Toronto to Vancouver by Train

Toronto, polar bear tours in Churchill, Jasper in the Rockies, lots of wildlife, and the beautiful skyline of Vancouver.

Quick Tips:

Polar bear tours in Churchill run between mid-October and mid-November.

There is a webcam for the polar bears in Churchill that you can look at during the polar bear seasonat www.polarbear.com.

Best Way To Get Around:

By train, of course!

Travelling your own country with friends from elsewhere is an interesting experience. Alan seems to notice the strangest things - he is amazed by the fact that pint glasses in Canada are never filled as full as in Scotland (wonder what that says...), that milk comes in plastic bags, that bread packages have plastic tags to keep them closed, that bubble tea exists!

Leaving Toronto proved interesting, as Via Rail has some creative baggage policies. First off, I asked if there were any restrictions before we left and was told no. Since we have discovered that you can only have carry-on-size bags in the carriages, that there is a weight restriction and charges for overweight baggage, and that they have a $2.50/day charge for storage BUT don't actually have storage facilities... we did manage to get our extra bags stored everywhere we stopped, but it took some sweet-talking.

The scenery through Ontario was trees, trees, and more trees. Lots of faded autumn colours and small towns. It was interesting being in the north, though - it is such a part of Canadian consciousness, even though many of us never or seldom are in the north. We passed Lake Simcoe, which made me sad that I hadn't made it out to the cottage before leaving Ontario. The train stops for refueling and you can get off, though we stayed on at Sudbury (as Jenni pointed out, getting off at the acid rain capital of Canada might not result in the most interesting photos!). However, we got off at Capreol and Sioux Lookout and took some exciting photos of us and the train. There are more French-speaking people in Northern Ontario than I had realised.

By the time we had hit day two on the train, still in Ontario, there was snow outside. None of us had expected to see snow so soon. We had a four-hour stopover in Winnipeg, where it was freezing!!! And windy. We watched the football (Canadian finals) at a place called Earl's and then got on the Hudson Bay train. The train across to Vancouver is called the Canadian, and it's very touristy. No free blankets and pillows on the Hudson's Bay though, and no nice staff!!! We had our first wildlife sighting, deer running through a field. Our food choices left a lot to be desired, essentially we lived on peanut butter and jam sandwiches and breakfast bars for five days. However, our fellow passengers were entertaining on the 36-hour trip-- one guy told us all about how he believes in vampires. At The Pas, we did a dash to see a church, impressively we can be tourists even with only 20 minutes in a town.

We saw the Northern Lights from the train that night, it was amazing. Then we hit Churchill and headed out to see polar bears. The tour was full of Australians, naturally. We saw an Arctic fox pouncing on its prey, lots of ptarmigan, and six polar bears. They were such beautiful and powerful animals. One was watching a guy inside a lodge on the tundra, and standing on its hind legs to see him better. The tundra is beautiful, the setting sun turned the ice a mint green colour and the sunset was gorgeous. and our Argentinian guide was cute too! The town was rather on the functional side, though we only had time to see a couple of gift shops before we headed out on the train for another 36 hours. Perhaps it is time to mention that this trip involved a six-day stretch without showers. Paying for bunks on the train would have broken the budget, and our plans to try and sneak into the showers of those lucky first-class travellers were scuppered. We would have loved to stay in Churchill overnight, but the prices for rooms there are high, and more importantly, during the polar bear season it is near impossible to get a bed. We met people who had paid $100 for a night on someone's floor.

Some of the Australians in Churchill had taken photos of the interesting ice formations on the train. At one of the refueling stops, we suddenly clued in to what they where, located as they were under the toilet cubicles...

Arriving at the hostel in Winnipeg was amazing, as for the first time in 6 days we all got to shower... yes, I know, that isn't exactly a pleasant thought, but there you are. Seeing polar bears was worth 5 days of bad hair.

"Winterpeg" is one of those nicknames that you immediately understand upon arrival. Apparently, the weather was unseasonably cold for november... However, the worst was the wind. If you can believe it, we actually found the cold worse than in Churchill. Met some interesting folk in the hostel - two potheads from Revelstoke. They gave BC a good name though, since they offered to share with just about everyone in the hostel, including all the staff!

