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This is the official Jasper
bear near the visitor's center and train station. |
We've a long ways to go to
Montreal! |
The abbreviated consist of the
wintertime Skeena train is parked at the Jasper station. Dad and I
have taken this train from Prince George to
Prince Rupert in the wintertime. |
The Jasper Park Lodge sits
behind a frozen solid Lac Beauvert. |
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I had to capture this because
I've never been in a room with rates this airy. This is
a long way from the Super 8 stays with which we're more familiar. |
One of the guest cottages at
the Lodge. |
We hiked up to a bluff
overlooking the Athabasca River. With some imagination, you can pick
out the peak to which the Jasper Tram runs in the background. |
Mildred Lake, near the Lodge,
frozen over with a cleared patch for ice skating and hockey. |
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Ice skaters on Mildred Lake,
with some light snow now falling. |
Ice skaters on Lac Beauvert
right in front of the Lodge. |
Inside the Jasper Park Lodge as
we wait for our trip up the Maligne Canyon. |
Sheep spotted roadside in
Jasper. |
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Elk (Wapiti) not too far from
the Lodge. |
Looking across Pyramid Lake
towards the mountain that is its namesake. Check out the snowman
(iceman?) on the frozen surface. |
Our tour guide Chuck tells
about the formation of the Maligne Canyon. (Pronounced en Francais
as Mah-leen, or you will irritate the locals.) |
The falls running through the
Canyon are frozen solid. This is unusual scenery for Western
Washingtonians, so I have lots of pictures of ice. |
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After driving up the Canyon to
Maligne Lake, we got out for a view. |
It was as cold and breezy as
it looks. The wind is whipping up fresh snow on the lake surface. |
Our group split into a couple
of vans to make the trip up the Maligne Canyon. |
What a treat! While
they're just dots in this picture, they're unmistakably wolves! We
counted about six members of the pack, with only the juveniles venturing
out onto the roadway. After they looked us over, the
young ones returned to the pack and trotted back into the woods. |
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That's me taming some wildlife
in the Lodge. Whenever I see these things for sale, I wonder how
you're supposed to get them home. |
Max Frye (math teacher!)
explains the Fibonacci Series to Mo, and examines the cone to see this
mathematical series play out in nature. Dad - do you recognize the
Bethlehem Steel note tablet - we're still using them! |
After boarding the train
in Jasper about noon, we roll through Edmonton in the early evening.
The trip from Jasper to Toronto takes about 54 hours, so we hop off at
each opportunity to stretch our legs. |
There's enough space in the
bedroom to work the hair dryer and otherwise put ourselves together for
the day. |
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VIA's double bedrooms have
upper and lower bunks. Mo always assigns me to the upper bunk.
We sleep pretty well on the train. |
The bedrooms have a toilet and
sink in the corner of the room. While there's not a lot of extra
space, there's enough room to do what needs to be done! |
By day, the beds go back to the
wall/ceiling, and chairs allow good viewing. We spent most of our
daylight time in the dome car anyway. |
The Western half of the
Candian's run ends at Winnipeg. Many people travel only from
Vancouver through Jasper to Winnipeg so they can see the Rockies.
Riders were scarce East of Winnipeg - I'd estimate only about 25 sleeping
car passengers total, with 16 of those belonging to our group! |
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Just across from the Winnipeg
station is the Forks Market, with numerous open food and merchandise
booths. |
Some retired rail equipment
marks the way to the Forks Market. |
Trains pull completely under
cover at the Winnipeg station - a nice touch given the potentially severe
weather. |
We passed many ice fishing huts
on frozen lakes as we passed through Northern Ontario. |
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A brief evening stop at Sioux
Lookout, Ontario. That's Frank Bauman from Portland standing with
Mo. |
Mo calls into City Hall to
check on the new sanitation services contract from Sioux Lookout. |
It was fitting that our
sleeping car was the Douglas Manor, named after David Douglas, for whom
Douglas-fir was named. |
Me with the Douglas Manor car
at Capreol, Ontario. |
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The Capreol station during a
brief stop for a leg stretch. |
We gravitate toward any
four-legged creatures available. This is Jenny, out with her master
for a walk to the Capreol station on this sunny winter day. |
Upon arrival in Toronto, we
checked into the Royal York Hotel. There's about as much square
footage in this hotel room as we have in our house! |
Even more space in the Royal
York room. |
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Some original architecture in
Toronto, at BCE Place. The building facade on the left was preserved
(but relocated) from buildings originally in this area. I like
architecture that captures pieces of our heritage for the future. |
The St. Lawrence Market in
Toronto, that recently celebrated 200 years at this location! We
walked through several examples of these open markets in Winnipeg,
Toronto, and Montreal. |
As unmistakably Toronto as the
Space Needle is Seattle. The VIA station is the beautifully
maintained building on the left. |
Inside Toronto's VIA station.
It has the immense dimensions and high ceilings like Chicago's Union
Station |
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You can see Toronto's Sky Dome,
and the Roundhouse Brewing Company (built into the original
roundhouse) from the train station. Mo asked about the birds on the
pole. I said it was because the Bluejays were Toronto's baseball
team. It was nice of Mo not to point out that the birds were most
assuredly woodpeckers, not bluejays. |
Here you can see the Royal York
Hotel built right across the street from the Toronto train station (copper
roof on the right). There is an undergound passage that leads from
the station to the hotel lobby. |
Plenty of ice dots the shore of
Lake Ontario on the Toronto waterfront. |
We hopped a Toronto trolley for
a brief ride uptown, then returned by Toronto's modern subway. |