Rocky Mountaineer: Above Hell’s Gate Canyon

Eagles tend to dine well in Canada, but it might have been something a little different, like my delicately poached salmon, that attracted the bald-headed critter as we lunched on the train, the Rocky Mountaineer.

“Eagle!” I called out, as told to do, and a broadside of cameras was raised to capture the unforgettable sight of the mighty bird in parallel flight just a few metres from the Rocky Mountaineer as it teetered on to a slender ledge above the Hell’s Gate Canyon.

Far below, the Fraser River raged through the pass far below, a seemingly impossible barrier to man and beast, but not really – it is conquered every year by salmon in the miracle of migration, and brave men did come this way, building a railway no less.

Such sagas stir the soul, and make for great journeys, and that’s what you get in the Canadian West. It’s ludicrously easy too, compared to what the pioneers put up with. To be honest I was prepared for some ho-hum moments, particularly on the train, which does not hold back in selling itself, but it was all worthwhile.

We started at Calgary airport, four in a rented car, but not the one we had booked. There was a time when a “full-size” car in North America was Detroit’s biggest, a block-long, six-seater with a boot to match. No more. Cars have shrunk, even over there, and we had to upgrade to a people carrier before we could stow all our gear.

It’s 90 minutes to Banff, or would be if there were adequate road signs to help visitors find the Trans-Canada Highway, but we got there thanks to directions from a friendly woman Mountie. Then out of the night sky we saw the imposing outline of the Banff Springs Hotel, built by the great Canadian Pacific Railroad and now a jewel in the crown of Fairmont Hotels.

The story of the hotel began in 1888 when Cornelius van Horne had just completed the railway from Montreal to Vancouver that was instrumental in uniting Canada. Van Horne was bowled over by the beauty of Banff in the Rocky Mountains, and he famously remarked, “Since we can’t export the scenery, we’ll have to import the tourists.”

The hotel was built in a style to become known as Scottish baronial, a handsome blend of stone, wood and turrets, the latter as seen in Loire Valley chateaux, and paid tribute to the Scots who ran Canada and who built mansions the same way in the Westmount area of Montreal, a clan of hard-working, God-fearing bankers and industrialists who tipped their hats to the flair of French architecture. Van Horne built hotels like this right across Canada, and staying there is a marvellous experience. Fairmont takes loving care of them, and at the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City, visitors can make tours with hotel staff in period costume.

Banff Springs is a big hotel, but we found a wonderful little place for a quiet dinner – the Grapes Wine Bar. It’s actually more than that, and you can check it out on the hotel website. The staff is superb, which I put down to their being easy-humoured Canadian.

Golfers should not miss the superb Stanley Thompson course, where top rental clubs and shoes are available. Thompson also designed Capilano in Vancouver, Canada’s best course.

Banff has much to offer, such as the gondola up Sulphur Mountain, the incredibly scenic Bow Falls and the Upper Hot Springs, where you can take the waters, the latter perfect for working off jetlag and associated aches and pains. Everything is very accessible and astonishingly well organized, even when a party of Italians arrived.

But don’t get too comfortable, because there’s more to see. Lake Louise is not far away, and here is another picture-perfect Fairmont hotel slap-bang on the edge of the prettiest lake this side of Mars and Venus. Soaring mountains dripping with glaciers surround a lake so green it must make Irishmen delirious.

Its story as a hotel begins in 1882, when a railway surveyor called Tom Wilson was on his way to Kicking Horse Pass. One night, while camping with Stoney Indians, he heard the rumble of avalanches, which the Indians said were occurring at the “snow mountains above the lake of little fishes.” The next day he went there, took in the view, and wrote, “As God is my judge, I never in all my expectations saw such a matchless scene.”

When you see what Tom Wilson saw, you will feel your journey has been worth all the money and effort, and everything else will be a bonus. Once again, just take a look at the pictures on the Fairmont website.

But bonuses there are. Next up is the drive to Jasper, a thrilling day spent on the Icefields Parkway, where a special bus with giant tyres makes trips on a glacier. Bears, including grizzlies, are reputed to lurk by the roadside but none obliged with an appearance, a non-situation that took on a life of its own as the trip progressed. But we did see many Bighorn sheep – handsome beasts agile on the mountainsides but happy to come down to the highway to pose for pictures.

