Canadian Pacific

By David Gourley

Those of us who are of a certain age may well remember the long-running programme Two Way Family Favourites which ran on Radio Two and before that on the Light Programme.   It was a record request programme for families with members serving in the overseas armed forces.  A popular choice was Canadian Pacific by George Hamilton IV.  It tells of a chap who works his way right across Canada, from East to West, thus visiting all ten of the country’s provinces.   He starts in Nova Scotia and finally makes it ‘to British Columbia and heaven’ where his true love awaits.

We too did a rail trip in Canada.  It was a rather more modest venture and we were heading east not west, starting in Toronto.  And the old romance has gone: Canadian Pacific is no more and one travels nowadays with the more prosaically named Via Rail.  Still, it was a great, and great value, trip, involving first-class rail travel and overnight stays in three cities, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, in each case staying at a Fairmont Hotel.  These are part of a worldwide chain of luxury hotels.  This trip was of such good value that it is no longer offered!

We had stayed at Fairmont Hotels during our previous trip to Canada, at three locations in the Rockies, including Chateau Lake Louise, one of the most beautifully located hotels in the world.  Closer to home we had also stayed at their hotel in St Andrews, Fife.  Nowadays the chain is owned by a Saudi company but fortunately they don’t impose their country’s draconian laws on alcohol consumption!

We flew out with Air Canada.  Generally Canada is a hospitable country but someone flying with this airline might assume otherwise.  Indifferent food was served to us by poker-faced staff.   Moreover our in-flight entertainment didn’t work.  Everyone else’s seemed to be fine, however.  The fact that I’m paranoid ......

In Toronto we landed at Lester B Pearson Airport, named from a former Prime Minister, and our departure was from Montreal’s Pierre  Elliott Trudeau Airport, also named from a former Prime Minister.  These are by no means the only airports to be named after statesmen.   Thus Washington has Ronald Reagan Airport, Paris has Charles de Gaulle Airport whilst Berlin is soon to have an airport named after Willy Brandt.  But in Britain we eschew having airports so named.  Probably we are right: I wouldn’t actually mind having airports named from Churchill or Attlee but baulk at Heathrow becoming Margaret Thatcher Airport or Gatwick Tony Blair Airport.  Luton Airport I guess would then have to be renamed John Major Airport since it was in that town that he stood on his celebrated soapbox!  We do have a couple of examples of airports being renamed after famous people.  Liverpool’s Airport is now named after John Lennon (‘above us only sky’).  I rather like that.  One of Belfast’s is named after George Best.  I’m not sure that I like that.

Our local guide welcomed us to “Fortress Toronto”.  The G8 had been meeting elsewhere in Ontario and were now heading into the big city to join twelve other leaders for a G20 summit.  This was being held despite the fact that there was a scheduled G20 summit later in the year in Seoul.  The extra meeting had been arranged in the light of the worsening economic crisis.   Our arrangements were affected because some of the summiteers would be staying at our hotel.   As a result our stay there was cut from three nights  to two.  We didn’t feel hard done by for we were instead to have an extra night at the no less splendid sister hotel, the Chateau Laurier, in Ottawa.  We also got a room upgrade and the excellent buffet breakfasts were made complimentary. 

With fears of terrorism, and in anticipation of street protests by anarchists and others which did indeed occur, a large area around our hotel had been barricaded off.  We were still able to come and go as  we pleased – and rather liked the fact that the normally busy road outside our hotel was devoid of traffic!  The Fairmont Royal York is a fine hotel.  We enjoyed looking at its gallery of sepia-tinged photographs which recall the days when it was ‘the largest hotel in the British Empire’.  Like quite a few of the Fairmont hotels it is also a railway hotel, located directly across the road from Union Station.

It was early evening but the CN Tower, located a short walking distance away, stays open late so we headed off to it.  For some 34 years it enjoyed the distinction of being the world’s tallest building.  Now there are several taller buildings, including Shanghai’s World Financial Center, which we’d ascended a few months earlier.  There is a glass platform with a view 1,122 feet straight down.  It can, the visitor is assured, withstand the weight of fourteen large hippos.  Did they actually test this out?   Whilst there we booked dinner for the next evening, to mark my 63^rd birthday, at the revolving 360 Restaurant.

Our first full day included a trip to Niagara Falls, going by coach since the trains don’t go there.  I don’t generally bandy around the word ‘awesome’ but, yes, the Falls are one of the great sights of the world and are truly awesome.  One is here right on the US border and one looks across it to the American Falls.  These are magnificent but still more so are the Canadian, or Horseshoe, Falls.  The surroundings might be splendid but the town of Niagara Falls isn’t.  It seems to see itself as a mini-Las Vegas.  ‘I do not like,’ I remarked to our tour company’s guide Louise, ‘to turn my eyes from this beauty and see the word Casino’. 

