Our Rocky Mountaineer Experience
Monday 3 June
So here we are on yet another different adventure – a journey on the Rocky Mountaineer from Vancouver via Kamloops to Lake Louise.
Mike and Debbie dropped us off at Mt Vernon Station and we picked up our Greyhound Bus (yes, we had to try one of these too!) to Vancouver. It took about 2 ½ hours which included a very easy border stop to enter into Canada. Vancouver is the first stop on our Rocky Mountaineer experience which started when we checked in to the Fairmont Hotel in Vancouver and collected our boarding cards and instructions for tomorrow – which starts at 0650 hours! A lovely walk and cocktail around Coal Harbour, followed by a delicious dinner at a very authentic Italian restaurant, and then it was early to bed for us.
Tuesday 4 June
In 1988 the Canadian Government, through its Crown corporation VIA Rail Canada, began running a special Canadian Rockies by daylight service. In 1989, after two seasons, the government decided to provide the private sector with the unique opportunity to own and operate this train. Recognising the importance of this historic and scenic route, the Great Canadian Railtour Company was formed by a group of Western Canadian business people for the sole purpose of operating this train. On 27 May 1990 the Rocky Mountaineer pulled out of Vancouver station on it’s maiden voyage to Banff and Calgary. Since that time more routes have been added and it’s now possible to end your journey either in Banff or Jasper, as well as a Gold Rush route to British Columbia and a Coastal Passage to Seattle. Each coach has a dedicated Rocky Mountaineer host who shares stories about the stunning vistas unfolding outside the windows and guests are treated to excellent service – glass roofs to take in the views, an outside viewing platform, a beautiful restaurant and upstairs, deliciously comfortable reclining leather seats! What’s not to love!
Frustratingly, it was pouring with rain when we left the hotel for the station this morning, but the weather promises to improve during the day. We were taken to the station by coach and boarded our Gold Leaf Service carriage for the start of our journey – first stop Kamloops! We coasted slowly out of rainy Vancouver, accompanied by the dulcet tones of local hero, Michael Bublé, and were offered champagne and cocktails, even before we’d had breakfast!!!! Downstairs we went to the dining car and enjoyed a welcome cooked breakfast and then, back upstairs took our seats to enjoy the first part of this very scenic journey.
Around 1.30pm – and fortunately just before our lunch was to be served, we slowed down to pass Hell’s Gate! We had already heard about this bridge and the rapids below from Mike at the weekend, as he had been here testing out a boat (even more impressive now that we have seen the rapids with our own eyes!). Hell’s Gate is on the Fraser River and takes it’s name from a description in Simon Fraser’s diary. He was born in 1776 and worked for the fur-trading North West Company rising to the rank of partner. He was asked to extend the company’s activities west of the Rockies and established the first trading post at Fort McLeod in northern British Colombia. He began a search for a navigable waterway to the Pacific Ocean and helped by the local indigenous guides, navigated the junction of the “muddy waters”and the “clear waters”. Today they are known as the Fraser and Thompson rivers, the latter after geographer David Thompson. In 1808 Hell’s Gate, the narrow passage of towering rock and dangerous rapids was named from Fraser’s diary description “a place where no human should venture, for surely these are the gates of hell”. Once again, I’d like to give a second nod to “San Juan Mike”, because when they were testing boats in these rapids a 30-foot professional tourist raft came down and got sucked into a giant whirlpool which resulted in elderly German tourists being sucked out and into the rapids. Mike and his fellow workmates fired up their three boats and plucked 20 scared tourists, including the guide, out of the water, they then corralled the big raft and got everyone back on board. What on earth would have happened if they had not been there? Fraser charted the river; an unstable and treacherous road was the only connection between the coast and central British Colombia in those times. In 1881 the Canadian Pacific Railway began a new transcontinental railroad to unite the provinces of Canada. To build the railway, men were lowered down steep canyon walls on ropes and makeshift ladders, to drill holes and pack them with dynamite. Blasting often caused rockslides, that fell with trees, debris and people, into the raging waters below. This portion of the line was completed in 1885. How lucky were we that by the time we slowed down to look at Hell’s Gate, the rain had cleared and the sunshine had appeared so we were able to get some great views of it and some pretty good photographs as well.
