“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” I read those words, attributed to British author Marthe Troly-Curtin, on the wall of the women’s bathroom at Lostlands Cafe in Jasper, Alberta. A couple of hours later, as I settled into my seat on a VIA train bound for a Pacific port 1000km away, I wondered if I was about to waste a big chunk of time.
Google Maps showed that I could drive to Prince Rupert in just under 12 hours. Taking the VIA train would be almost twice that long. For the last few days my husband and I have been enjoying Jasper National Park, the largest park in Canada’s Rockies, with magnificent mountains, turquoise lakes and abundant wildlife.
Now, my husband has flown home — he didn’t relish the thought of sitting on a train for hours on end — so I’m on my own. The Jasper train, also known as Train No.5, is one of VIA’s “adventure routes”.
There are no dining cars nor cabins for sleeping. In Prince George, where the train stops for the night, everyone finds their own hotel room before re-boarding the next morning. I worry that “adventure” might be a pseudonym for “uncomfortable”, or “slow and tedious”? Last year, on a day trip I made with VIA from Toronto to Sudbury, in northern Ontario, I met a young man who told me gleefully that, more than once, he had hopped onto freight trains as they were leaving a station and rode — outside — for free.
“The sunrises were amazing,” he recalled with a grin. Who would I meet on boa.