Once again it was an early morning. These early mornings remind us of a reason we like cruising–we unpack only once! Train trips such as this and road trips mean there is some unpacking and repacking every day. The daily scenery helps make up for the inconvenience. A little fog lingered as the motor coach made its way to the railroad station. There was no big send off, unlike our arrival the evening before.
Unfortunately, Gail suffered a bit of an injury in Quesnel and because of some ankle pain was not doing stairs too well. Since the path from the dome car to the dining area and, of course, bathrooms was via a very narrow spiral stair the length of the car away from our assigned seat, we requested a seat nearer the stairs. The crew was very accommodating. Our car was rather full but the other Goldleaf car was not, so we were moved immediately. In general, the crew was very attentive and willing to cater to every passenger’s requests.
The rails from Quesnel to Jasper go a bit west and north to Prince George before heading east to Jasper following the Fraser River for much of the trip. There are two negative factors that result. The first and most obvious is the increased travel distance. The second and less obvious is that there is a lot of commercial traffic. We encountered a nearly two hour delay in the Prince George rail yard while an arriving train was broken up and cars distributed to make up other trains. It might even have been interesting if we could have watched. Alas, we could only sit and wait. There were also two shorter stops while we were passed by freight trains. That made for a 12 hour day, more if you include rise and shine time.
The head water of the Fraser River is Moose Lake, very near Jasper. Consequently, it is never a tiny creek that grows gradually into a larger and larger river. It starts out big and simply gets bigger as it flows to the Pacific Ocean or Georgia Strait if you prefer. Its colour is clear at first gradually taking a greenish tint as it picks up glacial flower then brown around Quesnel as it collects soil from the lands it passes through.
The forests change as we travel. The conifers near the coast eventually give way to grasslands. As we travel north and east from Quesnel we again find conifers and gradually the birch and aspen begin to show themselves in the Boreal forests. It seems like the higher we go the larger the birch trees become until on begins to understand how their bark could be turned into canoes. Many of the mining and logging towns are left abandon as resources are exhausted or larger operations made smaller ones unprofitable and unworkable.
One of our traffic stops left our car on a railroad bridge when we discovered a naked man running, walking and sometimes hiding on the riverbank and beneath the bridge supporting our rail cars. Darkness fell before we reached Jasper. We could see the lights from cars and transport trucks race along Highway 16 which ran parallel to the rails quite often. In fact we arrived at Mt Robson it was nearly dark on the rails with the failing light still illuminating the mountain tops.
We reached the Jasper railroad station in complete darkness at 10 PM local time. Bright clusters of work lights illuminated the platform as we detrained. It was a bit of a walk to our motor coach which delivered us to the Crimson, our hotel for a three night stay. The drive was a short one and we were quickly checked in and almost more quickly to sleep.
M.B. Dallocchio, The Desert Warrior
Travel can sometimes push us to lose ourselves and find ourselves at once. The shedding of old prejudices, dead skin, and the opening of one’s eyes is far better than what any mainstream news outlet could ever tell you.