The World's Most Scenic Railway Journeys (2019) s01e01 Episode Script
Canada
We're going on an amazing adventure,
riding the rails through
the Canadian Rockies.
Revealing breathtaking landscapes.
This is our office. If I ever grow
tired of the scenery,
I have bigger problems than being
tired of the scenery.
We'll enter a wilderness
inhabited by magnificent beasts.
And discover one of the world's
most treacherous waterways.
Hells Gate's just around the corner.
The water gets pretty turbulent.
In landscapes formed
millions of years ago,
giving up secrets of our past.
Some of the weird wonders
apparently inspired
some of the weird wonders
from Star Wars.
We'll meet the people who live
and work along this special railway.
Sometimes, bears are startled
by trains
and they run straight down
the tracks.
With hidden treasure
for the taking
Oh, there we go!
There's a big piece!
this is no ordinary
railway journey.
This is one of the Most Scenic
Railway Journeys in the World -
Canada.
TOOT!
Vancouver, British Columbia.
A natural seaport,
historically, it was a vital
trade link to the East,
and became a starting point
for the Canadian Pacific
Transcontinental Railway in 1887.
Now, it's the beginning of our great
escape on the Rocky Mountaineer.
This enormous 80-tonne train
is powered by
two 3,000 horsepower GP40-2 engines.
Carrying up to 590 guests,
it's the only passenger train
running right across the Rockies
on the Canadian Pacific line.
We begin in Vancouver station,
manned with top-notch staff eager
to create an unforgettable trip.
PIANO RECITAL
And, as an extra treat,
the men in kilts have come out
to pipe them off.
BAGPIPE RECITAL
ANIMATED CHATTER
BELL RINGS
The 600-mile-long journey on this
specially-designed viewing train
follows in the footsteps
of the 19th-century pioneers
who battled through
the unchartered Canadian Rockies.
On board, seasoned hosts
Pete and Jocelyn
are ready to fulfil
the passengers' every need.
Pete was working as a cocktail
waiter in his hometown of Birmingham
before making the jump
into the Canadian wilderness.
Some people are very into
the flora,
some people are all about
the history.
I found out that I'm a bit of
a geology geek
and that I'm a bit of a salmon geek.
We're ready for lunch.
Busiest time of the day.
So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome
aboard the Rocky Mountaineer.
Hello, how are you? Good!
Good, good. Excellent.
So my name is Jocelyn.
My wonderful partner making you
some drinks right now, this is Pete.
So we will be with you for the
journey into the Canadian Rockies.
So we're going to be passing out
some wonderful
Rocky Mountaineer tradition.
That is the sunrise toast,
a peach bubbly.
There. Ha-ha-ha!
Why not?
Could everybody raise their glass
and toast
to good afternoon,
welcome aboard and cheers.
ALL: Cheers!
Glass in hand,
the wild journey begins.
Starting in Vancouver,
our trip sees us visit
the turbulent water of Hells Gate.
Pan for gold on the Fraser River,
before stopping in the Interior,
at Kamloops.
The next leg continues eastward.
We'll set foot on Kiwa Glacier,
get up close and personal
with the wildlife,
before arriving at our
jaw-dropping final stop,
the awe-inspiring mountain
destination of Banff in Alberta.
Every mile of track
has a story to tell.
The route starts by following
the Fraser River,
named after intrepid explorer,
Simon Fraser.
200 years ago, he and his crew
took on a treacherous journey
across the Rockies
in search of new trade routes.
After surviving this, one of the
most dangerous stretches of water
on the river,
he named it Hells Gate.
This, of course,
as you may have heard,
is the narrowest point
in the Fraser River.
Just 31 metres across.
And its current depth is about
150 feet deep.
And because it's so deep,
there's an enormous volume of water
passing through it.
It's the equivalent of
a volume of water
the size of
the Empire State Building
going through Hells Gate
every minute, twice.
It's one of those rapids
that really divides
the fine line
between bravery and stupidity,
as it is such a turbulent rapid.
Simon Fraser eloquently put
in his journal,
that they'd endured so much,
but, "for surely, we have entered
the gates of hell".
Today, it takes expert navigational
skills,
jet engines and guts
to get anywhere near.
Adventurous tour guides Renee
and Jesse
may be up for the challenge,
but they also know the risks.
Hells Gate's just around the corner,
but there's a lot of debris
in the water.
There's a lot of sticks and stuff
in the water.
If we lose the pump, we won't be
making it down very easily.
If you guys are good,
we'll turn around here.
The water gets pretty turbulent
whirlpooly.
You get sucked into the whirlpool
sideways
and it can be pretty dangerous.
When you get in there, it's
a giant eddy full of whirlpools
The water doesn't run
in one direction.
It's always spinning, going
in opposite directions. Yeah.
It causes the hazard.
It's not the best idea
to be going into that eddy today.
And it's not just a nightmare
for boats.
Hells Gate has always been
a challenge for salmon
migrating up the river to breed.
The arrival of the railway
made things even worse.
When they were building
the rail line,
one of the workers put a little too
much dynamite to do some blasting
and actually caused
a massive rock slide,
where a large chunk of the
canyon walls fell into the river.
Essentially almost blocking off
the river.
The water naturally pushed its way
through,
but it created
this giant, turbulent rapid.
And, umit caused a tonne
of problems for the spawning salmon.
So when you get to Hells Gate,
there's a series of concrete,
man-made fish ladders.
And essentially, all they do is
slow the water down.
And it allows the fish an easier way
around the rapid.
They may have stemmed the flow
to some extent,
but Hells Gate still had
a horrific reputation.
And the 19th-century railway
builders had to somehow find a way
to get a rather oddly-named ship
through this deadly stretch.
There was a paddle wheeler
that they had come up here
that was called the SS Skuzzy.
Navigating the SS Skuzzy
through Hells Gate
was certainly a difficult job.
They had Chinese workers,
and between 50
and 100 on each side of the banks,
with big ropes.
And they attached them to
the paddle wheeler
and basically, were told,
"Heave-ho, heave-ho"!
And they had to pull this paddle
wheeler up through the rapid.
You know, a bunch of guys fall in,
they grab the next five guys,
get on that rope
and pull it through.
And when you go to Hells Gate,
you can still see the metal bolts,
the rings in the rock,
where they lined those, erropes
through
and pulled that boat through.
The Skuzzy made it
to the other side.
Back on the Rocky Mountaineer,
it's lunchtime.
Executive chef Daniel Stierhof,
has created a unique menu
for the journey.
Produce and proteins are sourced
from along our route.
We get some of our beef
from Alberta,
so we get that beautiful
AAA Canadian beef.
But cooking on a train
is slightly tricky.
It's impressive, no?
It truly is a unique experience.
I've worked in kitchens
that are actually much smaller
and aren't moving,
but this is the creme de la creme
and the absolutely top-notch
when it comes to working on trains.
The food's been terrific
and, erso has the service.
I didn't know we'd be fed
so much food.
As the gold-star service continues,
our train heads north,
up the Fraser River.
Just below the tracks,
modern-day explorers
head out in search of
the real thing.
OK, let's get to it and see
if we can find some gold!
Our voyage through the
Canadian Rockies whisks us past
some breathtaking scenery.
And, four hours out of Vancouver,
keeping things rolling on the train
can be pretty challenging.
Coming up next, you got two beef
and one chicken.
Our ex-Brummie, Pete, has
been a host for four seasons now.
It's been quite a journey
from the West Midlands
to Canada's most-western state.
Something of a love affair, in fact.
