Mon Pays, C’est l’Hiver or Life is a River.

Much of this trip has taken me alongside and over some of Canada’s magnificent rivers, we are the envy of the world when it comes to freshwater but we squander. I've experienced the Skeena and the Fraser in the west, the Athabaska, the North Saskatchewan, the Q’Appelle, the Assiniboine and the Red in the central plains. This stopover in Winnipeg is all about water. Manitobans were prepared for this year’s floods and the Red River has crested and is beginning to drop but I see some houses alongside the river still sandbagged for protection and roads alongside the river closed. I hear about the hard work and camaraderie of the human chains who transfer the sandbags to the river’s edge. Winnipeg itself is protected from the worst of the floods by the Red River floodway, a large overflow ditch built in the 60’s and skirting the city on the east side, it too is full of water.

The other watery experience is a visit to Oak Hammock Marsh a vast wetland between Winnipeg and Lake Winnipeg and a stopping off spot for migratory birds and home to many others. It is named for a small patch of Burr Oak, apparently just enough to string a hammock. Today redwing blackbirds, killdeer, Canada geese, many species of ducks and coots are busying themselves on the open water but much of the marsh still has ice. I note that the Tundra Swan is an occasional visitor to this marsh. This bird evokes something for me, not quite sure what. I’d like to see one someday and feel a little closer now that I know our paths have crossed.

The marsh has a superb interpretive centre, built of limestone, that beautiful fossil filled Tyndall stone, it is roughly hewn not polished as it is on Parliament Hill. The building is nestled in berms covered with native vegetation. It also has a green roof and already a Canada Goose and a Killdeer are nesting on the roof. It will be a bit of a challenge for the goslings to make it to water but apparently with help of staff of the centre they will make it safely down from the roof and into the marsh. In the centre there are excellent displays and information on wetland ecology, a great contribution to eco-literacy for Manitobans and visitors of all ages.

We pass Stony Mountain Penitentiary en route for the marsh, I knew it was in Manitoba but wondered why a prison in the prairies would have such a name, well it rises like a grim grey stony fortress from these plains and reminds me how much the social fabric of this country is fractured.

Later that day I board the train and catch up with Mark from Melbourne who has become a Canucks fan. He is watching the game in the station and delighted that it ends before the train departs. The journey to Toronto is 36 hours and most of it, in the daylight hours, is through the most monotonous landscape of this trip. The train takes a northern track which is far from the shores of Lake Superior. It is the Canadian Shield, black spruce, jack pine, bogs and lakes. Today it is very wintry, in one nameless distant place there is fresh snow on the trees. We stop in Hornepayne and I suggest to my German travelling companions that a breath of fresh air might be a good idea, they reject the idea...too cold they say. I tell them of Gilles Vigneault’s anthem, "Mon pays, ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver. "

In the morning we are in the landscape often painted by The Group of Seven, white pine, lakes and granite boulders. There is no snow, but few signs of spring until we are close to Toronto. The train travels along the Don Valley one of Toronto’s famous green ravines , mostly parkland, and a river with an occasional glimpse or a more urban landscape on the edge of the valley re, it really is a very picturesque way to enter Toronto. Friends tell me that the Don now has salmon again and that some years they (the friends) participate in a spring river run in canoes. So many rivers and streams have been paved and destroyed in other cities. We come out of the green ravine and turn west towards the station, Toronto’s lakefront skyline a striking contrast to the Don Valley and much changed since I lived here over 30 years ago.
I spend my time in Toronto strolling in old haunts, working on ankle rehab at the downtown Y and visiting old friends. The highlight is on Sunday afternoon at Grace on the Hill, Bach’s Mass in B flat Minor, sung by Pax Christi, a Mennonite choir. Turns out I know 3 people in the choir and am staying with a friend who almost joined. Before the concert we are entertained by Howard Dyck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dyck) on Bach, numerology and the Mass.