Once again, at Jasper, Fairmont has a glorious hotel on a beautiful lake, but as bad luck would have it, a conference group had taken it over. No worries – we went for a fine lunch on a pretty terrace, and made a note to return one day. Where we slept was a very Canadian resort called the Pocahontas Cabins, a woodsy retreat with self-catering log chalets, although it had a decent restaurant as well.

Jasper is where we picked up the train, which offers two classes of service, Red Leaf and Gold Leaf. With Red Leaf you will not miss anything in terms of scenery, but if the budget can handle it go for gold. Here you have the ultimate in panoramic viewing, an open platform as well, and a lower deck restaurant. Cornelius van Horne would have given it full marks.

Our train started on the northern, Yellowhead route which took us close to Mount Robson (3994 metres) whose heavily glaciated peak makes it instantly recognizable. Sadly we did not see a lot the first morning due to the weather , but everyone on board seemed to have books about the building of the railway, such as Pierre Berton’s The Last Spike,  driven home at Craigellachie in 1885, and which marked the completion of the railway, built by two crews starting east and west.

It was named after the village of Craigellachie in the Highlands of Scotland, the ancestral home of Sir George Stephen, first president of the Canadian Pacific Railway.  The story goes that when the project was in danger of running out of money, Stephen went to London to raise capital. When he succeeded, he telegraphed Canada with the motto of the Clan Grant: “Stand Fast, Craigellachie!”

It had taken 12,000 men, 5,000 horses, and 300 dog-sled teams to build the railway, but the job was done – five years ahead of schedule!

The man behind the last spike was fellow director (and needless to say, another Scot), Sir Donald Smith. All along the route are names to make a Scot proud – Banff, Cochrane, Clanwilliam, Campbell Creek and Grant Brook.

The train moves at a sedate pace, we were told, so as not to scare the wildlife. Which prompted questions about bears. Yes, lots of them, said the crew, after which many passengers glued themselves to the windows.

Alas, the bears were not inclined to show themselves, but there was gorgeous scenery to on both sides when the sun came out, and by now we were running alongside the Thompson River. A visitor from Switzerland was heard saying he intended to return with his fishing rod. One or two passengers had a drink, perhaps to increase their powers of observation.

Breakfast and lunch were first class, beautifully served at tables with crisp, white linen. I was struck by how the quality of British Columbia wine has improved in recent years. The man from Switzerland said he would visit BC’s Okanagan Valley to check out the wineries.

All too soon we were at Kamloops, where buses were laid on to take us to a hotel. Here we had a night-stop, all part of the package, and resumed the journey the next morning. We were still following the Thompson River, but by now clear of the Rockies and steaming into BC. At Lytton the Thompson joined the Fraser River, and ahead were the precipitous cliffs of the Hell’s Gate in the Fraser Canyon.

Fraser was sent west by the North West Company to establish the fur trading post at Fort McLeod, then went on to look for a navigable waterway to the Pacific Ocean (Alexander Mackenzie had made it to the coast in 1793 but at a northern point called Bella Coola). When his canoes got to Hell’s Gate they had to make a perilous portage, Indian guides rigging rope ladders to enable them to inch their way along the walls of the canyon, after which Fraser wrote: “We had to pass where no human should venture.”

The view from the train is amazing. It is clear that engineers dynamited the moutainsides to blast a route for the track, but just enough and no more, so we had an eagle’s-eye view of the mighty river squeezed into a tiny channel and squirting through at a tremendous pace. Yet salmon swim against this in the miracle of the annual migration run (a salmon hatchery in Vancouver run by the federal government is a must-see).

Then we were on to the rich flatlands of BC – Harrison Lake, Fort Langley, New Westminster, and into Vancouver. It was beautiful countryside – just like Switzerland, said our new friend. Then the crew came around with DVDs to take home. “Any bears on this?” asked one woman, and everyone laughed.

The bears had not co-operated, but everything else had gone according to plan. My final thought that the train company’s organization had been superb – everything to make the journey a success had been thought of, such as transfers, luggage arrangements, and the like.

The final thought was that there was enough to see to justify a return trip on the southern route to see the spiral tunnels near Lake Louise, and Craigellachie, where the great railway came together. One day...