Like many great travel stories,
initially, there was a girl
involved,
but, erl-l-l was never
quite done.
Three months became six,
became a year.
I didn't see myself necessarily
staying here forever,
but I didn't see myself leaving
any time soon.
And then I would find myself
returning to England
and I would actually miss
the mountains
and I would miss the ocean
and I would miss British Columbia.
We're now 156 miles north
of Vancouver
and the landscape offers more than
just incredible views.
This is also a busy route
for freight.
And there's the trains!
It's steeped in history, with some
treasures hidden just off the track.
We are off to one of my favourite
claims on the Fraser River.
Modern-day prospector Dan Hurd
not only looks the part,
but knows all about the gold here.
I've nicknamed this claim Pickerton,
just because of all the gold pickers
that we've found.
Gold pickers are gold flakes
that are big enough
that you can pick up by hand.
If we're lucky,
we will find some bigger gold.
Sometimes, Dan finds a bit more
than he bargained for.
About a week ago, I was here,
and as I was panning down
on the far side of the river,
a black bear walked by.
I've had some bears a little
uncomfortably close at times,
but I've lived my whole life out
in the forest like this.
I have never had an encounter
that has worried me.
You know, we're just minutes away
from the claim up the hill
here and we see the tracks going by
right there and those tracks
are old, old.
They've been here sincewell, the
Gold Rush days.
A nugget's throw from the tracks,
Dan finds his zen.
This is my little piece of paradise.
Be very careful on this shale -
it's razor-sharp rocks.
I do know this spot right below us
has produced well in the past,
so I think that's where
I'm going to try to start today.
OK, let's get to it and see
if we can find some gold.
The gold forms in bedrock from hot
water bubbling up from below.
It dissolves the bit of the gold
and then deposits it in quartz
seams,
and then over time the bedrock
erodes
and break up the quartz seams
and free up the gold into
the rivers.
And that's a full pan.
Find a spot, sit down and work it.
So if there's any gold in the pan
right now, it'll have sunk down
through all the gravel, and it'll be
sitting on the bottom of the pan.
And then I can slowly
wash away the top stuff.
The light stuff has no gold in it.
We get pretty quick at doing one
of these pans.
This has only been - what? Not even
a minute so far, and I'm almost
done.
Aha! There we go.
There's one of the nice pieces of
gold you can find on Fraser River.
That's probably 0.1 of a gram - ish.
And that would be worthhmm,
$5 to $10, that piece of gold.
Don's treasure may be modest,
but it connects him
to the very beginning of gold
mining in the Rockies.
Right here where we're sitting,
the Fraser Canyon is the site
of the very first Gold Rush
here in Canada,
and it was a big one.
Someone let it slip down
in California that there was gold
in Fraser's river, and one
person told another.
That person told ten more.
Those ten told 100 more,
and all of a sudden, there
were 30,000 people heading
up the Fraser River to find gold.
And the holler of "Gold!" can
still cause a rush to the head.
Those things still happen today.
We call them staking rushes
or staking frenzies, but I've even
started a few myself.
Everyone loves the thrill
of a treasure hunt.
I will never get rid of this claim.
This is mine forever because I love
it so much.
With enough treasure to buy a round
of coffees, a happy Dan heads
off for a bit of Trainspotting.
This is one of my favourite
spots to view the trains from -
this little secret lookout here.
The scenery for the trains
is amazing -
seeing the two Cisco bridges
crossing over and, er, just
beautiful.
So neat to see. I
So I like bringing people here to
see these bridges.
A train heads over the smaller
Cisco Bridge on the Canadian Pacific
line, which stretches 160 metres
across the Fraser River.
Incredibly, the original span
was built and shipped all the way
from England in 1883.
The current bridge, now 110 years
old, is one of Canada's
most iconic structures.
The construction of this
coast-to-coast railway line was
arguably Canada's greatest feat of
engineering.
It also must have been quite a sweat
to build - tackling 8,000-foot
mountains and steep river rapids,
it took thousands of men to create.
You can see in the distance
that the forest is really thinning
out and the peaks in the distance.
It's becoming that semi-arid desert,
a very, very dry, very arid area.
And this town that we're just coming
into town
which is the town of Lytton.
It has record temperatures of about
44 degrees Celsius.
In the town of Lytton is a tiny
museum dedicated
to the railway workers.
Local resident and history
enthusiast Lorna has found a way
to remember that it wasn't just the
Canadians
who built this mountain railway.
There's a dark side
to this railroad's history.
To have a big enough workforce,
they controversially imported
thousands of Chinese workers.
In 1978, my husband and I actually
purchased this lot.
We were told that there was
a Chinese joss house or temple
on the lot.
Most local people didn't know
about that building.
So we started researching.
Then four years ago, I decided,
"I'll just go ahead
and create this museum."
The idea is to give awareness
to people, not only their hardships,
but the Chinese contributions
to our province.
Many people remained of necessity
and started restaurants, laundries
and merchant stores,
so that's my goal here - to get
people thinking about that.
In 1879, American contractor
Andrew Onderdonk won the contract
to build a substantial section
of the line,
a total of 227 miles.
To complete the railway
through the mountainous
and hostile terrain,
his search for labour was forced
to go global.
People wanted to come make their
fortune, and go back to China.
But their arrival was far
from welcomed.
There is definitely a negative
response to hiring Chinese.
There was this thought
that they were taking jobs away
from other people, but not so.
They really were not.
Most of them would have been
just doing hard labour -
pick and shovel jobs -
some people in the explosives.
They were blowing up rocks
for tunnels.
One Chinese person per mile
died on the railway work.
They were put into a position
of danger that the non-Chinese
workers were not.
Their standard living was less.
And also at the end of it,
they were basically abandoned
to make their own way within Canada.
The Chinese importance
in the construction of the railway
is hugely understated.
They worked in harsh conditions
for little pay.
Historians believe around 600
of them died to make
this route possible.
As the track winds its way
along the river, the extraordinary
landscape shows the physical
challenges the railroad builders
faced on a daily basis.
Just across the water a few moments
ago,
our first glimpses of Rainbow
Canyon.
Rainbow Canyon is named
because of the minerals that get
exposed by the very steep ore line,
reacting with the little bit of rain
it gets and showing verylike,
beautiful reds and blue colours.
That's why it takes its name,
Rainbow Canyon, but the rest of the
area is called AvalancheAlley.
Ancl that's because the snow that
does fall here, it builds up and it
falls down on the tracks,
and that's why it's a rather
dangerous part of the journey.
Not for us. The Canadian National
does have various rock sheds that
channel
all the falling debris.
Safely through the perilous canyons,
the Rocky Mountaineer is nearly
at its halfway point at Kamloops.
After 200 miles through Canada's
most scenic rail highway,
the train stops.
Hosts and passengers disembark
and head to their hotel, oblivious
to what is about to happen
in the wee small hours of the night.
Out of the dusk appears the night
shift, headed up by maintenance
manager Mike Ryder, who's in charge
of getting our train shipshape
for the next day.
Seven's flagged. We'll do five,
eight, and nine right away.
Nothing else right now.
Please have a safe night.
With only a few hours till
its scheduled departure,
the pressure's on.
We're going to clean the exterior,
we're going to clean the interior.
We're going to stock the train.
We're going to provision it with
food, with supplies, with drinks.
We're also going to repair
the train.
Any defects that may have come
up throughout the day
are going to be addressed.
My job is to ensure that those work
orders are closed tonight.
Keeping this mammoth twin engine
train in perfect working order
is where engineers Kevin Soprovich
and Darryl Bleoo step in.
