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This post is part of ‘The Big Loop’ series, which chronicles our summer road trip from Ontario out to the West Coast of Canada and back via the northern US states.

The Rocky Mountaineer train trip through the Canadian Rockies has been on our personal ‘bucket list’ for many years. This summer we had the chance to take the trip from Vancouver to Banff, and it didn’t disappoint!

Vancouver: West Coast Vibes

We’ve arrived in Vancouver, where we have a couple of days to explore before we get on the Rocky Mountaineer train’s ‘First Passage to the West’ tour from Vancouver to Banff. After dropping our car off in Canmore and a short flight from Calgary to Vancouver, we were met at the luggage carousel by Michelle’s brother’s family (Dene, Kerry and Lukas). The Marfleets have just arrived from Perth, Western Australia and this is their very first visit to Canada. They’re looking remarkably fresh for having just flown halfway around the world!

It’s funny how houses in different cities can have a character of their own, like the Queenslanders of that tropical state in Australia, and Vancouver is no different. The streets of inner Vancouver are lined with huge trees and two-story gabled heritage homes, many of them carefully restored with the wood cladding of different colours. You can’t help but feel more chilled out in this classic West Coast city.

We’ve rented a very nice Airbnb on one of these streets in the area of Mt Pleasant (just southeast of Cambie and Broadway, for those of you who know Vancouver!) with the lovely host Stephanie, and her family’s pet turtle, Speedy, who we didn’t meet despite looking carefully. This turns out to be a great location for us, with lots of cafes and restaurants along Main Street within easy striking distance.

On our first morning the first stop is for coffee. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. The Marfs are struggling a little bit from jetlag, but are putting on a brave face. After a caffeine jolt we walk pretty much due north to the eastern end of False Creek, the inlet that separates downtown Vancouver from the rest of Metro Vancouver to the south.

False Creek Ferry Ride

If False Creek was in Toronto, no doubt the city would have filled it in and covered it with skyscrapers long ago in the name of efficiency or something. But luckily, Vancouver isn’t Toronto, and this lovely bit of water remains here for us to enjoy. Its existence means that entry to the downtown core from the south is limited to just three bridges and adds to the feeling of the city being surrounded on nearly all sides by water. We catch a colourful little water taxi from Science World all the way west to Granville Island, waving to a friendly seal in the water as we go.

Grand Granville Island

Granville Island is an artisanal paradise, filled with small art galleries and craft shops – glass blowers, leatherwork, metalwork, painting – all sorts of things. In many of them you’ll see the artist at work creating their next masterpiece. Years ago we bought a painting here which still holds pride of place in our living room (when we get a living room again, that is).

We enjoy a great lunch on the Tap and Barrel’s patio, surrounded by yachts in the harbour and the sparkling water, then wander around the island for awhile. We watch a seal watching a guy filleting salmon straight off the boat in one of the many harbours, patiently waiting for some scraps to drop into the water. We cross back onto the mainland (although, technically, Granville Island is a peninsula and not a true island) and head west, following the shoreline around until we eventually reach Kitsilano Beach.

Kitsilano: The Promised Land

If Vancouver is the promised land in Canada (and let’s face it, it is, with gorgeous summers and mild winters, and the No. 1 ski resort in North America less than two hours away), then Kitsilano is the promised land of the promised land. A long, sandy beach filled with beach volleyball courts, backed by public tennis courts and bike paths, a leafy neighborhood with great restaurants nearby and a fifteen minute cycle downtown. It doesn’t get any better than this.

We may be a little biased, since we lived in Kits for a (way too short) time when we lived in Vancouver back in 2005 – but still.

Cycling Central

Vancouver, with its mild climate (it rarely snows here and doesn’t usually get too hot in the summers), is cycling central. Bikes are super popular here, and there are extensive bike paths all through the city. During peak hours there are certain paths that are absolutely packed with cyclists doing their daily commute, rain or shine. (Oh, did I mention the rain? Al’s recollection of Vancouver is that it rains a LOT. But with climate change, we’re hearing from the locals that that might not be the case anymore). Anyway, three of us decide to rent Mobi city bikes and cycle home.