Ah music, I dedicate this blog entry to two great Canadians, who write and sing with such passion of experiencing the Canadian landscapein the broadest sense of the term, Gilles Vigneault and Murray McLaughlin

From Jasper to Winnipeg

After two days in the mountain air of Jasper, testing the walking limits of my ankle I boarded the train for Edmonton, an evening run in coach class leaving the mountains and entering wooded foothills before dark and a late evening arrival in Alberta’s provincial capital.
I spent two days in the city with a friend mostly catching up on each others lives as we had not seen each other for about 15 years. Had a great walk by the North Saskatchewan River and an excursion to the Strathcona Farmer’s Market, quite impressive and I am sure even more so when the local fresh produce is in season.
Saturday evening and I am on the train eastbound in a lower berth. I wake up soon after dawn when we are travelling through undulating prairie north east of Saskatoon I watch the hoar frost melt in the morning sun which leaves the stubble fields with a pale yellow hue, and sloughs with remnants of ice and ducks and geese. Then we enter a mist and arrive in Saskatoon where it is cloudy and on to flatter prairie as we go towards SE Saskatchewan and approach the Manitoba border. The prairies are impressive not only in their size but in the diversity of landforms , only a few of which can seen seen from this rail track. This journey reminds me of times past when I have been on the ground in native grassland....with antelope and burrowing owl

Now in mid afternoon we switch to Central Time as we enter Manitoba and we are in a broad moist valley with coulees, the Qu’Appelle I think. Pussy Willows are in full bloom. Towards Winnipeg, through flat rich dark earth waiting to be seeded with wheat, canola and flax. The station in Winnipeg is impressive, an original in Beaux Arts style like Toronto and Montreal. It is quite a contrast to the modern boxes (Prince Rupert and Edmonton) or the boarded up old stations we have seen en route. My companions on this train are great company, with tales of train travels about the world. In Winnipeg, which is battling spring floods from the Red River we go our separate ways some on to Toronto, others on the polar bear express to Hudson’s Bay. I will spend a couple of days in Winnipeg.

A Train Trip to Remember on the Skeena from Prince Rupert to Jasper
April 12th, To the station early then lengthy process to get my railpass and make bookings. The clerk was attentive but somewhat bumbling, however he found me accommodation in PG and reserved some sleeping accommodation for trains to Winnipeg and Toronto. The train is called the Skeena and runs from Prince Rupert to Jasper, taking two days with an overnight stop in Prince Rupert, no berths on this train. There are just two coaches, one with dome, it is an old train, apparently replaced with something fancier in high season.
We set off along the coast, past the container terminal and grain terminal, both still operating but not as busy as they were in the 80s and 90s. Then we turn inland along the north bank of the Skeena River which is huge and tidal for many miles and flanked by spectacular scenery, clouds hanging on the side of sunlit snow capped mountains Many mountainsides have evidence of avalanches The first four hours of the journey are along the Skeena . Higher up the river is narrower the valley wider, we have come through the coastal range, still in mountainous country but it much more open. There are numerous short tunnels and our first stop is Terrace then Smithers. At one point we stop at a small place called Dorreen and drop off a couple who have built a retreat in the forest, it powered by the sun and heated with wood. Nearby someone is building a log house and living in a tipi.
After Smithers we leave mountains and the terrain is more like northern New Brunswick, hilly, forested but plenty of open land, some cattle farms. And many huge lumber yards and sawmills. We pass freight trains, the first with containers, the containers that bring all those consumer goods into Canada from China but what do they contain on the return journey, then a grain train and another grain train.
The conductor says freight trains are few and far between today as it is Easter Sunday...they do slow our progress. Many people got off the train in Smithers so it isn’t very busy, just me and a native couple in the dome car They are returning home after visiting their grandchildren in P. Rupert then there are a few passengers including two families with kids in the coach.

