Taking The Rocky Mountaineer Is A Once-In-A-Lifetime Experience

It didn’t hit me until we were onboard the Rocky Mountaineer. Until the bagpiper had sent us on our way, the staff lined up all smart in their iconic blue-and-gold uniforms, waving us off from the platform in the cool Vancouver morning with the sun just about to rise. Until we took our seats and settled in and looked over our breakfast menus.

My brother was here, he was not dead, and we were about to spend 10 entire days together. Just us. Both a little soft in the middle and in the middle of our years. Both Canadian, though I don’t think we’ve ever identified ourselves that way until now, not really. Not until I invited him to come across our country by train on a tour. He had been hit by a truck and nearly died and was suddenly became dearer to me than he’s ever been. Dear enough that I thought it was a good idea to get on a train and be only us together for more than a week.

“We should see our country,” I said to him while we shared our subs from Subway in his horrible hospital room. We talked about it while pretending we couldn’t hear the three other people moaning or snoring or worse in the room beyond the curtain. “Do it by train. Easier for your legs.”

Trying to see all of Canada always felt too big, like doing extra credit homework when you’ve already got a B+ in your class. But finally, it was time to do it. On this trip, a guided tour organized by Vacations by Rail, we were the only Canadians in a sea of British people. My brother, just four months out of the hospital, still used a cane and had a scar down one leg that looked like a shark had taken a chunk out of his leg. He had grown a beard to cover his baby face and took pictures of every bite of food we ate, a surprise to me. Endearing.

What’s included in the tour?

The Wonders of Canada and the Rocky Mountaineer tour started in Vancouver, where we caught the Rocky Mountaineer just as the sun was coming up on a cool Monday morning. All of our transportation was booked, either coach bus or train, and the big excitement was that we would be sleeping on the train for three whole nights and also staying in 4- or 5-star hotels like the Banff Caribou Lodge and Spa, where you can eat onsite at the Keg, the quintessential cozy Canadian steakhouse, or get in a swim and check out the views in Jasper at the Forest Park Hotel. A total of 13 meals were included: five breakfasts, five lunches, and three dinners. The trip takes a total of 10 days to get to Toronto, passing through the Canadian Rockies, through Alberta and Manitoba, through the Canadian Shield and Saskatchewan and northern Ontario. Costs start at around $11,995 per person including flights.

The Rocky Mountaineer is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The Rocky Mountaineer pampered us for two days with shockingly beautiful food. Cinnamon croissants, tiny and flaky, warm from the oven. Eggs benedict for breakfast and beef ragout for lunch, cocktails flowing as early as 11 a.m. and Baileys in everyone’s coffee because why not? We’re not driving. The viewing platform became the meeting spot for everyone, our heads hanging out the window like happy dogs so we could smell the crisp fall Canadian air as we passed through the Rocky mountains. There is nothing to do except stare out the window in a kind of stunned quiet. The staff are all thoughtful storytellers who share little tidbits about the scenery and you never have to leave your plush leather seats if you’re in Silver Leaf like we were. Or you can try the Gold Leaf with the glass dome and the linen-covered dining tables, wandering up and down the stairs with views of leaves and trees and lakes out every window.

By the time we reached Banff on day two, we were ready to stretch our legs and explore. Our separate rooms, our separate meals, our separate needs, all equally essential. My brother wandered Banff while I took off on the bus with the rest of the tour to see Lake Louise, a perfect jewel ringed by snow-capped mountains. I ate my sandwich. I walked. It’s the quiet of the lake, you see. The perfect solitude of the physical country where we live. I fetl it again and again. On the train through the Rockies. On a bus to secret little treasures we should have known about like Emerald Lake, the Icefield Tunnels, and the truly, deeply haunting Bow Lake. A place so quiet and cold and perfect that no one spoke. Not a word. Even the quiet clicking of cameras felt like an assault.

This is the thing that changed me, seeing finally what we have.

“It’s in your bones,” another passenger, John, told me. A man who dressed in a three-piece suit every day and took meticulous notes and was in love with our country that I felt flattered. Honored.

Looking for bears in Jasper.

Jasper, too, was a marvel when the Rocky Mountaineer dropped us off for two days. Again, the perfect time to get out and see for ourselves after all of that marvelous watching. Jasper is a small town at the foot of the Canadian Rockies where the local newspaper was debating the issue of bears stealing into the town at night to eat fruit off the fruit trees. Should the trees be chopped down? How would they get fresh fruit in this food desert?

I took a tour through Jasper National Park with a bear biologist and found out that Leonardo DiCaprio vacations there and “no one gives him the time of day,” which I bet he loves.

We ate at Cassios, a real local Italian joint with the low lights and good bolognese. We planned a James Bond night in the lounge of the train we would be boarding for three days, a sleeper train that would take us across Alberta and Manitoba and Saskatchewan and northern Ontario before arriving home in Toronto. Packed ourselves fancy dress clothes to play the part of mysterious spies.

A room of my own on Via Rail’s The Canadian.

I don’t know what I expected aboard the sleeper train, but there was a practicality to our little rooms that made them feel like home. A pull down bed, my own small sink and a toilet I said I would never use but fine, I used it. Best of all though, a window all my own. Yes I spent three days drinking tea with everyone else in the glass dome as we passed through endless fields of gold and blue, blue sky in Saskatchewan. Yes I ate my breakfast and lunch and dinner with the other passengers in the dining car, making tentative friends with the Australians, the Brits, the Americans. All of us putting together jigsaw puzzles in the game room, doing whiskey tastings and wine tastings and gossiping about our families in the easy way of strangers. “You are so lucky,” a fellow Jenny told me, “that this is your home.” I thanked her like it was my right.

Yes, we had drinks in the lounge car that looked like something straight out of Mad Men, all brass and teak and sumptuous leather. The starry sky of Manitoba above us in the glass dome. Clinking a group “cheers” to say we were full and happy and changed.

But it was falling asleep in my own little car, the moon bouncing off translucent lakes in the night sky as the wheels rumbled beneath me, this is where I felt most at home. Where I really took it in, that this is our place. That I was born here, that my brother was born here. That we might be middle-aged but we are still here, he is still here. He is in his own room watching a movie on his tablet, safe. He is safe on this train with me.

We made it home.