Unlike some other cities we’ve visited (we’re looking at you, Madrid!), getting registered and renting a bike with Mobi is quick and easy. We opt for the e-bike option because, well, why wouldn’t you? We cross the Burrard Street bridge and then follow the northern foreshore of False Creek back to the Cambie Bridge, cross that bridge going south and head back home.

You’d think that would be enough for Day One, but these Marfleets are made of tougher stuff. After a brief rest we head back out into Gastown for dinner. Gastown is the oldest part of Vancouver, named for “Gassy” Jack Deighton who opened the area’s first saloon and who also liked to talk, like, a lot (aka a gasbag). Today it’s a rapidly gentrifying area with plenty of chic restaurants and funky shops, art galleries and architects, and homeless people with shopping carts filled with all of their worldly belongings. Homelessness is a pretty big problem in Vancouver (like in most big cities, I guess), exacerbated by the fact that Vancouver’s a whole lot warmer in winter than most other places in Canada.

We eat dinner at a cool little restaurant called ‘Is That French?’, then because the Marfs are just picking up steam as it’s only late morning their time, we find ourselves at the Steamworks Brewpub where we end up playing pool for a couple of hours(!!??) We eventually agree that that’s probably enough for Day One, and make our way home.

Vancouver Day Two

As we stare up at the cedarwood totem pole in the centre of the Bill Reid gallery in downtown Vancouver we can’t help but think how it reminds us of the art of Polynesia and how they are surely related.

Bill Reid, Pride of Canada

The art of the Pacific Northwest is characterised by striking colours and bold lines as it tells the stories of the Haida people of this area. When the motifs of thunderbirds and orcas are carved into wood, silver and stone it is beautifully intricate.
We love it and wanted to share it with Michelle’s family. We had hoped to head to UBC’s Museum of Anthropology, primarily to show the Marfs the magnificent Bill Reid carving called ‘Raven and the First Men’. Unfortunately the museum’s currently closed while they beef up its earthquakeproofness, but luckily we discovered that there’s a Bill Reid gallery in downtown Vancouver, and it also has another version of this jaw-dropping sculpture. The gallery’s small, but full of interesting artwork by both Bill and other Pacific Northwest artists. Bill Reid pretty much singlehandedly raised the profile of Pacific Northwest art around the world, and his gallery’s well worth a visit.

Later in the afternoon we head to the convention centre downtown to check in for our Rocky Mountaineer trip the next day. This is quick and easy. Afterwards we walk from the convention centre along the foreshore towards Oak Harbour. There’s some great signage along the way that brings the colourful history of Vancouver to life. And the non-stop procession of sea planes taking off and landing in the harbour is really cool too.

All Aboard the Rocky Mountaineer! Day One

See the ‘In a Nutshell’ section at the bottom of this post for information about the nuts and bolts of booking a trip on the Rocky Mountaineer!

The ‘Last Spike’ of the transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway is a totem in the Canadian psyche. In 1885, with the spike in place, the construction of the first railway across Canada was complete. This railway played a huge part in bringing this new country together both physically and psychologically.

Train tracks played an outsized role in the formation of Canada. In fact, the building of a coast-to-coast railway was written into the Constitution Act of 1867 which created the Dominion of Canada. In 1871 British Columbia was convinced to join with the promise of a transcontinental railway to connect it with the rest of the fledgling country. The 4,000km line was seen as vital to protect Canada’s claims on the territories north of the US-Canadian border. It took a couple of tries (and a couple of scandals) but eventually the western line was completed in 1885 across the prairies, over the Rocky Mountains and all the way to the shores Northern Pacific Ocean.

We’re heading off on a two-day trip on the Rocky Mountaineer in the footsteps of this famous train line. We arrive at the train station just before 7:30 in the morning, all just a little excited. This trip has been four years in the making and was initially meant to be with Michelle and Dene’s Mum, Beth. It’s a dedicated train station just for the Rocky Mountaineer, and despite the early hour there’s a buzz of anticipation in the air from the couple of hundred fellow travellers. Outside the terminal, the gleaming blue carriages of the train stand waiting in the summer sunshine and we can hear the low rumble of the engines.

The great thing about this type of train travel is that it doesn’t really matter how many people are on the trip with you, it’s never going to feel crowded. You’re in an assigned seat in an isolated carriage. If they have more passengers, they just add more carriages, and it doesn’t affect your experience. (Keep this in mind if you’re travelling in a larger group – you can’t move between carriages, so you’ll need to make sure you’re all sitting together and in the same class).