It is late afternoon and we are now in the Fraser watershed, the pussy willows are in full bloom but there is plenty of snow on the ground. It is cloudy and rainy as on the coast but for much of the day it has been sunny.
The conductor, known these days as a customer service manager, Gilbert is a franco-Manitoban. He has just pointed out the smallest provincial park in Canada, an island in Burns Lake dedicated to workers who lost their lives blasting out the railroad over a hundred years ago.

On that topic we also passed the home of the world’s largest fly fishing rod and largest rainbow trout sculpture. This is fitting, since the day started on this theme with the clerk in P.Rupert telling me about his cross Canada trip which took in the world’s largest axe, in Nakawic, New Brunswick and the world’s largest pysanka (Ukrainian egg) in Vegreville Alberta.

April 13th
Had a very warm welcome at the Fox Hollow B&B from Kathy and Bob Weston, camomile tea and apple pie before bed, a great sleep and then breakfast and lively conversation about choirs, wildlife, travelling B&Bs etc. They dropped me at the train after I picked up supplies for the day; the train snack selection is pitiful.

We soon begin to see mountains again as we travel along the mighty Fraser River. I cast a thought for Masayo who gave me two wonderful massages on SaltSpring, she is from a fishing family and spent her childhood at the mouth of the Fraser in a little community now swallowed up by Richmond. Our first stop is at Penny to drop off a passenger outside her house and our second is 100 metres along the track also in Penny to drop off the mail at the post office. Penny is only accessible by road in the summer. We pass Mount Bagg and Mt Rider the latter named after Rider Haggard who took this train in 1919.

After our third and last stop at McBride we see the Cariboo range on one side and the Rockies on the other, the mountains get larger, the valley where the train travels narrower but as we approach Mt Robson, cloud obscures most of Canada’s highest mountain. We leave the Fraser watershed as we go through the YellowHead Pass for a smooth descent to Jasper.

Add the Skeena rail trip to your list of must dos

What a contrast, from the urbane and other worldy reaches of southern BC to Prince Rupert a utilitarian port, where forestry and fishing dominate the economy, beyond is Alaska. It really has a northern feel and look, boxy buildings sprawling along the waterfront, no landscaping, big cars and trucks all against a backdrop of forested mountains. I have left local food and the 100 mile diet far behind. The fish in fish and chips here, is halibut. The Museum of Northern British Columbia, next door to my hotel tells the settlement and exploitation history of this area but is known for its fine collection of first nations art and a workshop where many artists carve and paint. Today being Easter Saturday no-one was at work. The pre-european history is told from a first nations perspective.
The cold rain which greeted my arrival has given way to pale sun, a very fat rainbow straddles the mountainside to the north. I think I will venture into town on my steadily improving ankle to find a copy of the Globe and Mail. Tomorrow I take the train for a two day journey through the mountains to Jasper in Alberta.

Well here I am on SaltSpring Island in British Columbia, sometimes referred to locally as an Island in a Sea of Jealously. It is idyllic and favoured by artists and a few low key celebs as home but definitely not Beverley Hills. The resource rapers seem to be held at bay but there are still far too many cars and even clear cutting of the magnificent cedars and firs of the west coast rain forest. My friend Linda who once had a herb farm on PEI now works for the nature conservancy here and is something of an expert on year round west coast gardening, writing books and giving talks all over the place.
I arrived in Vancouver a week ago after having to be (snow) ploughed out in order to get to the airport in Charlottetown. The next day in Vancouver, it snowed. Then I spent two days on Vancouver Island with a friend I met at a singing celebration in a field in Saskatchewan a few years ago and then came south by road and ferry to SaltSpring.

The west coast has such a different feel from the east coast, richer (in $) warmer (climatically) but I'm not sure whether the quality of life is any better It is sometimes a bit too precious and there is a sense that the rest of Canada really doesn't count or matter. For my friends in PEI, almost everyone in SaltSpring is "from away"