THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILROAD
If you take a trip through the Canadian Rocky Mountains on the Canadian Pacific Railroad you will be in company worthy of name-dropping. Others who have slept aboard include Queen Elizabeth and Winston Churchill, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and more recently, Bill Gates.
The Canadian Rockies need no introduction, but the star of this vacation is the train, which originally ran this route in 1881. Picture a fleet of refurbished cars, each fitted for its own function: dining, lounging, games, sleeping, in keeping with its aristocratic history. Life aboard is leisurely and luxurious; in all likelihood it is much the same now as it was then, with upgrades like air-conditioning and the probability that the sophistication and variety of meals served on board is an improvement over those of the last century. This is the train that united Canada, and the current tours are inspired not only by the show-stopping scenery, but by Canadian train travel as it used to be.
The tour begins with dinner and one night spent at the Fairmont Palliser Hotel in Calgary, which is adjacent to the Canadian Pacific Railroad Station. The hotel fits nicely into the atmosphere of nostalgia, with its old-world paneled public rooms, grandma’s ferns, dining room with walk-in stone fireplace and candlelight glowing on damask tablecloths. Guests of the CPR stay on the “Entre Gold” level, where they are white-gloved with their own lounge, concierge, complimentary beverages and snacks, and VIP treatment.
After breakfast, it’s all aboard with a bit of hoopla –photographer, bagpiper–but even without the fanfare, one feels a rush at the first sight of the gleaming row of waiting cars, red-jacketed staff and the welcoming upholstered chairs in the cozy “Observation Room.”
As the train proceeds slowly, the passengers, (no more than 24 per trip) begin to get acquainted, and soon, there’s lunch. The menu may include penne with chorizo sausage or chicken with apricot relish as it did on a recent trip, but there are possible substitutions for vegetarians, and accommodation is made for other diet restrictions. (Passengers are interviewed before the trip to make certain their preferences are known to the chef.) The meals are comparable to star-quality restaurant dining–dinners feature marinated quail, Sockeye salmon, beef tenderloin, for example–and wine and champagne flow generously.
If God is in the details, so is quality. At every dinner, fresh flowers sit on the table, service is attentive, and it’s hard to miss the linen dinner napkins, which get folded in increasingly elaborate shapes as the weekend progresses. Saturday night the staff is spiffed up in white jackets trimmed with gold braid, local musicians appear at a lake called Crowsnest where passengers leave the train to sip cocktails at its shore before dinner. No dish is ever repeated and desserts get high marks, as for example, a praline white chocolate cake with raspberry coulis, or, for the occasion of a wedding anniversary on board, a croque en bouche that towered well over a foot high under its web of spun sugar.
Soon, to bed. The train does not move at night, so no shake, rattle and roll will disturb slumber. While beds are regulation size double or twin, the sleeping compartments are compact, bathrooms mini, so when packing, bear in mind that less is more.
Each day, there is at least one stop at a location of some interest, a few hours’ excursion that usually begins with a short bus ride and a chatty guide. And, each return to the train is greeted with a welcoming drink – a Bacardi Breeze, say, a Kir Royale, or just some funky, fruity cooler – another nice touch.
One such side trip took CPR passengers to the fittingly named Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Heritage Site. Here’s where thousands of years ago, Indians massacred herds of buffalo by luring the animals to a cliff and watching as one after another went over the side, follow-the-leader style, to a quick suicide death below.
A less chilling short excursion took all aboard to see living animals at Spruce Meadows, the largest North American equestrian center for the sport of horse-jumping. A tour of the stables, television studio and a hurdle-jumping competition was a great favorite with the crowd. This year there’s an “interpretive hike” and another photo op led by a guide along an idyllic area along the shore of Lake Louise.
A sort of busman’s holiday was the visit to Cranbrook, site of the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel. The tour snaked through rows of railroad cars, circa 1907, in varying stages of restoration, showing upper-lower bunks, old dining cars complete with china place settings, mohair seats and smoking cars–a close-up view of the way passengers crossed the continent then. Ft. Steele, another side trip, featured a late 19th Century style restored village, with actors dressed in period costumes, a blacksmith’s demonstration, a lunch prepared and served as it might have been then.
This year, exclusively on the August 26-29th (2001) trip, a special “Royal Clubhouse Excursion” will make stops at Banff Springs, Greywolf and St. Eugene Mission Golf Clubs, where passengers will be able to disembark, lunch and play at world class courses.
The best show, of course, is the one seen through the train windows. From Alberta through British Columbia, the train glides and rumbles through interior valleys carved by the Columbia River, across the world’s largest railway trestle bridge, past craggy mountains that look like oil on canvas, across prairies, into dark, spiral tunnels or through towns with names like Okonoks, Fernie, Lethridge, Banff. One sees a herd of cows here, a white-water rafting expedition there, and most often, lakes and rivers, streams and ponds, in a spectrum of blues that sometimes looks as if pots of paint had been dumped into the water.
On board, “Everything but a grand piano,” as one passenger commented. Outside, everything scenic that Western Canada has to offer, in a pageant of full, cinematic color.
THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILROAD RUNS FROM MAY TO OCTOBER. FOR RESERVATIONS AND INFORMATION: 1-877-665-3044
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