We are jacking a coach,
because we have a spring that's
dislodged on the other side,
so it's hit a heavy bump and
dislodged itself.
If the team don't fix the spring
in time for the early morning
departure, the passengers
could be in for a bumpy ride.
See where the spring
has been dislodged here?
So you see where it's popped over?
It's not sitting properly
in here, so it's going to cause
this equaliser bar.
So every time the wheel bounces,
it's going to bounce sideways and
not bounce properly up and down.
So we're just going to take the
weight off and it should give us
enough clearance just to shimmy
that back into place.
All right, going "P-
At the other end of the coach,
there's another issue.
One of the buffer rods needed
to hold the carriages in place
so passengers can cross from one
to the other safely
has been damaged.
If you break one and say
you're going to curve, it'll push
it back and it'll stay there if
it's broken, right?
So now you have a gap
which is unsafe, so
They'll only have till daybreak
to fix it.
By dawn, the train
will be as good as new
ready to hit the most
extraordinary part
of this unique railway journey
through not just one national park,
but three.
We're in Kamloops - a major road,
river and railjunction
in the centre of the Rockies.
It's halfway to our final
destination, Banff, in Alberta.
The repaired and restocked Rocky
Mountaineer now embarks on a
400-mile voyage full of majestic
glaciers and snowy peaks
along the Thompson River.
We might only be going at 35mph,
but that simply prolongs
the pleasure of seeing these
Rocky Mountains.
Several are over 12,000 feet high.
Refreshed after their pit stop,
Jocelyn and Pete are back
to multiskilling.
Well, we're a host,
but we are a bartender, we're
a psychiatrist,
we're a party pumper, historian.
SHE LAUGHS
And if you keep everybody smiling -
whether it be a story,
whether it be, like, just
interaction, then that's what we do.
I consider myself a provider
of nice times.
Our train journey is about to take
a turn to a much colder, higher
region as the line heads north.
And you can see that the environment
has changed drastically.
We quickly leave that semi-arid
desert, and that's
because we're starting to go back
into that mountainous region.
So we're going to start to see
the southern part of the Monashee
range, which is a part of the
sub-range of the Columbia.
Rather incredibly, we're at about
1,100 feet above sea level now.
But we're going to take our guests
another 4,500 feet
before we reach our highest point,
when we'll be in the Rocky
Mountains.
The Rockies might stand tall
and proud above our rail route,
but they are not invincible.
The famous glaciers above are
shrinking fast.
Glaciologists Brian and Ben
are switching from rail
to rotor to investigate.
OK, here we go.
We're heading back to the Kiwa
Glacier, one of the largest glaciers
in this area.
The Kiwa Glacier is terminating into
a large lake.
And that lake is increasing in area
as the glacier retreats backwards.
Despite being far from any city,
the effects of global warming
are still hitting the area hard.
It is predicted that 80% of the ice
cover in the Rocky Mountains
will be gone in the next 50 years.
This glacier's really falling apart
this last year.
The snow broke off big time, as you
can see from all those icebergs.
Ancl then, if you look along the
side of the glacier, there's all
these collapsed old ice caves.
Things like that.
All these collapses are a bad
sign for this glacier.
It's pretty spectacular.
Scientists like Ben and Brian
are trying to understand
their retreat, which is by no
means risk-free.
If the weather comes in, do you want
us to be anticipating you coming
back?
Yeah, absolutely, there.
If it looks like it's going to turn
then I'll come back for you guys.
To measure the retreat of this
seven-kilometre-long glacier,
they have to work on ice
at an altitude of 7,000 feet, making
the job physically exhausting.
So here we're drilling a hole
in the glacier.
Down at this elevation of the
glacier,
we experience a lot of melt, so we
need to drill this hole pretty deep.
And we do this at September
or August this year,
and then when we come back
the following September, this pole
will be sticking out of the glacier.
The lower parts of the glacier
here will naturally lose
a lot of ice in a given season.
You might find six to seven metres
of ice melt during the summer,
and then in the wintertime, due
to ice dynamics, that ice
is replenished from higher
up the glacier.
But what's been happening
is that that replenishment is not
keeping up with the amount of melt
at the lower part of the glacier.
At times, they've found
that the ice has dropped by a metre
in height in just two weeks.
The dark line of the valley walls
indicates
just how high the glacier used to
be.
More worryingly, without
the supporting ice,
the walls become prone to collapse.
If you look carefully here,
you can actually see a whole series
of trees that we often refer
to as a drunken forest.
So the trees are sort of waffed
around and flopped around like
well, like they've had a long
night at the pub, I guess.
This is a key indicator
of unstable terrain.
The glacier has retreated
several kilometres
from its outermost moraine.
What's clear is the more recent
retreat we can attribute to human
activity - greenhouse gas emissions.
No-one wants to see the national
parks lose their majestic snowy
peaks -
least of all those admiring
them from on board our train.
Two hours into the second day,
the landscape may change,
but the hospitality remains
unstoppable.
Wine and cheese?
Well, I believe that we still
have some hungry guests
and even if they're not hungry,
we're going to overindulge.
We don't like guests to go more than
an hour without feeding.
An hour? I think it's likeit
feels like 45 minutes. 45 minutes!
We're pretty relentless in the
feeding!
So we often likeat least, like
to put people's, like, nerves
at ease by saying there
are no calories on the train,
but it's certainly a lot
of indulgence.
And like the food, the historical
sights just keep on coming.
This is the science of
Craigellachie,
and what that is is the site
of the last spike.
Every single rail tie that gets
put underneath the rails
and on top of the ballast
for the rails on top, all those get
held in place with a spike,
a single iron spike.
And it's here that the very last
spike was banged in and completing
effectively what was the
Trans Canadian Railroad.
On 7 November, 1885, at 9.22 in the
morning,
railroad financier Donald Smith
drove in the ceremonial final spike,
marking the end
of all the engineering challenges,
money crises and natural disasters
to hit the construction.
At last, the nation's railroads ran
the breadth of the country.
You can see this cairn as well,
which commemorates the site
of the last spike.
And what's interesting about that is
that there's a rock from each
of the provinces of Canada
and the three territories, too.
And that symbolises a unity
of the country.
This railway route is probably
the only railjourney in the world
that goes through three
national parks -
Glacier, Yoho and Banff -
each one with its own unique story.
Just above our train route, at
Kicking Horse in Yoho National Park,
most clays, Parks Canada guide
Claudia can be found trekking.
Today, she's making her way up to
one of the most famous sites
in the world -
that's if you're either a Star Wars
obsessive or have an interest
in the early origins of humankind.
We're on our way up to one
of Yoho National Park's iconic
Burgess Shale sites - Mount Stephen.
Then it really starts to get
steep.
The discovery of this particular
site
is closely tied in with the building
of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
It brought a lot of workers
in who probably were scouring
these hills hoping to find some
gold,
and instead they found stone bugs.
These weren't just any old bugs.
They were early marine invertebrates
dating back 540 million years
to the Cambrian period.
This was an exciting new discovery
for scientists.
The community that lived
here was in a warm tropical ocean
and was much like a modern-day reef
community.
And then these big mud flows would
come and cover up the communities,
and layer after layer was laid
down and compressed,
and then over millions of years
transformed into rock,
and then pushed up into what we now
see as the Canadian Rockies.
What's extraordinary at this Burgess
Shale site is that it revealed
incredible detail in some
of the soft-bodied fossils.
Advanced imaging revealed hearts,
livers and eggs - all previously
unseen.
The exquisite preservation
then exposed something amazing -
the first-ever record of skeletal
remains.