Tourist-wise, Winnipeg appears to have a lot to offer, however this doesn't apply if you visit in November (or any winter month apparently). We went to the Forks, nothing to do but see a few shops since they don't exactly do outdoor theatre at -20. The Royal Canadian Mint was quite a laugh. The displays were all set up in the 70s, and some of the staff still think they are in that particular decade, judging by the hairstyles. However, I am told that mullets are coming back - on women!!! Ahhhhhhh.

We went to see the Museum of Man and Nature, where I fell asleep during the planetarium show (blame the Revelstoke crew for that one), and learned only about two facts. One, Churchill was set up to be a grain port for Westerners who didn't want to ship through the East (wow, Westerners have always hated us Easties). Two, "moose" means "eater of twigs" in the Algonquin language. I saw the replica traders’ ship, the Nonsuch, or maybe it was a real ship - ran out of time and the ability to read by that point in the museum.

We spent a lot of time in a diner near the hostel. Jenni had her first poutine, and Alan his first ever pierogies.

We saw the Tom Thomson exhibit (it was bigger and better when I saw it in Toronto) at the WAG, along with some fantastic Inuit sculptures. The only other thing in the gallery was a very odd exhibit entitled "German angst." Dropped by the Ukrainian exhibit - it was classic Canadian immigrant story - come over, face hardship and adversity, eventually make good. Nice museum, cool eggs.

Then we attempted to do the walking tour of St Boniface, the French Quarter. We saw the grave of Louis Reil and promptly gave in to the cold by spending the rest of the afternoon in a coffee shop. Apparently there are some very nice houses to be seen, including the home of the author Gabrielle Roy, but not at the expense of frostbite.

Off we went to see two Imax films, and boy were they Disney-fied. Everything was concentrated on the US, the only things that got eaten were fish, and to my surprise, I discovered that bears reproduce through bear hugs!!! And here I thought it was a bit more involved than that.

Our hostel was also full of some crazy women from Thunder Bay. They kidnapped a cute Kiwi and took him shopping. We never did see him again... They both run hostels, and were interesting characters.

So, we go to the zoo for the Winnie the Pooh Connection. The statue wasn't great, the bear was never even kept in that zoo, and the place had cages that were far too small for most of the animals. Not good. The best bit was the lemurs. There were lots of evil birds just wandering about, and an evil tropical building that made me sneeze nonstop.

Our train was FOUR HOURS LATE!!! We didn't even get free coffee out of it. Then a via staff member managed to completely insult us by making us wait for almost 20 minutes while an old lady with a walker was boarded. OK, priority boarding and everything, but the attitude of this woman was that seeing as we were ECONOMY passengers, we intended to rugby tackle the poor little old lady while on our way to our seats...

Via service is horrible. With the train being late, a woman we met on the trip ended up stranded at the Brandon North station, without light, electricity, heat or access to washrooms or info as to why the train was late (it was behind a derailment, always comforting to hear such tales). However, the late train meant we got to see the prairies, since otherwise we would have slept through them. I really liked the scenery, lots of small towns full of pickup trucks and grain silos. The endless sky thing is nice at sunrise.

Arriving on the train, the skyline of Edmonton seems to jump out of nowhere. Why it's called Deadmonton, I don't know, ‘cause we all loved the city, especially Strathcona, the neighbourhood the HI hostel is located in.

It was in Edmonton that Alan and Jenni were served pints with bits of lemon. What's up with that?

We loved the provincial museum of Alberta – there were lots of dioramas about wildlife and native Canadians. The women that charged us to go in turned out to be studying to play the bagpipes, which was a bit random, but that is the kind of stuff you find out when travelling with Scots apparently. We attempted to go and have our tea leaves read at a Russian tea house, but it was closed for Remembrance Day. Even the buses were flashing "Lest We Forget" instead of route names. They take Remembrance Day much more seriously in Alberta than in Ontario, which is rather nice.

The Edmonton MEC (an outdoors equipment shop) has lots of gear and a coffee Shop -- Jenni was ready to stay and to heck with Vancouver, coffee and gortex being two of her favourite things. Alan came up with an interesting question for Canadians to ponder: "If you had to nuke one province, which would it be?"

