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 The Rocky Mountaineer's new Fraser Discovery Route offers views of Seton Lake. -- Photos courtesy of Rocky Mountaineer Vacations |
Having spent seven months on the beer and chicken wing circuit as a wretched Toronto Raptors beat reporter, I found myself brain dead in the month of April, and hoping for a lengthy respite on my living room couch.
But then the boss, no doubt looking for an excuse to keep me away from the office, offered me the chance to travel through the mountains of British Columbia on two new train routes, from Vancouver to Whistler on the Whistler Mountaineer, and from Whistler to Jasper, Alta., on the Rocky Mountaineer Fraser Discovery Route. Tapping into whatever reserve tanks of energy I had left, I jumped at the chance.
I mean, how difficult could it be writing about glaciers and bears after spending months being lectured by Raptors coach Sam Mitchell? Well, it didn't take long to discover that sports writing and travel writing are pretty well polar extremes, as I discovered on the first night of the journey when I met up with a group of my new colleagues at Vancouver's Raincity Grill, where the theme of the evening was all the food and wine must have originated within 160 km of Vancouver.
Half expecting the main course to feature some briny seaweed from English Bay, I stuffed my face with as much refinement as possible, given the delicious fare and sophisticated company.
I ordered neither wings nor beer, and everything went off without a hitch, that is, until a travel writer from Madison, Wis., asked the waitress to come over.
"Excuse me," she said, politely. "The beets in this salad, are they boiled or pickled?"
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"I'm not sure madam," the waitress replied. "Would you like me to check with the chef?"
"Yes, please," my Madison friend said.
A minute later, the waitress announced the beets were pickled, and the writer pulled out a notepad and began to write down all the pertinent information about the Raincity Grill's beets.
I sat in stunned silence. I can honestly say that in all the sports bars I've frequented over the years, I've never asked the waitress if the oil used to fry the wings was canola or sunflower.
The next morning, we departed Canada's "Beet Capital" and boarded the Whistler Mountaineer.
A lovely trip for sure, though I was somewhat taken aback upon arriving in Whistler. As we disembarked the train, I noticed many of the travel writers were in a frenzy, snapping pictures of the three Mounties lined up on the platform.
I wondered what the big deal was, until an Australian writer informed me that the Mountie in the middle was "the most beautiful policewoman" he had ever seen.
The man had a point, but I didn't think anything of it until another writer wandered over and, by way of introducing herself, asked if I thought the policewoman was hot. After I answered in the affirmative, the writer smiled and replied: "So do I."
That marked the first time a woman had declared her sexual orientation to me prior to my showing interest, which is the way it usually happens.
Once ensconced in tony Whistler, the site of the 2010 Winter Olympics (along with Vancouver) I decided to give a round of golf a whirl for the first time in years, and was teamed up with James Shrimpton of the Australian Associated Press. Breton Murphy of Tourism Whistler drove Shrimpton and me to the Big Sky Golf and Country Club in nearby Pemberton, B.C., and the three of us were joined by Nick Droulis, a Kingston, Ont., native and director of sales and marketing, for a round of golf.
Having last played sometime in the 1990s, my game wasn't exactly up to speed, and my golf partners, thanks to much patience and good cheer, somehow managed to get through 18 holes without wrapping a club around my neck.
One excuse I used frequently for my various misadventures in shot execution was the wondrous scenery of Mt. Currie, which rose dramatically at one end of the course, and the fact that an osprey circled above us for almost the entire game.
After some time, the majestic bird dove towards a river and shot back up with a fish in his mouth, almost as large as himself. How can you expect to concentrate on your swing when there is a live episode of Mutual Of Omaha's Wild Kingdom playing above your head?
We left Whistler bright and early the next morning and boarded the Rocky Mountaineer as it travelled during the next two days northeast and then southeast through the central Rockies, hugging the mighty Fraser River for most of the way. Just north of the town of Lillooet, we saw wild horses and a number of First Nations fish huts where the Fraser and Bridge Rivers intertwine.