We can find our distant ancestors
here at the Burgess Shale.
We have our very first chordates -
so that's the group
that we belong to,
and these animals are much
more basic than we are,
but they have a notochord,
which is the precursor
to a backbone.
This is an ancestor to fish, and
anything with a backbone - like us.
Our long-lost relatives from 550
million years ago.
Now these ancient creatures
have become Hollywood stars,
inspiring the world of film.
Some of the weird wonders apparently
inspired some of the weird wonders
from Star Wars.
Have you ever seen the original
where they have the bar scene
from Tatooine?
Apparently, those aliens were
inspired by creatures from the
Burgess Shale.
As a relatively recent discovery,
these rocks undoubtedly have many
hidden wonders yet to be found.
I always tell people when we come
up here that they could be the first
person to find something brand-new
that no-one else has ever seen.
The Burgess Shale is extraordinary.
This UNESCO World Heritage site
attracts scientists all year
round to catch a tantalising
glimpse of life
over 500 million years ago.
Without the railway builders,
it might never have been found.
Now the train is heading
into its home stretch, but there's
still some food on the horizon.
It's great to be able to mix and
meet people from other walks of
life.
I love looking after the
Australians. They're always so
happy about everything.
And everyeverything is beautiful.
It doesn't matter what it is.
Everything's beautiful.
Next, we're heading into bear
country.
Half of the grizzly bear population
of Canada lives in British Columbia.
Spotting a wild bear may be a thrill
from the safety of a train -
on foot, only a cool professional
ranger would actually
like to meet one.
Jesse is on a mission.
We're headed to a place called the
Five Mile call out,
and it's the spot that'swhere
we've had quite a few grizzly bears
struck and killed on the railroad
tracks.
And it's an interesting area
because it's the confluence
of the railway, the Bow River,
the Trans Canada Highway
in the Bow Valley Parkway,
and the whole area is constrained
by steep Rocky Mountains.
So it's a challenging spot
for wildlife to get to.
Bears don't comprehend the real
dangers of the rails, but see them
as a way to travel quickly and find
grain dropped by freight trains.
Over the last ten years, we've lost
six grizzly bears to mortality
on the railroad tracks and one
of the hot spots for grizzly bear
mortality has been along these
curves.
Sometimes, the bears are startled
by trains,
and when they're startled,
they run,
and they kind of lose their sense of
reasoning,
and they run where they can run
fastest,
which is straight down the tracks.
This is one of those areas
where we have created some
alternate travel routes on either
side of the Bow River,
so that the wildlife don't even have
to travel along the railway.
Grizzly bears are under threat
from trains and loss of habitat.
These iconic animals are now
protected and monitored
in the hope their numbers recover.
These trains take kilometres
to stop,
so the best thing they can do
is just honk their horns.
But if it's a last-minute sighting,
then it's very challenging for them.
Other animals are also
following the railroad.
A lot of elk congregate
around the town of Banff,
and that's where they have
their calves,
so often this time of year, grizzly
bears and wolves and cougars
converge on the town of Banff
as they're trying to get
some of these elk calves
when they're first-born.
Using tracking, Jesse has a pretty
good idea of the bear population
in his charge.
There's now roughly 65 adult
grizzly bears in Banff National
Park,
and probably 20 of them use the Bow
Valley and encounter the railway.
My job is trying to figure out
how we can provide excellent
opportunities for people
coming to Banff
so they have a meaningful
experience,
but at the same time minimising
the effects we're having on
wildlife.
As we travel through Yoho National
Park, it's hard to comprehend
there are so few bears left
in the area.
All are being carefully monitored.
16 of them are female, and they hold
the future of these beautiful
grizzlies in British Columbia.
Not far down the line, still in
Yoho, the railroad builders
faced a very different challenge -
a place known as the Big Hill.
People were still driving
on dirt roads.
People were still driving
horse carriages.
So something like this was
a massive feat.
We've travelled almost 500 miles
across the Canadian Rockies
and our spellbinding two-day rail
adventure is nearly over.
Life wasn't so plain-sailing
for the crew building a line
with so many challenges.
The worst stretch of all
was known as the Big Hill.
It had an incredibly steep
slope, dropping 1000 feet
in just ten miles.
Big Hill was in many ways
a cut corner -
that money was conserved
by putting the trains
down a, er, what was an illegal
grade - 4.4% grade.
It would be a rather dangerous
situation to have all that momentum
heading down the hill and the first
train that ever went down the hill
did actually derail,
and the engineers on board
didn't make it either.
When it opened in 1884, the Big Hill
section was one of the steepest
railway lines around.
It was the scene of many
disastrous derailments
as park ranger Sarah explains.
Canadian Pacific Railway lost steam
trains
and they would also lose loads,
they would lose grain,
transportation and sometimes
loss of life whether it was
conductor or passengers.
They realised that just running
straight over and straight
down into a valley
with no reprieve -
there is no way to slow
thousands of tonnes.
They needed to come
up with a solution,
and that solution was the spiral
tunnels.
They decided to cut two circular
tunnels deep into the side
of two mountains -
Cathedral Mountain and Mount Ogden.
This would allow trains to spiral
round and descend safely at a much
more gentle grade.
Basically, the way they engineered
it,
they did bring in Swiss engineers
from Europe,
based on the same way that they
built roads to ascend
as switchbacks through the Alps.
To build this - a thousand men,
horses, dynamite -
remove all the rubble and then lay
the track once it's cleared.
On 1 September 1909,
this pair of spiral tunnels opened
at a cost of around $1.5 million.
The extra track effectively doubled
the length of the section, reducing
the steepness of the gradient
by half.
At the time, it was pretty
cutting edge.
People were still driving
on dirt roads.
People were still driving
horse carriages.
The Ford T Model engine
was basically, sort of, you know,
of a new phenomenon.
So something like this was
a massive feat.
Right now, there's a CP rail train
that's coming into the upper tunnel.
It's going into the mountain.
It's going to be coming around,
spiralling upon itself lower,
and then coming out right
there in the lower part.
And as it's turning back
on itself, it's going to descend.
So that makes it a whole lot
safer, a whole lot slower.
And what better way to see this feat
of engineering than by taking
a train right through them?
But this time, we are going
up rather than down.
Now, what's going to happen
is that we are going to head
towards Mount Ogden.
And as we get closer to it,
you'll see that about 50 feet
above the tunnel that we go into,
you'll actually see the tracks
that we'll be on,
because to quote my mother,
what we'll be doing is chucking
a uey inside of the mountain.
So can you see, by looking
at the railcar in front of us,
you can probably see and probably
imagine which way the train
is going to turn.
And we're just seeing, quite
literally, the light at the end
of the tunnel. I
But Cathedral Mountain was
on our right-hand side,
Mount Stephen was directly behind us
as we emerged from this tunnel.
You'll see that Cathedral Mountain
is actually directly in front of us.
So rather incredibly, this train has
formed a three-quarter turn.
The train has now travelled for two
clays as it enters the final stretch
in Banff National Park.
This place covers over 2,500 square
miles of some of the world's
most majestic mountains.
It's also famous for what lies
beneath.
Just a few metres to the east
of the line, hidden in the limestone
rock are some thermal springs.
Deep in these famous cave systems,
guide Amar is taking us
into the area's history.
Banff National Park was created
around natural springs,
so here we have one of them.
Altogether, we have nine springs.
In the late 1800s when the railway
was being built across the country,
winter was coming -
work would stop.
Most men would go back east
to their families.
But three railway workers decided
they were going to spend their time
in the valley here.
