are handed out. They have ones without champagne for those who don’t partake. Karen had a bit of trouble explaining she needs just the opposite: a mimosa without the orange juice (just champagne) due to her pre-diabetes.
The train doesn’t have USB power or outlets or WiFi. We’re to be “in the moment”. Tony says if there’s anything we would have looked up on our phones, ask him and he’ll try to come up with an answer. He’s funny.
We learn the train is 22 cars and two engines. The tracks were built in 1915. Along side are a slew of poles with wires. These are the original telegraph lines. They’re no longer used and they’re letting them slowly dissolve back into the earth, very slowly.
Normally we would have been on the train with this team yesterday and, throughout the day, they would have had us sample this or been surprised by that treat. Since we’re only on the train for one day, due to the fire, they’re cramming everything into one day. We’re going to get served and fed and given drinks to within an inch of our lives.
There are two “seatings” for breakfast and we’re in the first seating at 9:30. We meet Keith and Sue with whom we’re sharing a table for breakfast. They’re from Canada in the Niagara area. We talk about families, and travels, and we tell them all we know and love about Canada. Breakfast is very good and fairly fancy, for a train. Stuffed we bid Keith and Sue adieu and head back upstairs to our seats.
Post breakfast the cocktail service continues. Tony narrates the trip, telling us about the trains and the area and alas about the fires. We pass through a burned out area and Tony explains this was due to a cigarette discarded by a local volunteer fireman. After it caught fire he called it in but it took off before they could get it under control.
We’re told, variably, there are currently 100 fires (or 1,000 fires depending on whom you want to listen to. Most of the fires are lightning strikes, some are man made. Some are animal made. (Whaaa?) Sometimes you have a freak accident where an osprey loses control of a fish in flight and it hits the power line and sparks and boom, you have a fire. Sometime the fires “winter over”. They’re smoldering underground and burn through the winter and restart in earnest in the spring. Ooof, that’s a lot of ways a fire can start.
Where we are traveling it’s clear with no smoke or sign of fire, until there is. We go back and forth between fire and no fire. We come across a very isolated fire that seems very new. Tony assures us that the authorities have been informed.
At lunch we head back downstairs and this time we’re seated with a delightful couple from Adelaide, Australia. We hit it off and have one round of drinks with lunch, and then another and on and on. The party continues back upstairs after lunch.
We laugh and swap stories through out the afternoon, pausing occasionally to get an update from Tony about where we are and what we’re seeing. At one point we see an amazing mountain looming nearby. Apparently some rich guy was going to build a big resort there but was taking a cruise first… on the Titanic. Needless to say he didn’t get to build his resort. The area is now a UNESCO Heritage site.
We see few animals on our travels. Two bald eagles, one deer, a beaver dam, some cranes and other random birds. As we’re approaching Jasper we pass Moose lake but Tony says he has never seen a moose there. We pass from the province of British Columbia into Alberta and lose an hour in the process. We were to have gotten into Jasper around seven or eight, but given that cargo trains get priority, you never know.
It’s getting dark when we get to Jasper and the clouds are starting to sprinkle. By the time the bus drives us the fifteen minutes to the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge it’s really coming down. Our luggage is meeting us in our room, but we’re juggling lots of stuff nonetheless. Our cabin is a long five minute walk, in the pouring rain, so we take the resort’s offer to have us taken over there in the ‘kind of’ covered golf cart. We’re quite wet by the time we get to our room/cabin.
Our rooms are spacious and lodge-like with huge logs and beams here and there. We have a big windowed sitting room and a big sleeping room. We’d cancelled our dinner reservation (which we missed by a mile, time-wise) long ago. We’re so full from our trip. We didn’t get much exercise today but our bodies are ready to drift off to dreamland, time change be damned.
Photos
