Across Canada’s British Columbia and back by train, mountains, rivers, elk and moose from the comfort of the observation car

The writer takes a 17-hour trip across western Canada from Vancouver to Jasper, Alberta, then a two-day ride on the Skeena train back across British Columbia

Up into the Rocky Mountains and back via the Coast Mountains, the train rides take in snowy peaks, frozen rivers, elk, moose, foxes and a totem pole

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Two long-distance train rides across Canada’s British Columbia, on the plush Canadian and more utilitarian Skeena, take passengers past snowy mountains, frozen rivers and the Great Plains. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley

Published: 6:15pm, 16 Apr 2023Updated: 10:07am, 17 Apr 2023

Perhaps because departures in Canada are now so few compared to during the great days of rail, boarding a train there is made to resemble setting off on some great voyage of questionable outcome.

At Vancouver’s Pacific Central terminal, of slightly down-at-heel grandeur, you check in as if boarding a plane, and your not-wanted-on-voyage luggage is whisked away as if you were beginning a westward ocean crossing, rather than an eastward journey across the planet’s second-largest country.

It will take three diesel locomotives to haul the train over the Rocky Mountains to the vast plains of central Canada, and they sit and throb while attendants bustle passengers to their seats and cabins, issuing guidelines and instructions and introducing themselves with typically Canadian brio (“I’m Louise – like the lake”).

But this is indeed a sort of cruise on wheels. Few of the passengers are simply travelling from A to B, although there are Canadian retirees who have been wintering in the milder climes of Vancouver and Victoria, now returning to houses still snowbound in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

The cars of VIA Rail’s services crossing British Columbia’s Rocky Mountains retain some of the charm of their original 1950s construction. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley

Rail enthusiasts compare how many times they’ve taken VIA Rail’s twice-weekly cross-country service, called the Canadian, for the four-day journey to Toronto. Other passengers mention the great climb over the Rocky Mountains and long trek across the country in terms of bucket lists.

The hair of very many is as snowy as the peaks encountered en route.