Louise, a lady of our vintage, agreed.   She was an excellent tour guide but talking to her I realized that though her job might at first sight seem, to anyone who loves travel, enviable, in practice it is one I wouldn’t touch with a bargepole.  Her last tour had been in South Africa conducting a  party on a tour on the luxury train Pride of Africa, run by Rovos Rail.  Unfortunately South Africa was in the middle of a rail strike and though Rovos’s employees were not taking part, the company couldn’t get the insurance to enable it to run its trains.  So there was the logistical nightmare of organizing the scheduled trips, with people still returning to the train for their evening meals and overnight stays.  But she loved her job.  Her husband, ironically, didn’t like travel so went nowhere very much.

We had some spare time at the Falls and like nearly all in our party went in the small boat Maid of the Mist, which takes one as close to the Horseshoe Falls as it’s safe to go.  We concluded our visit with a buffet lunch at the Sheraton, from where there were fine views of the Falls and of the International Bridge that connects to the USA. 

We carried on to Niagara-on-the-Lake, which is not to be confused with Niagara Falls and  is so named because it is on Lake Ontario, pausing en route to admire the world’s largest floral clock.  Nowadays it is a quiet, rather well-heeled town but it has had an eventful history.  There was fierce fighting here in Britain’s short war with the Americans in 1812; the outcome ensured that, in this part of North America, the Canada/US border is a lot further south than for most of its distance.  It was also the key stopping point on the Underground Railroad for escaped slaves from the Southern States.  Even in the Northern States they were not free from the threat of recapture.  That threat was finally behind them when they crossed the border into Canada.

Rather to our irritation, our local guide insisted on stopping at a winery on our drive back to Toronto.  We were looking at our watches and thinking of our booking for dinner.  Also, the visit was of no great interest.  We have elsewhere enjoyed visits to vineyards accompanied by wine-tasting but this stop was really just to enable one to buy the produce.  The locals like it to be known that, though located so far north, they can produce marketable wine.  A phone call to the 360 Restaurant sorted out that we could arrive later than scheduled and we enjoyed an excellent meal and splendid night-time views over Toronto as we did a complete revolution. 

One might worry that a restaurant in such a location could be something of a tourist trap with mediocre food and high prices because the management think they can get away with it given the fine location.  But that was definitely not our experience here. Nor was it our experience  in two other revolving restaurants where we have dined, the Sky Tower in Auckland (the highest building in the southern hemisphere) and the Space Needle in Seattle – full marks go to both.  We are old enough also to have had dinner in the revolving restaurant in the BT Tower (as it then wasn’t).  A bit incongruously, it might be thought, Butlins had won the contract to run this - but they realized that the clientele might have different expectations to their ‘happy campers’!  Sadly the Tower was closed to the public after an attempted IRA bombing in the seventies.  The contract with Butlins was allowed to run to its conclusion, then the restaurant too was closed to the public, being nowadays used for BT corporate hospitality.  A pity.  

Our included tour of Toronto the next day put to the test our local guide’s creativity given all the fortifications.  He was not found wanting: we had an enjoyable tour.   Along the lakeshore there is the usual cluster of skyscrapers to be found in just about every North American city but pushing inland one comes into low-rise areas as well as to the historic University.  All in all this is a pleasant city.   Bisecting the downtown, and continuing for many miles beyond , is Yonge Street.  There are still occasional references to this being the “longest street in the world” but the basis for this claim was always somewhat dubious and it is no longer acknowledged by the Guiness Book of Records.

In the afternoon we transferred to Ottawa and thus had the first of our train journeys.  As we were travelling first-class, a complimentary meal with wine was included.  For  a while Lake Ontario was in our view then we headed inland.  Years before we had traversed the Yukon whilst travelling between different parts of Alaska and I was struck, like never before or since, by the sheer scale of its emptiness.  It was, well, awesome.  The countryside through which we were travelling is in no way to be compared with the Yukon yet even here, in eastern Ontario, it is apparent how unpopulated so much of Canada is.  After all it is the second largest country in the world yet has a population of approx 33 million, most of them residing within fairly short distance of the southern border. 

For some reason the authorities in Ottawa decided, in the fifties, to banish the railways from the centre of the city.  Until then the Chateau Laurier, our hotel for the next two nights, really was a railway hotel, located just across the road from the station.  Now the station is some distance out and there is no feel of arriving in a capital city.  It felt more like we’d arrived in Stevenage!  But our hotel, located on a hill next to the Parliament, is splendid.  Past guests include the Queen and Prince Phillip, Churchill and de Gaulle.

