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