After lots of pre-boarding photos, we find our carriage and get to our seats. Because there’s five of us, one of us will have to sit on our own. Lukas draws the short straw (actually since his dad’s paying for his trip, he was handed the straw). (After the first day a couple of people changed carriages, which meant we had eight seats between the five of us!)

We rotate two of the seats around so that four of us are facing each other. The panoramic windows are magnificent! And thankfully they’ve got some auto-polarizing film on the top to shade the sun, so we aren’t going to bake.

The Journey East on the Rocky Mountaineer

Today’s journey takes us east from Vancouver, following the Fraser River. As we clear the Vancouver suburbs and chug our way through the fertile Fraser Valley, our hosts for the next two days introduce themselves and provide a steady patter of interesting tidbits about what we’re seeing out the windows as well as the fascinating history of the railway.
The story of building the railway through some of the most challenging terrain in the world, and at great human cost, is best left to others. Someone like Pierre Berton, a Canadian historian of legendary status, who wrote the definitive history in his tome ‘The Last Spike’.

But our hosts do a great job of hitting the highs (and lows) of the story as we wind our way along the edge of the river. One of the more entertaining stories is about the wife of the Prime Minister at the time the railway was finished. She was apparently a bit of a thrill seeker, and not content with the comforts of the best carriage, she insisted on riding the ‘cow catcher’ for the entire journey from Banff to Vancouver. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to realise what a cowcatcher was used for on the old steam trains. Not the most comfortable seat in the house but possibly the first iteration of the adrenalin sports BC is famous for?

At noon we head downstairs for lunch, a white tablecloth affair that makes us all feel a little Hercule Poirot-esque.

 

 The Mighty Fraser from the Rocky Mountaineer

We’re going to be seeing a lot of the Fraser River today. At 1,375km the Fraser is the longest river in BC, starting at the border of Alberta and British Columbia and eventually discharging into the Pacific Ocean just south of Vancouver.
As we travel west and ‘upriver’ this morning, we’re only 60km north of the 49th parallel, the longest undefended border in the world, the Canada-US border. (Fun fact: 90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the US border). We’re leaving the Coastal mountain range behind as we make our way further west.

When we reach Hope, BC, about 150km west of Vancouver, the Fraser turns north, and we turn north with it. The river begins to noticeably narrow, and the surrounding canyon walls begin to get steeper. When we reach the aptly named Hell’s Gate, the walls narrow dramatically, forcing the entire volume of the river through a gap only 35 metres wide. How, how, how did they build this railway?? Crazy.

 

 Periodically we cross from one side of the river to the other. Our hosts tell us that at these points we’re actually changing from CPR (Canadian Pacific) to CNR (Canadian National) tracks. These two competing companies put tracks in parallel for thousands of kilometres rather than share.

We pass Lytton, which in June of 2021 was the site of a horrific wildfire that burned 80,000 hectares and wiped out the town of 1,000. Like so many places, the west coast is being significantly impacted by climate change, with more extreme weather conditions becoming the norm. There is plenty of smoke haze in the air throughout the west as this summer’s seen many, many fires already.

The scenery is at times beautiful, at times jaw-dropping. We pull into Kamloops at about 6:30pm. We’ll spend the night in a hotel here, and once we settle into our rooms we catch a cab the short jaunt back into the centre of town. There’s a band playing at the local stage, covering the pinka-ponka sound coming from dozens of pickleball courts nearby. There are a few food trucks scattered around, so we grab something and wander around the riverside taking in the natural beauty that is Kamloops.

Toot Toot! Day Two on the Rocky Mountaineer: Kamloops to Banff

As we leave Kamloops this morning, we follow the South Thompson River. The landscape’s changing often now, from the dry rocky area of Kamloops to green farmland and hills of evergreen trees.

In the hazy distance we can start to see larger and larger hills – strike that, mountains – that tell us we’re approaching the edge of the Rockies. We reach Salmon Arm, another in the tradition of great Canadian city names (see: Medicine Hat, Moosejaw, Kicking Horse, Dildo, Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!). This one gets its name for the rather mundane reasons that it’s at one of the arms of the ridiculously large Shuswap Lake, (400km of shoreline!), and is the site of an equally ridiculous number of salmon passing through the creeks leading into the lake on their way to their spawning grounds (millions!). It’s not the right time of year to see any salmon now, not like when we were in Quebec.