We had dinner with Margaret (formerly a resident of Edinburgh, but Canadian), with a very loud Oilers game in the background. The next day we headed to the mall, which was not just any mall, but the West Edmonton Mall, the biggest in the world. And frankly, folks, we weren't impressed. It's got no more shops than the Eaton Centre in Toronto -- really, it's only big ‘cause it has a water park, a roller coaster, a dolphin tank (very evil, a single social creature in a tiny tank; it made Canadians look very not cool). We went to Roots once again -- that store is addictive.

What else to say about Edmonton? Alan and Jenni taught me what gurning was (when old men take out their teeth and suck their lips into their mouths, apparently this is a competitive sport in England. . .).

They gave us free donuts because the train was late. . . And just generally, we like Edmonton very much. I have since found out it's my dad's favourite city in the west and I totally see why.

Once we get the photos of the trip developed, we'll be calling them the "back to nature" photos, since there are many of animal arses...

So, we got to Jasper and decided to rent a car. It is such a beautiful little town, it reminds Alan of Aviemore in Scotland, and I can sort of see it, but Jasper is MUCH cooler. The weather was nice and sunny and the mountains were unreal. Our hostel was odd-going up the long road at night, surrounded by trees, tended to make us think of "the Shining", and Alan managed to quite spook us with his "redrum" one evening...

The hostel had several resident dogs, all very cute, who we periodically threw sticks for. Some of the hostel's other creatures were stranger--the staff all had a lot of facial hair, and as we were stuck in a large coed dorm, it tended to smell of farts all the time. We had some tame games of chess, and a highly adversarial game of scrabble. I won, of course ;)

Our first big adventure was the drive to Lake Louise. We had to leave early, so if the weather turned bad, we'd have time to get back before they closed the highway. It was an amazing trip. Alan and Jenni making mating calls (sounded more like burps to me!), my nostril doing a darth vader impersonation (somehow it made a noise that sounded just like his breathing noise), Alan eating some spiritual bagels (okay, this is odd i know, but essentially Alan got all "the mountains and scenery move me" after spending the whole trip mocking Jenni and I for overly emotional sentiments about polar bears and many other things. He blamed it on something funny in the bagels).

Within five minutes on the road we saw some elk. It was sunrise, so the mountains were all framed by pink sky. very beautiful. Alan jokes that the animals are all animitronics that the park rangers activiate whenever tourists drive by... There were such amazing views, I guess we all felt it was too good to be true.

We went to Athabasca Falls, saw some bighorn sheep licking salt off the road, and saw the Sumwampta Falls. We drove past the Columbia Icefields, but it's the wrong time of year to get to go on them. Then we hit Lake Louise... and found it frozen. Okay, so we were incredibly stupid to not have thought of this, but we were expecting that amazing turquoise water. Anyway, then we met this very, very odd woman, who was there celebrating her wedding anniversary, since she had been there for her honeymoon. The odd thing is, her husband was too busy at work to go with her!!! It was weird.

On the way back, we saw a weeping wall (ice on rock really), some white tailed deer, a coyote (or it's arse, to be more precise). Saw Runaway Jury at the two-screen cinema in town that night.

The next day we drove out to Jasper Park Lodge and saw more deer, elk, coyotes. We may even have some decent, non-arse photos from that day! Medicine Lake was pretty, but when we stopped there and used the mini tripod to take timed photos, jenni's camera ended up in the snow! It's ok though. We heard woodpeckers and saw a chipmunk. My bird obsession from the summer in Scotland is gone, but the animal spotting continues!!!

So, there we were, driving up towards Maligne Lake and we see some bighorn rams. We stop the car, staying inside like good little tourists, and take a photo out the window, while the rams start licking salt off the side of our rental car. when we attempt to move on, one ram gets ready to, well, ram us. Jenni hit the brakes, and the car was safe. I, however, got a nice bump on the head as the result of a rather sudden collision with the rear window.