So they started exploring
and they discovered these springs.
So what did they do?
They had their first bath
in a long, long time.
The railway company spotted
a financial opportunity.
After having their bath,
they quickly realised others would
love to have that same experience,
and perhaps this was their chance
to make their fortune.
In 1885, keen to make the most of
the springs,
the government opened up Canada's
first national park around the site.
It attracted wealth and tourism
to the region.
The iconic Banff Springs Hotel
followed shortly afterwards,
and the area still thrives today
with over four million people
visiting every year.
After 600 miles of luxurious train
trekking across the Rocky Mountains,
we pull in to Banff station.
Welcome to Banff, everybody.
SHE LAUGHS
And what a pleasure it's been.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thanks a lot. And thank you!
Thank you. See you.
Welcome to Banff, Mr Johnson.
Thank you.
Enjoyed it. Yeah. Pleasure looking
after you. A real pleasure.
SHE LAUGHS
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you. It was a pleasure looking
after you. Have a great time.
It's been a fantastic experience,
and the magnificent views are truly
world-class.
Our railway voyage
has shown us some deadly waterways.
We've crossed stunning bridges
through beautiful national parks,
while taking in some incredible
feats of engineering.
But for Pete and Jocelyn,
this isn't the end of the line.
Their Rocky Mountain railjourney
doesn't stop here.
So that's a real privilege and
we get to do it all again tomorrow.
riding the rails through
the Canadian Rockies.
Revealing breathtaking landscapes.
This is our office. If I ever grow
tired of the scenery,
I have bigger problems than being
tired of the scenery.
We'll enter a wilderness
inhabited by magnificent beasts.
And discover one of the world's
most treacherous waterways.
Hells Gate's just around the corner.
The water gets pretty turbulent.
In landscapes formed
millions of years ago,
giving up secrets of our past.
Some of the weird wonders
apparently inspired
some of the weird wonders
from Star Wars.
We'll meet the people who live
and work along this special railway.
Sometimes, bears are startled
by trains
and they run straight down
the tracks.
With hidden treasure
for the taking
Oh, there we go!
There's a big piece!
this is no ordinary
railway journey.
This is one of the Most Scenic
Railway Journeys in the World -
Canada.
TOOT!
Vancouver, British Columbia.
A natural seaport,
historically, it was a vital
trade link to the East,
and became a starting point
for the Canadian Pacific
Transcontinental Railway in 1887.
Now, it's the beginning of our great
escape on the Rocky Mountaineer.
This enormous 80-tonne train
is powered by
two 3,000 horsepower GP40-2 engines.
Carrying up to 590 guests,
it's the only passenger train
running right across the Rockies
on the Canadian Pacific line.
We begin in Vancouver station,
manned with top-notch staff eager
to create an unforgettable trip.
PIANO RECITAL
And, as an extra treat,
the men in kilts have come out
to pipe them off.
BAGPIPE RECITAL
ANIMATED CHATTER
BELL RINGS
The 600-mile-long journey on this
specially-designed viewing train
follows in the footsteps
of the 19th-century pioneers
who battled through
the unchartered Canadian Rockies.
On board, seasoned hosts
Pete and Jocelyn
are ready to fulfil
the passengers' every need.
Pete was working as a cocktail
waiter in his hometown of Birmingham
before making the jump
into the Canadian wilderness.
Some people are very into
the flora,
some people are all about
the history.
I found out that I'm a bit of
a geology geek
and that I'm a bit of a salmon geek.
We're ready for lunch.
Busiest time of the day.
So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome
aboard the Rocky Mountaineer.
Hello, how are you? Good!
Good, good. Excellent.
So my name is Jocelyn.
My wonderful partner making you
some drinks right now, this is Pete.
So we will be with you for the
journey into the Canadian Rockies.
So we're going to be passing out
some wonderful
Rocky Mountaineer tradition.
That is the sunrise toast,
a peach bubbly.
There. Ha-ha-ha!
Why not?
Could everybody raise their glass
and toast
to good afternoon,
welcome aboard and cheers.
ALL: Cheers!
Glass in hand,
the wild journey begins.
Starting in Vancouver,
our trip sees us visit
the turbulent water of Hells Gate.
Pan for gold on the Fraser River,
before stopping in the Interior,
at Kamloops.
The next leg continues eastward.
We'll set foot on Kiwa Glacier,
get up close and personal
with the wildlife,
before arriving at our
jaw-dropping final stop,
the awe-inspiring mountain
destination of Banff in Alberta.
Every mile of track
has a story to tell.
The route starts by following
the Fraser River,
named after intrepid explorer,
Simon Fraser.
200 years ago, he and his crew
took on a treacherous journey
across the Rockies
in search of new trade routes.
After surviving this, one of the
most dangerous stretches of water
on the river,
he named it Hells Gate.
This, of course,
as you may have heard,
is the narrowest point
in the Fraser River.
Just 31 metres across.
And its current depth is about
150 feet deep.
And because it's so deep,
there's an enormous volume of water
passing through it.
It's the equivalent of
a volume of water
the size of
the Empire State Building
going through Hells Gate
every minute, twice.
It's one of those rapids
that really divides
the fine line
between bravery and stupidity,
as it is such a turbulent rapid.
Simon Fraser eloquently put
in his journal,
that they'd endured so much,
but, "for surely, we have entered
the gates of hell".
Today, it takes expert navigational
skills,
jet engines and guts
to get anywhere near.
Adventurous tour guides Renee
and Jesse
may be up for the challenge,
but they also know the risks.
Hells Gate's just around the corner,
but there's a lot of debris
in the water.
There's a lot of sticks and stuff
in the water.
If we lose the pump, we won't be
making it down very easily.
If you guys are good,
we'll turn around here.
The water gets pretty turbulent
whirlpooly.
You get sucked into the whirlpool
sideways
and it can be pretty dangerous.
When you get in there, it's
a giant eddy full of whirlpools
The water doesn't run
in one direction.
It's always spinning, going
in opposite directions. Yeah.
It causes the hazard.
It's not the best idea
to be going into that eddy today.
And it's not just a nightmare
for boats.
Hells Gate has always been
a challenge for salmon
migrating up the river to breed.
The arrival of the railway
made things even worse.
When they were building
the rail line,
one of the workers put a little too
much dynamite to do some blasting
and actually caused
a massive rock slide,
where a large chunk of the
canyon walls fell into the river.
Essentially almost blocking off
the river.
The water naturally pushed its way
through,
but it created
this giant, turbulent rapid.
And, umit caused a tonne
of problems for the spawning salmon.
So when you get to Hells Gate,
there's a series of concrete,
man-made fish ladders.
And essentially, all they do is
slow the water down.
And it allows the fish an easier way
around the rapid.
They may have stemmed the flow
to some extent,
but Hells Gate still had
a horrific reputation.
And the 19th-century railway
builders had to somehow find a way
to get a rather oddly-named ship
through this deadly stretch.
There was a paddle wheeler
that they had come up here
that was called the SS Skuzzy.
Navigating the SS Skuzzy
through Hells Gate
was certainly a difficult job.
They had Chinese workers,
and between 50
and 100 on each side of the banks,
with big ropes.
And they attached them to
the paddle wheeler
and basically, were told,
"Heave-ho, heave-ho"!
And they had to pull this paddle
wheeler up through the rapid.
You know, a bunch of guys fall in,
they grab the next five guys,
get on that rope
and pull it through.
And when you go to Hells Gate,
you can still see the metal bolts,
the rings in the rock,
where they lined those, erropes
through
and pulled that boat through.