Just north of Salmon Arm, as we approach the village of Canoe, BC, our hosts tell us to look out of the left window and prepare to wave. They tell us a lovely story of Doris, who every time the Rocky Mountaineer goes past she’s standing outside her yellow house waving. She’s been doing it for years and – yep, there she is! We all wave and give a cheers to Doris and her husband. Apparently the folks at Rocky Mountaineer surprised her with a trip on the train as a way of thanking her. Meanwhile they had a bunch of train staff stand outside her house and waved at her as she went past! What a great story. Apparently Doris knows the train is coming because her dogs can hear it.

The Spiral Tunnels at Kicking Horse Pass from the Rocky Mountaineer

Now we’re getting into the serious Rockies. We pass through Revelstoke, another famous ski destination (and one we’ll be revisiting on our way back west) and make our way up, up, up. These are the world-famous views you imagine when you think about the Rocky Mountaineer. 

The mountains are spectacular, but some of these bridges and tunnels are engineering marvels that leave you shaking your head. Like the Connaught Tunnel at (actually, underneath) Rogers Pass. After years of fighting wildfires, heavy snowfall and avalanches on the line going through the high alpine Rogers Pass, eventually CP built the Connaught tunnel, at the time the longest rail tunnel in North America at 8km.

And speaking of marvels, next on the list are the famous Spiral Tunnels, and we all scramble for a ‘good possie’ for a picture. (Not that there’s a bad position on this train… And to be honest, a lot of the time the pictures just can’t do what we’re seeing justice!)

Anyway, the Spiral Tunnels replaced the imaginatively named ‘Big Hill.’ Big Hill was, you guessed it, a really big hill that they didn’t have the time or money to build a tunnel through when the railway was first opened. So they decided just to go over it, with a resulting track grade of 4.5% – roughly twice the recommended and one of the steepest grades anywhere in the world. The very first train that went down it lost control and went off the rails, landing in the Kicking Horse River* and killing three. Needless to say, a better solution was needed! And although it took them 25 years, eventually the Spiral Tunnels would provide a much safer and more efficient route. These two tunnels are bored through two mountains and wind back on themselves to flatten out the grade to a more reasonable 2.2%. Neat!

*Fun side note: Urban Legend has it that Kicking Horse Pass through the Rockies was so named by the first European to venture through this pass, a Scottish geologist by the name of James Hector. Poor James did not get along well with his horse and at this very spot it decided to give him a swift kick. In the chest. Hence Kicking Horse Pass. Al has a lot of sympathy for James given his general distrust of horses following several very close calls with hooves.

Into Banff

After the excitement of the mountain passes, it’s a gentle denouement into Banff. We’re held up a few times waiting for freight traffic to pass, which just gives us a bit of extra time to enjoy the ride (and the cocktails!) After two glorious days on this beautiful train, our journey draws to a close as we pull into the Banff train station. We thank our hosts profusely for their wonderful service and make our way off the train.

Next stop – we’ll make our way to Canmore, about half an hour down the road, which’ll serve as our starting point for stage two of this adventure, a road trip through the Rockies.

In A Nutshell: The Rocky Mountaineer

• We booked the ‘First Passage to the West’ Rocky Mountaineer trip, which is a two-day tour from Vancouver to Banff, with one night in Kamloops (in a hotel).
• We managed to save 25% by keeping an eye on Earlybird rates about 12 months beforehand. If you’re certain of the dates you’re going, this can be a good way of saving some money. (But even with the discount, tickets are still an eyewatering sum).
• Some credit cards offer travel insurance for cancellations etc, or you can purchase insurance when you buy the tickets. And in for a penny in for a pound, we chose the top Gold Leaf service.

The main things the Rocky Mountaineer Gold level gets you are:

• A double-decker carriage with a full panoramic glass roof
• The lower deck has a dedicated dining room where you have your meals (two lunches, two dinners) rather than at your seat
  Better food, a better selection of wine, and cocktails!
• An outdoor viewing platform at the back of your Rocky Mountaineer carriage for photos and hanging out
• A ‘better’ hotel room (though ours was not super special)