So, we went tourist shopping. After about 10 shops with all the same stuff in it we were all getting a bit tired, when I decided to try on a tshirt in the shop and nearly broke this eagle thingy. Let me tell you, smashing was all that ugly thing was good for. Sadly it is still in one piece, waiting for an American tourist with a dodgy sense of style to come along...

On our drive back to the hostel, we noticed a girl walking along the side of the road and offered her a ride the rest of the way-it would be one long walk to that hostel from town. Turns out she had hitched up from lake louise by herself. We earlier in the trip had met another girl who hitched around alaska by herself. This is all made concerning by the fact that there was a reward for info poster in the jasper train station for a girl who had gone missing, last seen hitching from port rupert...

Spent that evening sending emily a puzzle postcard, which I am sure she will greatly appreciate ;) They really are the most evil things in the world.

Finally we went to a lake that wasn't frozen-patricia lake, so we have those cool photos were the mountains reflect in the water (can you tell I love our photos?!?)

Pyramid lake had a walk on an island that was supposed to last 20 minutes... they must think all the tourists are stupidly out of shape because it maybe took us 10. It wasn't frozen though! Yay water! Then we went to the Jasper museum, very interesting, and did a Maligne Canyon tour.

So, here is where we wasted money, cause we did not need a tour guide for that trail. Granted, we didn't have the rental car anymore, but our tour companions were a hoot. Tey were all british, and ranged in age from 30-60. Ad damn, were they slow and unstable. One woman, I kid you not, said she wouldn't have done a walk like that when she was 20, let alone 60, and this was not a difficult trail IN THE LEAST!

Our last day we went and got dressed up in RCMP uniforms (for free!) and took photos. Haven't gotten those back yet, sadly, as I am sure they will be amusing. Then we just hung around, waiting for yet another late train. alan and jenni got their knickers in a knot over a display in the train station that said England, when it should have said Britain, which passed the time nicely.

We got on that train, and that was pretty much the end of our trip. My friend Jenny and her mum picked us up at the station and managed to get our mountain of luggage to the hostel in one trip. And then, on our first day in vancouver, we all managed to secure apartments! Yay, us. The job search will no doubt take longer...

You'd probably have to be from Ontario to get the joke in that title, but there you are...

Alan and Jenni spent 4 days in Toronto. They managed a pint at Main Street station in my hometown of Bolton on their first evening, having survived dinner with my family.

We visited the CN tower, of course. This was Alan's second visit, as he had visited my family in Canada two years previously. However, we couldn't let Jenni miss it. And all those lovely huge moose in costumes.

We tried to see Canadian art at the AGO and found the galleries closed to save money. Hopefully it was just the time of year, because while the McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg is better for Canadian art, it is also a lot harder to get to by public transit from Toronto. We saw the Lion King musical that night, lots of really cool costumes.

We wandered around the financial district, along Queen Street West, saw streetcars on Spadina, saw Chinatown and ate at Kensington Market. Went to MEC, as Jenni is fond of outdoors gear. Toronto is really just a huge collection of neighbourhoods, each with its own feel and atmosphere. To really explore the city, the key thing is to try and experience at least a couple of different areas.

The next day we ate Marche's, which is such a Toronto institution. We went to the ROM to find the Canadian galleries closed for construction. As visits go, Alan and Jenni's to Toronto was turning out very unlucky in terms of seeing any Canadian exhibits. Our last evening we spent in a Firkin pub, and it being Hallowe'en, there was a White-Trash Wedding theme.

Having lived over in Scotland for two years, and been away in Kingston at university before that, it had been a long time since I had visited the city that I grew up right outside of, in a very boring little town called Bolton. I arrived at the end of August, needing to catch up with friends and family and do a little temping before we headed out to Vancouver.

I was back in Canada. While I may have lived outside the city for a long time, up until now really all I had done was taken the subway somewhere. Now I was becoming familiar with all the big intersections and was slowly developing a mental map. Real Torontonians found me a bit funny, as I have bought myself a guidebook to the city, but I was only here for two months and wanted to make the most of it.