The Skuzzy made it
to the other side.
Back on the Rocky Mountaineer,
it's lunchtime.
Executive chef Daniel Stierhof,
has created a unique menu
for the journey.
Produce and proteins are sourced
from along our route.
We get some of our beef
from Alberta,
so we get that beautiful
AAA Canadian beef.
But cooking on a train
is slightly tricky.
It's impressive, no?
It truly is a unique experience.
I've worked in kitchens
that are actually much smaller
and aren't moving,
but this is the creme de la creme
and the absolutely top-notch
when it comes to working on trains.
The food's been terrific
and, erso has the service.
I didn't know we'd be fed
so much food.
As the gold-star service continues,
our train heads north,
up the Fraser River.
Just below the tracks,
modern-day explorers
head out in search of
the real thing.
OK, let's get to it and see
if we can find some gold!
Our voyage through the
Canadian Rockies whisks us past
some breathtaking scenery.
And, four hours out of Vancouver,
keeping things rolling on the train
can be pretty challenging.
Coming up next, you got two beef
and one chicken.
Our ex-Brummie, Pete, has
been a host for four seasons now.
It's been quite a journey
from the West Midlands
to Canada's most-western state.
Something of a love affair, in fact.
Like many great travel stories,
initially, there was a girl
involved,
but, erl-l-l was never
quite done.
Three months became six,
became a year.
I didn't see myself necessarily
staying here forever,
but I didn't see myself leaving
any time soon.
And then I would find myself
returning to England
and I would actually miss
the mountains
and I would miss the ocean
and I would miss British Columbia.
We're now 156 miles north
of Vancouver
and the landscape offers more than
just incredible views.
This is also a busy route
for freight.
And there's the trains!
It's steeped in history, with some
treasures hidden just off the track.
We are off to one of my favourite
claims on the Fraser River.
Modern-day prospector Dan Hurd
not only looks the part,
but knows all about the gold here.
I've nicknamed this claim Pickerton,
just because of all the gold pickers
that we've found.
Gold pickers are gold flakes
that are big enough
that you can pick up by hand.
If we're lucky,
we will find some bigger gold.
Sometimes, Dan finds a bit more
than he bargained for.
About a week ago, I was here,
and as I was panning down
on the far side of the river,
a black bear walked by.
I've had some bears a little
uncomfortably close at times,
but I've lived my whole life out
in the forest like this.
I have never had an encounter
that has worried me.
You know, we're just minutes away
from the claim up the hill
here and we see the tracks going by
right there and those tracks
are old, old.
They've been here sincewell, the
Gold Rush days.
A nugget's throw from the tracks,
Dan finds his zen.
This is my little piece of paradise.
Be very careful on this shale -
it's razor-sharp rocks.
I do know this spot right below us
has produced well in the past,
so I think that's where
I'm going to try to start today.
OK, let's get to it and see
if we can find some gold.
The gold forms in bedrock from hot
water bubbling up from below.
It dissolves the bit of the gold
and then deposits it in quartz
seams,
and then over time the bedrock
erodes
and break up the quartz seams
and free up the gold into
the rivers.
And that's a full pan.
Find a spot, sit down and work it.
So if there's any gold in the pan
right now, it'll have sunk down
through all the gravel, and it'll be
sitting on the bottom of the pan.
And then I can slowly
wash away the top stuff.
The light stuff has no gold in it.
We get pretty quick at doing one
of these pans.
This has only been - what? Not even
a minute so far, and I'm almost
done.
Aha! There we go.
There's one of the nice pieces of
gold you can find on Fraser River.
That's probably 0.1 of a gram - ish.
And that would be worthhmm,
$5 to $10, that piece of gold.
Don's treasure may be modest,
but it connects him
to the very beginning of gold
mining in the Rockies.
Right here where we're sitting,
the Fraser Canyon is the site
of the very first Gold Rush
here in Canada,
and it was a big one.
Someone let it slip down
in California that there was gold
in Fraser's river, and one
person told another.
That person told ten more.
Those ten told 100 more,
and all of a sudden, there
were 30,000 people heading
up the Fraser River to find gold.
And the holler of "Gold!" can
still cause a rush to the head.
Those things still happen today.
We call them staking rushes
or staking frenzies, but I've even
started a few myself.
Everyone loves the thrill
of a treasure hunt.
I will never get rid of this claim.
This is mine forever because I love
it so much.
With enough treasure to buy a round
of coffees, a happy Dan heads
off for a bit of Trainspotting.
This is one of my favourite
spots to view the trains from -
this little secret lookout here.
The scenery for the trains
is amazing -
seeing the two Cisco bridges
crossing over and, er, just
beautiful.
So neat to see. I
So I like bringing people here to
see these bridges.
A train heads over the smaller
Cisco Bridge on the Canadian Pacific
line, which stretches 160 metres
across the Fraser River.
Incredibly, the original span
was built and shipped all the way
from England in 1883.
The current bridge, now 110 years
old, is one of Canada's
most iconic structures.
The construction of this
coast-to-coast railway line was
arguably Canada's greatest feat of
engineering.
It also must have been quite a sweat
to build - tackling 8,000-foot
mountains and steep river rapids,
it took thousands of men to create.
You can see in the distance
that the forest is really thinning
out and the peaks in the distance.
It's becoming that semi-arid desert,
a very, very dry, very arid area.
And this town that we're just coming
into town
which is the town of Lytton.
It has record temperatures of about
44 degrees Celsius.
In the town of Lytton is a tiny
museum dedicated
to the railway workers.
Local resident and history
enthusiast Lorna has found a way
to remember that it wasn't just the
Canadians
who built this mountain railway.
There's a dark side
to this railroad's history.
To have a big enough workforce,
they controversially imported
thousands of Chinese workers.
In 1978, my husband and I actually
purchased this lot.
We were told that there was
a Chinese joss house or temple
on the lot.
Most local people didn't know
about that building.
So we started researching.
Then four years ago, I decided,
"I'll just go ahead
and create this museum."
The idea is to give awareness
to people, not only their hardships,
but the Chinese contributions
to our province.
Many people remained of necessity
and started restaurants, laundries
and merchant stores,
so that's my goal here - to get
people thinking about that.
In 1879, American contractor
Andrew Onderdonk won the contract
to build a substantial section
of the line,
a total of 227 miles.
To complete the railway
through the mountainous
and hostile terrain,
his search for labour was forced
to go global.
People wanted to come make their
fortune, and go back to China.
But their arrival was far
from welcomed.
There is definitely a negative
response to hiring Chinese.
There was this thought
that they were taking jobs away
from other people, but not so.
They really were not.
Most of them would have been
just doing hard labour -
pick and shovel jobs -
some people in the explosives.
They were blowing up rocks
for tunnels.
One Chinese person per mile
died on the railway work.
They were put into a position
of danger that the non-Chinese
workers were not.
Their standard living was less.
And also at the end of it,
they were basically abandoned
to make their own way within Canada.
The Chinese importance
in the construction of the railway
is hugely understated.
They worked in harsh conditions
for little pay.
Historians believe around 600
of them died to make
this route possible.
As the track winds its way
along the river, the extraordinary
landscape shows the physical
challenges the railroad builders
faced on a daily basis.
Just across the water a few moments
ago,
our first glimpses of Rainbow
Canyon.
Rainbow Canyon is named
because of the minerals that get
exposed by the very steep ore line,
reacting with the little bit of rain
it gets and showing verylike,
beautiful reds and blue colours.
That's why it takes its name,
Rainbow Canyon, but the rest of the
area is called AvalancheAlley.