We had a city tour the next day which showed us how green it is, and also what a large area it covers.  I altogether lost my sense of direction and when we passed the US Embassy it seemed like it was miles from where we’d started.  Yet later in the day it was clearly visible just down the road from our hotel.  It is a squat, rather ugly building and one feels the USA could have done better by its northern neighbour. 

This drive took us, for the first time, into the province of Quebec.  Ottawa, rather like Canberra and Washington DC, was a compromise location between rival aspirants for capital status but unlike those other cities it is not a federal territory; rather it is part of the Province of Ontario.  But across the River Ottawa, Gatineau, in French-speaking Quebec, is part of the wider metropolitan area.  Until quite recently it was known by the rather unFrench name Hull.

The afternoon was free and we spent  a lot of it visiting the Parliament.   For the visitor, it is a welcoming place in a way our own Parliament perhaps isn’t.  I was clutching my wallet as we approached.  ‘You can put that away, sir, there’s nothing to pay.’  So, for free, we had a guided tour, ably conducted by a charming young lady, who showed us inter alia the House of Commons (American and British nomenclature is here combined: the upper house is the Senate) and the Library.  The latter is separated from the rest of the building by a corridor and by iron doors, decided upon by the first librarian who was concerned about the threat of fire.  When there was indeed a fire in the main building in 1916, which destroyed much of the central block, the Library was spared thanks to these iron doors. 

The Senate was in session but, no worries, we went and listened to the debate.   The parliament is bilingual with members speaking in the language of their choice and translation available to those who need it.  Inevitably, or  so it seemed, the debate was about the French language, a perennial hot topic in Canada.  It can arouse strong emotions on both sides.  In Alberta our guide had complained that on federal highways in the province the signage had to be bilingual even though just about no-one there speaks French as their first language.  Quebec has twice held referenda on whether to become an independent country.  In the first there was a large majority in favour of staying in Canada but in the second this shrunk to quite a narrow margin.   Sooner or later there will probably be a further vote for referenda like these tend to go on being held until they produce the right result for those wanting to change the status quo.  So any referendum resulting in Quebec’s independence would, one can be pretty sure, be the last referendum on the subject (likewise any referendum in which the Australians elected to have a republic). 

Without Quebec, Canada would, in geo-political terms, be a rather curious entity with the Maritime Provinces physically separated from the rest of the country. Maybe other centrifugal forces would come to the fore.  But Canada is surely a country that is well worth keeping.  On a scale of decency which might have Iran, North Korea or Syria at or near the bottom, Canada would be close to the other end.  Successive governments have placed much emphasis on humanitarianism and the country plays a major part in peace keeping activities.  It entered World War II well before the USA (though a little after Nova Scotia, which was still a separate colony) and since the War has chosen its interventions carefully: Korea but not Vietnam, Afghanistan but not Iraq.

Whilst Canadians rightly assert their distinctive identity, they might concede that a part of that identity is not being American.  This is North America without the rough edges, where moderation is prized.  Whilst America agonizes over whether there should be ‘socialized medicine’, as some insist on calling it, Canada quietly introduced a national health service, extending nationwide a scheme set up by the Province of Saskatchewan.  During our previous stay our guide warned us that referring to the ‘State of Alberta’ would not go down well: Canada has provinces.  It differentiates itself, too by having a  parliamentary form of government, with the Queen rather than a President as Head of State.  

We concluded our visit to the Parliament by ascending the Peace Tower and looking around its grounds.  Here there is a memorial to the Dutch Royal Family who were exiled in Ottawa after their homeland fell to the Nazis.  Princess Margriet, sister of the present Queen of the Netherlands, was actually born in Ottawa in 1943; to commemorate the occasion the Dutch flag flew over the Peace Tower, the only time a foreign flag has flown over the Parliament Building.  For dinner back at the hotel I enjoyed, as I had done during our visit to the Rockies, a main course dish of bison. 

We transferred to Montreal the day next day.  I usually bring maps with me when travelling abroad but hadn’t done so for this trip.  I assumed, as soon as we left Ottawa, that we had crossed into Quebec but in fact the boundary follows the Ottawa River which here turns sharply east so we were in Ontario virtually all the way to Montreal.   That city is on an island at the confluence of the Ottawa and St Lawrence Rivers, and is named from  the Mont Réal (or Royal Mountain, though it is actually a hill).

There was a rather unexpected occurrence on our train journey: an earthquake.  Not in the least serious, but it delayed us for an hour.  I was concerned, since this was well into the afternoon, that we’d miss out on some or all of our two-hour city tour.  On our arrival our local guide, a lady whose first language was English (“there are some of us in Montreal”) introduced herself and said that we would be losing an hour off our tour.  But we would still see everything that mattered, apart from the site of the 1976 Olympics and even that would be visible from the Mont Réal.  She was a nice lady and offered in her own time afterwards to take those who wanted on an additional walking tour.