With its glass windows and ceiling, the train is a fantastic way to view the splendour that is the Fraser Valley. And it became a running joke that if we didn't have food or a drink in our hands every 10 minutes or so, something must be terribly wrong in the kitchen. They even offer Nicorette gum for any buttheads on the tour. Indeed, the young staff on the Rocky Mountaineer were so pleasant and enthusiastic, this jaded Toronto writer assumed that they had been smoking British Columbia's most lucrative cash crop. Turns out, they just loved their jobs.
The Rocky Mountaineer's Gold Leaf Service offered two sittings for breakfast and lunch and they weren't offering those green cheese sandwiches that were all the rage on the old CN Toronto-Montreal line. The lunch menu included a choice of pan-seared venison, Fraser Valley chicken, braised B.C. halibut, West Coast seafood pasta or coconut curry cream with rice noodles -- all served with wine, coffee, soup, salad and dessert, of course. My face remained a contented pink throughout the two-day trek.
After a seven to eight hour passage through the canyons, ranchlands and snow-capped peaks of central B.C., we arrived at the Cariboo town of Quesnel, once a thriving gold mining centre, now known for its forest concerns. We were greeted by a large contingent of town folk, including the mayor and an assortment of local beauty queens, and were then spirited away to a Japanese-style community centre where one town council member greeted me by throwing her arms in the air in, what I thought, a rather aggressive manner. Being a born and bred Toronto boy, I naturally assumed I was about to be mugged. I quickly learned that this person was just another friendly B.C. type who just wanted a hug.
Throughout the trip, I repeatedly explained to my colleagues from the U.K., Australia and the U.S. that if there is one unifying force in Canada, it's a general disdain for Toronto. My thesis was reinforced during a speech by a local First Nations woman at a banquet the good people of Quesnel put on, when she urged everyone to visit her part of of the region, the "most beautiful part of Canada" she boasted, and then explained that she knows of what she speaks because she has travelled throughout North America.
"I just spent some time in Toronto," she said, with a pronounced scowl that sent everyone into knowing spasms of laughter.
But alas, not all is fun and games in Quesnel these days. The pesky pine beetle is eating its way through B.C.'s interior, leaving a dead sea of red trees that covers 17 million acres - the largest insect epidemic in that province's history. As a result, interior B.C. regions such as the Chilcotin and Cariboo are hoping to diversify, with tourism a new priority, and that's why the arrival of the Rocky Mountaineer means so much to the citizens of Quesnel.
The final leg of our trip, from Quesnel to Jasper was spectacular. The closer we got to Jasper, the higher and more magnificent the Rockies became. After a while, under clear blue skies, we came upon Mt. Robson, at 3,954 metres, the highest peak in the Rockies.
Our senses overloaded and our guts stuffed, we arrived at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge just in time for a reception in the Outlook Cabin, a rustic room that hosted Queen Elizabeth and the Duke Edinburgh during a break in their 2005 Canadian tour.
The next morning, I joined my new Aussie buddy Shrimpton and two locals for a game of golf on the Jasper Park Lodge course. This course was as spectacular as Big Sky, with the added pleasure of playing among herds of deer and elk, and only one downside. Every time I teed off, one particular elk turned and waved his white butt in my direction. I can still hear him say, in elk language of course: "I got your fairway right here."
I said goodbye to my newfound colleagues and all the wonderful people from the Rocky Mountaineer at a final banquet at the Jasper Park Lodge.
The final image in my mind's eye of the superb trip was watching my sophisticated new friends attempting to master the art of balancing spoons on their noses at the dinner table. I thought to myself, perhaps sports writers and travel writers aren't that much different after all.
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BOTTOM LINE
ROCKY MOUNTAINEER VACATIONS
Contact 1-877-460-3200, rockymountaineer.com or whistlermountaineer.com. The Rocky Mountaineer operates from mid-April to mid-October.
ACCOMMODATIONS
- Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, 1-800-441-1414 or fairmont.com.
- Big Sky Golf and Country Club, 1-800-668-7900 or bigsky.com.
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