Ancl that's because the snow that
does fall here, it builds up and it
falls down on the tracks,
and that's why it's a rather
dangerous part of the journey.
Not for us. The Canadian National
does have various rock sheds that
channel
all the falling debris.
Safely through the perilous canyons,
the Rocky Mountaineer is nearly
at its halfway point at Kamloops.
After 200 miles through Canada's
most scenic rail highway,
the train stops.
Hosts and passengers disembark
and head to their hotel, oblivious
to what is about to happen
in the wee small hours of the night.
Out of the dusk appears the night
shift, headed up by maintenance
manager Mike Ryder, who's in charge
of getting our train shipshape
for the next day.
Seven's flagged. We'll do five,
eight, and nine right away.
Nothing else right now.
Please have a safe night.
With only a few hours till
its scheduled departure,
the pressure's on.
We're going to clean the exterior,
we're going to clean the interior.
We're going to stock the train.
We're going to provision it with
food, with supplies, with drinks.
We're also going to repair
the train.
Any defects that may have come
up throughout the day
are going to be addressed.
My job is to ensure that those work
orders are closed tonight.
Keeping this mammoth twin engine
train in perfect working order
is where engineers Kevin Soprovich
and Darryl Bleoo step in.
We are jacking a coach,
because we have a spring that's
dislodged on the other side,
so it's hit a heavy bump and
dislodged itself.
If the team don't fix the spring
in time for the early morning
departure, the passengers
could be in for a bumpy ride.
See where the spring
has been dislodged here?
So you see where it's popped over?
It's not sitting properly
in here, so it's going to cause
this equaliser bar.
So every time the wheel bounces,
it's going to bounce sideways and
not bounce properly up and down.
So we're just going to take the
weight off and it should give us
enough clearance just to shimmy
that back into place.
All right, going "P-
At the other end of the coach,
there's another issue.
One of the buffer rods needed
to hold the carriages in place
so passengers can cross from one
to the other safely
has been damaged.
If you break one and say
you're going to curve, it'll push
it back and it'll stay there if
it's broken, right?
So now you have a gap
which is unsafe, so
They'll only have till daybreak
to fix it.
By dawn, the train
will be as good as new
ready to hit the most
extraordinary part
of this unique railway journey
through not just one national park,
but three.
We're in Kamloops - a major road,
river and railjunction
in the centre of the Rockies.
It's halfway to our final
destination, Banff, in Alberta.
The repaired and restocked Rocky
Mountaineer now embarks on a
400-mile voyage full of majestic
glaciers and snowy peaks
along the Thompson River.
We might only be going at 35mph,
but that simply prolongs
the pleasure of seeing these
Rocky Mountains.
Several are over 12,000 feet high.
Refreshed after their pit stop,
Jocelyn and Pete are back
to multiskilling.
Well, we're a host,
but we are a bartender, we're
a psychiatrist,
we're a party pumper, historian.
SHE LAUGHS
And if you keep everybody smiling -
whether it be a story,
whether it be, like, just
interaction, then that's what we do.
I consider myself a provider
of nice times.
Our train journey is about to take
a turn to a much colder, higher
region as the line heads north.
And you can see that the environment
has changed drastically.
We quickly leave that semi-arid
desert, and that's
because we're starting to go back
into that mountainous region.
So we're going to start to see
the southern part of the Monashee
range, which is a part of the
sub-range of the Columbia.
Rather incredibly, we're at about
1,100 feet above sea level now.
But we're going to take our guests
another 4,500 feet
before we reach our highest point,
when we'll be in the Rocky
Mountains.
The Rockies might stand tall
and proud above our rail route,
but they are not invincible.
The famous glaciers above are
shrinking fast.
Glaciologists Brian and Ben
are switching from rail
to rotor to investigate.
OK, here we go.
We're heading back to the Kiwa
Glacier, one of the largest glaciers
in this area.
The Kiwa Glacier is terminating into
a large lake.
And that lake is increasing in area
as the glacier retreats backwards.
Despite being far from any city,
the effects of global warming
are still hitting the area hard.
It is predicted that 80% of the ice
cover in the Rocky Mountains
will be gone in the next 50 years.
This glacier's really falling apart
this last year.
The snow broke off big time, as you
can see from all those icebergs.
Ancl then, if you look along the
side of the glacier, there's all
these collapsed old ice caves.
Things like that.
All these collapses are a bad
sign for this glacier.
It's pretty spectacular.
Scientists like Ben and Brian
are trying to understand
their retreat, which is by no
means risk-free.
If the weather comes in, do you want
us to be anticipating you coming
back?
Yeah, absolutely, there.
If it looks like it's going to turn
then I'll come back for you guys.
To measure the retreat of this
seven-kilometre-long glacier,
they have to work on ice
at an altitude of 7,000 feet, making
the job physically exhausting.
So here we're drilling a hole
in the glacier.
Down at this elevation of the
glacier,
we experience a lot of melt, so we
need to drill this hole pretty deep.
And we do this at September
or August this year,
and then when we come back
the following September, this pole
will be sticking out of the glacier.
The lower parts of the glacier
here will naturally lose
a lot of ice in a given season.
You might find six to seven metres
of ice melt during the summer,
and then in the wintertime, due
to ice dynamics, that ice
is replenished from higher
up the glacier.
But what's been happening
is that that replenishment is not
keeping up with the amount of melt
at the lower part of the glacier.
At times, they've found
that the ice has dropped by a metre
in height in just two weeks.
The dark line of the valley walls
indicates
just how high the glacier used to
be.
More worryingly, without
the supporting ice,
the walls become prone to collapse.
If you look carefully here,
you can actually see a whole series
of trees that we often refer
to as a drunken forest.
So the trees are sort of waffed
around and flopped around like
well, like they've had a long
night at the pub, I guess.
This is a key indicator
of unstable terrain.
The glacier has retreated
several kilometres
from its outermost moraine.
What's clear is the more recent
retreat we can attribute to human
activity - greenhouse gas emissions.
No-one wants to see the national
parks lose their majestic snowy
peaks -
least of all those admiring
them from on board our train.
Two hours into the second day,
the landscape may change,
but the hospitality remains
unstoppable.
Wine and cheese?
Well, I believe that we still
have some hungry guests
and even if they're not hungry,
we're going to overindulge.
We don't like guests to go more than
an hour without feeding.
An hour? I think it's likeit
feels like 45 minutes. 45 minutes!
We're pretty relentless in the
feeding!
So we often likeat least, like
to put people's, like, nerves
at ease by saying there
are no calories on the train,
but it's certainly a lot
of indulgence.
And like the food, the historical
sights just keep on coming.
This is the science of
Craigellachie,
and what that is is the site
of the last spike.
Every single rail tie that gets
put underneath the rails
and on top of the ballast
for the rails on top, all those get
held in place with a spike,
a single iron spike.
And it's here that the very last
spike was banged in and completing
effectively what was the
Trans Canadian Railroad.
On 7 November, 1885, at 9.22 in the
morning,
railroad financier Donald Smith
drove in the ceremonial final spike,
marking the end
of all the engineering challenges,
money crises and natural disasters
to hit the construction.
At last, the nation's railroads ran
the breadth of the country.
You can see this cairn as well,
which commemorates the site
of the last spike.
And what's interesting about that is
that there's a rock from each
of the provinces of Canada
and the three territories, too.
And that symbolises a unity
of the country.
This railway route is probably
the only railjourney in the world
that goes through three
national parks -
Glacier, Yoho and Banff -
each one with its own unique story.