Our tour showed us what a pleasant  city Montreal is, a pleasing blend of French and North American influences.   It is the world’s second largest French-speaking city.  There is a rather laid-back sort of feel.  One suspects that by and large people don’t get as worked up about Québecois nationalism as those in Quebec City, say.  From our vantage point on the Mont we got our distant view of the Olympics site.  We seemed fated to see such sites in the distance: we’d seen the Sydney site, several miles to the west, on our Sydney Bridge Climb and got a glimpse of Beijing’s celebrated Bird’s Nest whilst being transported between different parts of the city.  But in 2012 we actually got to go to the London Olympics thanks to our success in the first ballot (and we don’t as a rule win things!)  Cynicism deserts me: it was a great experience and London, and the entire UK, can be truly proud of  hosting this deservedly acclaimed event.

The others in our party were a nice group of people, all around our age or older, but they could sometimes behave like, well, old dears.  With one exception they were all ‘too tired’ to avail themselves of our guide’s kind offer of a walking tour.  Excuse me, but you’re probably never going to go to Montreal again yet you are ‘too tired’ to go on a gentle walk of an hour or so before dinner.  Unfortunately the exception was  a lady who’d discovered, at the outset of the walk, that she had lost her camera so, understandably, she was a bit preoccupied.  Sadly the camera was not retrieved.  We thoroughly enjoyed our walk and I think our guide was gratified that at least someone had taken up her offer.  There was the bonus that she took us back to our hotel on the metro.  I like to go on overseas metros but don’t always manage to do so.  In the process we got a glimpse of Montreal’s celebrated Underground City.  I cannot really get my head around what this is.  Resorting to Wikipedia I see it is described as ‘the set of interconnected complexes (both above and below ground) in and around Downtown Montreal’. 

Our hotel, the Queen Elizabeth, was not just near the Station.  It was the Station.  The platforms are at subterranean level and a lift takes one straight to the foyer.  It was a perfectly good hotel but there was something of  a feel of corporate bland which was wholly absent from the other two hotels that we stayed in.  We were not as impressed with the dining either.  The fine dining restaurant, for no apparent reason, was closed for the two nights of our stay.  So no chance to find out what the ‘cheese from our own goat Snow White who grazes in the Laurentian Hills’ was like.  We had dinner one night in the other restaurant and waited so long that a couple who had wisely gone across the road for their meal returned whilst we were still between our starter and main course. 

On our last full day we did a trip by rail to Quebec City, returning to Montreal.   This must be one of Canada’s most beautiful, and also most historic, cities.  The main part of the city is on a hill, some distance from the railway station.  Our local guide Olivier took charge.  The tour included a visit to the Citadel, interesting for itself and also because it affords fine views over  the Lawrence River and the surrounding countryside.  This really is where the urban corridor of Canada, which spreads out intermittently all the way to Windsor, immediately across the border from Detroit, comes to an end.  Here again some of our party were old-deary, complaining about having to spend time on this visit.  But if I visit an overseas city, I like to see its historic sites rather than spend time in shops.  And there was going to be free time anyway. 

We also learnt from Louise that some in our party had formed an adverse opinion of Olivier, thinking he was ‘too nationalist’.  One should maybe be not too surprised, if one goes to Quebec City, to find people, even tour guides, who are ‘too nationalist’.  He’s entitled to his opinion.  I won’t say that he oozed charm but he conducted the tour in perfectly polite and competent manner and didn’t talk about politics at all, so in fact we don’t actually know if  he supported the Party Québecois!     But it was maybe a tad patronizing for him to say he didn’t mind if we used the English variant of his name, Oliver.  We can manage to get our tongues around Olivier  which was after all the surname of one of our greatest actors! 

We used some of our spare time to have lunch in the city’s Fairmont Hotel, the imposing Chateau Frontenac, which never has been near a railway station.  The roll call of famous visitors is still more impressive than that of the Chateau Laurier and wartime conferences were held here involving Churchill, Roosevelt and the Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King.  Non-residents can book a tour but it’s not a place for those simply wanting to pop in to use the facilities for they have adopted the ruse of making the toilets accessible only by means of inserting  room keys.  Since  we were dining there we could use the facilities with no problem.   Otherwise we would have asserted our claim as residents of the sister hotel in Montreal!

The following morning there was time, but not much, to do a little bit more looking around in Montreal before again putting ourselves in the warm and tender embrace of Air Canada.  To be fair, the staff were nicer, the food better – and the in-flight entertainment worked. 

First published in VISA 107 (February 2013)