A delicious lunch was then served and then it was back to our leather recliners to sit and marvel at the views from out of the windows, the roof, and the occasional trip down to the outside viewing platform. Kamloops is our first stop tonight. We disembarked and arrived at our hotel about 7.00pm. I’d love to tell you lots about Kamloops, but it was late when we arrived, and we were given the wonderful news that we had to be in the foyer to leave at 5.50am in the morning so we were never going to have a night out on the town. And to be honest, from what we saw of Kamloops on the drive in, I don’t think that was ever going to happen anyway! Nice scenery on the way to the hotel though, rugged mountains but with a desert-like environment including sandstone canyons, gorges, and lots of towering hoodoos….these are rock formations formed after the end of the last ice age. As glacial ice retreated, sediment was deposited in the bottom of the glacial lake. When the lake retreated, erosion began and 10,000 years later, the erosion terraces and pillar-like hoodoos are all that remain of the former lakebed. A trip to the closed-town-except-for-the-supermarket for some fruit, yoghourt for dinner and milk for tomorrow morning’s early tea and coffee and that was it! Kamloops over and out. Don’t think we missed much!
Wednesday 5 June
A bright sunny morning made our godawful departure time a bit easier and here we are, back in our recliners watching the forests and lakes pass us by. The train has divided this morning with some guests heading for Jasper; we’re headed for Lake Louise so will be leaving the province of British Columbia and sleeping in Alberta tonight and our watches going forward one hour.
We’ve passed some very interesting scenery, including a bear racing through a field, some beautiful houseboats, homeowners, who regularly wave to the Rocky Mountaineer when it passes (a quick story, Doris from Canoe River usually stands on her porch and waves each Rocky Mountaineer train, she wasn’t there today, but her husband did the honours. She has been doing this for about 10 years and as a wonderful gesture, Rocky Mountaineer took her on their train to Vancouver and as a surprise, all the Rocky Mountaineer staff stood on her porch and waved to her as she went by – what a heartwarming story!). We have now just slowly rolled through the little town of Craigellachie where on 7 November 1885 at 9.22am, Donald A Smith was standing by the newly placed tracks, ready to drive the last spike of Canada’s first transcontinental Railway. His first blow was a feeble one and the plain iron spike bent and was knocked away. A spare one was quickly set up and Smith hit this one with careful, precise blows, driving the last spike into place. Completed in 54 months, almost six years ahead of its original schedule (Auckland take notice!) a stone cairn was built in 1927 by CP Rail to commemorate this incredible feat – on the photo that I managed to whip off through the window, you can see that the inscription is in French. The translation is “Here was driven the last spike completing Canadian Pacific Railway from ocean to ocean on 7 November 1885”. We were shown a replica of the spike with two of the original photos by our crew on the train – see my photo of them both.
Some notable places we have passed through – the Connaught Tunnel, constructed from 1914 – 1916, it is 8 kms long and bored through Mt Macdonald, it was built to avoid the challenging heavy snowfalls of Rogers Pass and climbs in a straight line to a summit of 1,157 metres above sea level and is named after the Duke of Connaught who was the Governor General of Canada. No pictures inside – obviously! Stoney Creek Bridge, on the eastern slopes of Mt Tupper, originally a wooden structure spanned the canyon but was replaced in 1893 with a new bridge, constructed of steel and measuring 102.5 metres long. By 1929 the weight of the trains had almost doubled, and CP Rail was forced to replace the structure and since there was no room to build a new bridge adjacent to the old one, the new one was built directly over the old one! This one, that we have just ridden over spans 147.6 metres and towers 90 metres above the creek bed – see these photos….I was very nervous about dropping my phone as we went over!
One of the weakest links in the CP Rail Line during the first 23 years was the “Big Hill”, a 13 km stretch between Field and Hector BC. Constructed in 1884, this was to be a temporary line until another alternative could be found. Not only was it dangerous at a 4.5% grade, but it also caused enormous costs in repairs, wages and operational expenses. In 1907 construction began on the unique Spiral Tunnels. Modelled after a tunnel system in Switzerland, it took 1,000 men 20 months to complete. It involved the excavation of 557,500 m3 of rock and it cost over $1million to build. However, it allowed the grade to be reduced to a more manageable 2.2%. The Upper Spiral travels through Cathedral Mountain and is 993 metres long and turns approximately 290 degrees emerging 15.25 metres higher than its entrance. The Lower Spiral is tunnelled through Mount Ogden and is 891metres long and turns approximately 230 degrees emerging 17.1 metres higher than its entrance. It is described in a railway timetable of the day “The whole thing is a perfect maze, the railway doubling back on itself twice, tunnelling under mountains and crossing the river twice in order to cut down the grade”. And incidentally, while we’re talking about trains, one of the freight trains we have seen was pulling 220 tankers!
And finally, just before we disembark in Lake Louise, one more landmark…The Continental Divide… being the highest point, melting glaciers or snow form rivers which run down either the east to Alberta and Hudson Bay to the Atlantic Ocean, or the west back into British Colombia via the Colombia and Fraser rivers to the Pacific Ocean. on our trip. I managed to get almost all of it in a photograph, not too bad given we were travelling quite fast.
