(The following column by Robert Reid appeared on The Oklahoman website on August 15, 2010.)
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — I’ve just returned from Churchill, Manitoba, the polar bear capital of the world. I got to the sub-arctic town on Hudson Bay by the slowest means possible: train.
The train left Winnipeg 90 minutes late. Staff members glibly called the tiny single-berth a “shoebox,” though it comes with a lounge chair, pull-out mattress and toilet.
For the first five hours, I watched cars zipping by at far-quicker speeds across the flat Manitoba prairie. I finally arrived in Chur-chill’s tundra, a two-hour flight from Winnipeg, after 48 slow-going hours.
It was easily one of my favorite journeys ever taken.
Everyone should travel by train, at least once. While researching Lonely Planet’s Trans-Siberian Railway guidebook and taking closer-to-home rides such as the City of New Orleans from Chicago to the Big Easy, I’ve found no transport where it’s easier to get away from the modern world, relax and mingle with fellow travelers.
Once on a narrow-gauge train outside Bansko, Bulgaria, I met a goat. A farmer had brought a kid on board in a plastic bag, tenderly feeding it water from a bottle and whispering it to sleep.
Trains make for the best viewing, too. Unlike cars or buses, you can stretch your legs and sit in observatory lounges and enjoy scenery usually devoid of the interstate’s billboards.
Years ago, I learned Switzerland’s famed Glacier Express is not a means of getting from A to B, but a serious face-pressed-to-window attraction in itself.
But you don’t have to go to Europe for great train rides. And, sorry, but the Heartland Flyer, connecting Oklahoma City with Fort Worth, Texas, is hardly the U.S. highlight. It’s best to take journeys that allow time to settle in, as long as you spring for a sleeper.
The best is the California Zephyr, which runs between Chicago and Oakland, Calif., with its most rewarding portions rising over the Rockies west of Denver by Salt Lake City and California’s Donner Pass. Others include the 12-hour ride from New York City to Montreal, passing the Catskills, the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain before arriving in Quebec.
You can take these point-to-point or grab a rail pass on USA’s Amtrak or Canada’s VIA Rail, depending on how much time you have.
Why the Winnipeg-Churchill trip will stand out for me is a mix of everything. The destination was unreal, seeing 20 polar bears and Northern Lights, kayaking with beluga whales off Hudson Bay, but also the ride there. In the dining car, I met Saskatchewan farmers who would pause to snap photos of birds, lakes (Manitoba claims to have 10 times the number of Minnesota) and “caribou moss” on the tundra farther north. I even rode the last hour with the conductor up front, honking the horn and hearing train tales, like the one about a moose they accidentally hit and pushed for a quarter-mile, then they watched it walk away.
Anyone know why train songs are always so sad? I don’t get it.