The Canadian

Drawing a metallic line across the country, few journeys are as beautiful, or powerful, as the one experienced aboard this national icon

Our journey begins in darkness. We slip away from Toronto’s Union Station just after 10 p.m. on a chilly February evening, skirting the CN Tower before plunging into the vast commuter belt. It’s an unassuming start to one of the world’s great transcontinental train rides; the 4,467 kilometre trip to Vancouver, which will take us four nights, five provinces and four time zones to complete.

We’re aboard VIA Rail’s ‘Canadian’ – a tram so important to the story of Canada that it appears on the $10 bill. The ‘we’ in question is my partner, my parents and me, and there’s a reason we’re embarking on this journey together: the history of the route is intertwined, not only with the history of the nation, but also with the history of my own part-Canadian family.

Work on Canada’s first transcontinental railway, the Canadian Pacific, began in 1880, 13 years after Canadian Confederation established self-governance, and nine years after the far-flung colony of British Columbia joined the Dominion on the condition that an east-west rail link would be established within a decade. The last spike was driven in at 9.22 a.m. on November 7, 1885 – a feat of engineering that unified the young country, fuelled a settlement boom across the fertile prairies and powered Canada’s emerging economy by transporting gram, ore, timber and more.

A second, more northerly route – the Canadian National – followed in 1915, and it’s along this line that the modern-day ‘Canadian’ travels after competing passenger services were merged in 1990. It’s also along this line that my Toronto-based great­-grandfather worked in the 1920s as a conductor, managing freight trains from the caboose at the rear. My childhood in the UK was filled with tales of his adventures and I have long wanted to travel in his tracks with my father, himself a railwayman and the fifth generation of my family to work in the industry.

As we rumble through seemingly endless Toronto suburbs we settle into our home for the next few days. The sleek, bullet-shaped cars were built in the 1950s and, despite multiple refurbishments, still retain an air of mid-century glamour. Some contain curtained berths, others are full cabins with ensuite toilets. We have opted for the latter, which is furnished with bunk beds that swing down from the wall; by day, they will be magicked away by an attendant and a pair of armchairs set up in their place. They’re tiny but surprisingly comfortable and we’re soon snuggled beneath our duvets, lulled to sleep by the rhythmic clackety-clack of the wheels.

When we open our blinds the next morning the suburbs have been replaced by fir trees and lakes, blanketed in snow that sparkles in the sunshine. This is the Canadian Shield – a vast expanse of boreal forest which covers more than half the country and contains a fifth of the world’s fresh water. The weather here is bitter in winter and ice has built up in the train’s vestibules overnight, though the interior remains toasty. As we head to the dining car for breakfast, I find myself thinking about the harsh conditions my great-grandfather would have faced at the start of his career when, as a brakeman in the 1890s, he would have been required to clamber along the top of moving wagons to set the brakes.

Life on the train soon falls into a lazy rhythm. We play cards in the Park lounge car. We gaze at the landscape from the panoramic Dome car. And we try – and fail – to count the wagons on passing freight trains, which can be up to four kilometres long. We become accustomed to the constant rocking motion and learn to walk with our knees slightly bent to cushion any jolts. The absence of WiFi and phone signal is a treat; our world is contained within this steel capsule, all daily stresses temporarily forgotten.

Meals, served in allocated sittings at smart white-clothed tables, provide a bit of structure to our days. Each is a multi-course affair washed down with Canadian wine and we marvel at the delights the chefs manage to whip up in their tiny moving kitchen – stacks of pancakes drizzled in maple syrup, just- right steaks, grilled trout with mounds of fresh vegetables.

Every now and then we pass remote outposts sporting evocative names such as Mud River, Flindt Landing and Savant Lake, each barely more than a cluster of cabins. Most are request stops only, but on our first afternoon there’s a scheduled pause in the town of Hornepayne where the temperature is -21°C and giant, dagger-like icicles hang from the station gables. We swaddle ourselves in layers and venture outside, posing for photos by the pair of towering locomotives that are hauling us across the continent. In the evening we roll through the tiny settlement of Longlac where my great-grandfather once applied for the post of station manager in a bid to find more stable working hours; my great-grandmother talked him out of moving his family to the middle of nowhere and his life on the rails continued.

On our second morning Ontario’s forests give way to the plains of Manitoba and we gam an additional hour in the day. This is farming country, so flat that the horizon seems to merge with the sky. There are few signs of life; only snow- covered wheat fields, deserted roads and occasional grain elevators that rise from the landscape like skyscrapers.

After mile upon mile of emptiness we reach the provincial capital, Winnipeg, where a crew change allows us a couple of hours to stretch our legs. We slip and slide our way across the icy road to Forks Public Market, set in a converted warehouse opposite the station, and stock up on snacks for the rest of the journey.

As we climb back on board a snow storm descends. We spend the next few hours travelling through a near-total white-out, unable to see anything other than the ghostly outlines of telegraph poles, which briefly emerge from the mist before vanishing again. By the time the blizzard clears to reveal a pink- tinged evening sky we have crossed into Saskatchewan, whose prairies stretch as far as the eye can see. Relaxed after doing very little, we linger in the Dome car until the small hours, finally submitting to tiredness as the tram pulls into the city of Saskatoon.

When we wake, we’re still there. A freight tram has derailed ahead of us, blocking the line, and we spend much of our third day at a standstill waiting for the toppled wagons to be cleared. No-one seems to mind; the efficient, ever-smiling crew rustle up additional meals and drinks and it provides an opportunity to restart books long since abandoned in favour of staring out of the window.

The downside to the delay becomes apparent later on when we pass much of Alberta, including the magnificent Jasper National Park, in darkness. The upside comes at 6 a.m. on our final day when we’re awoken by an announcement informing us of two things – firstly, that we have entered British Columbia and yet another time zone, and secondly, that the tram is approaching Mount Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. We scramble to open the blinds and are rewarded with the spectacular sight of early-morning sunlight glinting off its jagged summit.

The tram continues to snake through the mountains and the dining car is silent over breakfast as everyone cranes their necks to gawp at the views. Every now and then there’s an excited cry as someone spots an animal: a fox scurrying along a frozen river, a moose standing silently at the trackside (though sadly no bears due to winter hibernation).

By midday we have entered the steep­-sided Fraser Canyon, the scene of the 1850s Gold Rush and the mam transport corridor between the interior and the west coast. Here the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific lines shadow each other, passing along track beds carved into opposite banks before switching sides across a pair of steel bridges. We peer down at the churning river far below, spying fish ladders built for migrating salmon, log rafts floating towards saw mills and the swirling rapids of a narrow gorge known as Hell’s Gate, where a torrent of water is forced through a gap only 35 metres wide.

The canyon gradually flattens out as we head towards Vancouver and, despite our late running, the city lights appear all too quickly. Disembarking at Pacific Central Station we find it hard to pull ourselves away from the comfortable cocoon of the train and adjust to the stillness of the ground beneath our feet. The temptation to head straight to the ticket office and book onto the return journey is hard to resist.