I flew back on a friday, with only three hours of sleep under my belt to prepare me for a day with five extra hours in it. I seem to have started a habit of going out to the pub the night before early morning flights-not the most intelligent habit in many ways. However, how could I miss one last night at Sandy Bells in Edinburgh, listening to folk music, and blethering away... I couldn't of course.

I spent the first weekend in Bolton, finding out that my dog is very, very deaf (and looks stupid clipped, don't try this with your shelties!). Otherwise, Bolton is familiar but so different, so it is an odd place to visit again. Then over two days I moved some stuff into my gran's house (really just a lot of dirty laundry from my travels and a cd players-so the essentials). It is a very bizzare room I am staying in. First off, there is a totem pole in one corner. Then there are the fox tails on the wall, alongside a wooden plaque with a hunter's prayer. The wallpaper is a mixture of newspaper design, and horses riding out to the hunt. A macrame owl, an interesting colour of carpet, and it's a basment room with fun florescent lighting. But it's in Toronto (ok, ok, north york) and it's mine for the next two months.

So, of course, my first days in Toronto I spent doing a bit of shopping. I threw out so much stuff in Scotland, since much of it didn't seem worth paying excess baggage charges to transport. My TTC route knowledge being limited, of course on my first outing to a new there was power problem on my way home. Our streetcar stopped, so I walked to the subway, it stopped. They sent another, we went a bit further, it stopped. I had to grab a completely different bus back. Hence, the purchase of a guidebook with maps.

For Labour day weekend, Janice came down from london and so we headed out with Vanessa to grab lunch at Marche. Janice and I went to see the Tom Thomson exhibit at the AGO, which was great, as I got the advantage of all her history of art class knowledge.

Today I met up with Jas and we went to the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art (as Jas said, it is about as interesting as it sounds.)

Scottish people, beware, Canadian banks are just as bad as places in England when it comes to accepting scottish pounds. It was not an easy thing to change my last 10 pound note. The teller seemed convinced the Scots were actually on the euro and only the English use the pound still.

One of my first adventures living in the big city involved a trip to the Cabbagetown festival. On my way, I happened upon a parade of christians (it turns out that chinese christian canadians say no to redefining marriage... however, I think the recent progressive moves here in Canada are fantastic). I managed to miss all of the events, so I just wandered down Parliment Street and people watched. There was a lady pushing a very overweight dog (pekinese i think) in a child's stroller. And I had no idea how bizarre it looks when parrots eat things.

My temp jobs turned out to be fairly lacklustre. Lots of reception work, with little to do. On one assignment, I got sent out to buy a single box of 100 paperclips. Not exactly the stuff of childhood career dreams.

I joined the bloor cinema, since the films they show are fantastic. I liked the cinema itself too, love the balcony and the popcorn they make is not only fresh, but has real butter topping! Much nicer than all these new fancy places, and much cheaper too.

I went to after Word on the Street, which is an annual Toronto book festival in September. And I also finally managed to make it to a Radiohead concert. The province of Ontario finally threw the Conservatives out of government and I had my last hambergers during barbeque season.

I went to dinner and it was one of these dinner and salsa club places (wish I could remember what it was called, because it was very nice-however, there are plenty of these places in Toronto and they are a real laugh). We drank lots of sangria and went off for our free lessons. There was only one other guy there for lessons, so I got stuck with him-43 years old, and a bit smelly. And I was bad at the steps, but this guy was HORRIBLE!!! At the end of the lesson he joined us at our table and tried to chat me up-his opening line- I go to salsa clubs to try to meet women your age!!!

After that fun and excitement, i headed to bolton for thanksgiving with my family. I had been surprised a week earlier to get a letter from an Australian girl who did a rotary exchange at my highschool in my graduating year. She was back visiting, while on a round the world trip year, so I met up with her for coffee.

Well, paperclip purchasing is a thing of the past; no more temping in Toronto for me. A few last sightseeing excursions, to visit the St. James cemetary in cabbagetown, (lots of rich dead folks), went to the dora keogh pub on the danforth-it's fantastic and has a semi authentic Irish snug. I went to see the Evil Dead 1&2: the Musical. It was sooooo funny. As good as jerry springer: the opera. I'm sure you are thinking that i have slightly odd taste in theatre. ;)