Just above our train route, at
Kicking Horse in Yoho National Park,
most clays, Parks Canada guide
Claudia can be found trekking.
Today, she's making her way up to
one of the most famous sites
in the world -
that's if you're either a Star Wars
obsessive or have an interest
in the early origins of humankind.
We're on our way up to one
of Yoho National Park's iconic
Burgess Shale sites - Mount Stephen.
Then it really starts to get
steep.
The discovery of this particular
site
is closely tied in with the building
of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
It brought a lot of workers
in who probably were scouring
these hills hoping to find some
gold,
and instead they found stone bugs.
These weren't just any old bugs.
They were early marine invertebrates
dating back 540 million years
to the Cambrian period.
This was an exciting new discovery
for scientists.
The community that lived
here was in a warm tropical ocean
and was much like a modern-day reef
community.
And then these big mud flows would
come and cover up the communities,
and layer after layer was laid
down and compressed,
and then over millions of years
transformed into rock,
and then pushed up into what we now
see as the Canadian Rockies.
What's extraordinary at this Burgess
Shale site is that it revealed
incredible detail in some
of the soft-bodied fossils.
Advanced imaging revealed hearts,
livers and eggs - all previously
unseen.
The exquisite preservation
then exposed something amazing -
the first-ever record of skeletal
remains.
We can find our distant ancestors
here at the Burgess Shale.
We have our very first chordates -
so that's the group
that we belong to,
and these animals are much
more basic than we are,
but they have a notochord,
which is the precursor
to a backbone.
This is an ancestor to fish, and
anything with a backbone - like us.
Our long-lost relatives from 550
million years ago.
Now these ancient creatures
have become Hollywood stars,
inspiring the world of film.
Some of the weird wonders apparently
inspired some of the weird wonders
from Star Wars.
Have you ever seen the original
where they have the bar scene
from Tatooine?
Apparently, those aliens were
inspired by creatures from the
Burgess Shale.
As a relatively recent discovery,
these rocks undoubtedly have many
hidden wonders yet to be found.
I always tell people when we come
up here that they could be the first
person to find something brand-new
that no-one else has ever seen.
The Burgess Shale is extraordinary.
This UNESCO World Heritage site
attracts scientists all year
round to catch a tantalising
glimpse of life
over 500 million years ago.
Without the railway builders,
it might never have been found.
Now the train is heading
into its home stretch, but there's
still some food on the horizon.
It's great to be able to mix and
meet people from other walks of
life.
I love looking after the
Australians. They're always so
happy about everything.
And everyeverything is beautiful.
It doesn't matter what it is.
Everything's beautiful.
Next, we're heading into bear
country.
Half of the grizzly bear population
of Canada lives in British Columbia.
Spotting a wild bear may be a thrill
from the safety of a train -
on foot, only a cool professional
ranger would actually
like to meet one.
Jesse is on a mission.
We're headed to a place called the
Five Mile call out,
and it's the spot that'swhere
we've had quite a few grizzly bears
struck and killed on the railroad
tracks.
And it's an interesting area
because it's the confluence
of the railway, the Bow River,
the Trans Canada Highway
in the Bow Valley Parkway,
and the whole area is constrained
by steep Rocky Mountains.
So it's a challenging spot
for wildlife to get to.
Bears don't comprehend the real
dangers of the rails, but see them
as a way to travel quickly and find
grain dropped by freight trains.
Over the last ten years, we've lost
six grizzly bears to mortality
on the railroad tracks and one
of the hot spots for grizzly bear
mortality has been along these
curves.
Sometimes, the bears are startled
by trains,
and when they're startled,
they run,
and they kind of lose their sense of
reasoning,
and they run where they can run
fastest,
which is straight down the tracks.
This is one of those areas
where we have created some
alternate travel routes on either
side of the Bow River,
so that the wildlife don't even have
to travel along the railway.
Grizzly bears are under threat
from trains and loss of habitat.
These iconic animals are now
protected and monitored
in the hope their numbers recover.
These trains take kilometres
to stop,
so the best thing they can do
is just honk their horns.
But if it's a last-minute sighting,
then it's very challenging for them.
Other animals are also
following the railroad.
A lot of elk congregate
around the town of Banff,
and that's where they have
their calves,
so often this time of year, grizzly
bears and wolves and cougars
converge on the town of Banff
as they're trying to get
some of these elk calves
when they're first-born.
Using tracking, Jesse has a pretty
good idea of the bear population
in his charge.
There's now roughly 65 adult
grizzly bears in Banff National
Park,
and probably 20 of them use the Bow
Valley and encounter the railway.
My job is trying to figure out
how we can provide excellent
opportunities for people
coming to Banff
so they have a meaningful
experience,
but at the same time minimising
the effects we're having on
wildlife.
As we travel through Yoho National
Park, it's hard to comprehend
there are so few bears left
in the area.
All are being carefully monitored.
16 of them are female, and they hold
the future of these beautiful
grizzlies in British Columbia.
Not far down the line, still in
Yoho, the railroad builders
faced a very different challenge -
a place known as the Big Hill.
People were still driving
on dirt roads.
People were still driving
horse carriages.
So something like this was
a massive feat.
We've travelled almost 500 miles
across the Canadian Rockies
and our spellbinding two-day rail
adventure is nearly over.
Life wasn't so plain-sailing
for the crew building a line
with so many challenges.
The worst stretch of all
was known as the Big Hill.
It had an incredibly steep
slope, dropping 1000 feet
in just ten miles.
Big Hill was in many ways
a cut corner -
that money was conserved
by putting the trains
down a, er, what was an illegal
grade - 4.4% grade.
It would be a rather dangerous
situation to have all that momentum
heading down the hill and the first
train that ever went down the hill
did actually derail,
and the engineers on board
didn't make it either.
When it opened in 1884, the Big Hill
section was one of the steepest
railway lines around.
It was the scene of many
disastrous derailments
as park ranger Sarah explains.
Canadian Pacific Railway lost steam
trains
and they would also lose loads,
they would lose grain,
transportation and sometimes
loss of life whether it was
conductor or passengers.
They realised that just running
straight over and straight
down into a valley
with no reprieve -
there is no way to slow
thousands of tonnes.
They needed to come
up with a solution,
and that solution was the spiral
tunnels.
They decided to cut two circular
tunnels deep into the side
of two mountains -
Cathedral Mountain and Mount Ogden.
This would allow trains to spiral
round and descend safely at a much
more gentle grade.
Basically, the way they engineered
it,
they did bring in Swiss engineers
from Europe,
based on the same way that they
built roads to ascend
as switchbacks through the Alps.
To build this - a thousand men,
horses, dynamite -
remove all the rubble and then lay
the track once it's cleared.
On 1 September 1909,
this pair of spiral tunnels opened
at a cost of around $1.5 million.
The extra track effectively doubled
the length of the section, reducing
the steepness of the gradient
by half.
At the time, it was pretty
cutting edge.
People were still driving
on dirt roads.
People were still driving
horse carriages.
The Ford T Model engine
was basically, sort of, you know,
of a new phenomenon.
So something like this was
a massive feat.
Right now, there's a CP rail train
that's coming into the upper tunnel.
It's going into the mountain.
It's going to be coming around,
spiralling upon itself lower,
and then coming out right
there in the lower part.
And as it's turning back
on itself, it's going to descend.
So that makes it a whole lot
safer, a whole lot slower.
And what better way to see this feat
of engineering than by taking
a train right through them?
But this time, we are going
up rather than down.
Now, what's going to happen
is that we are going to head
towards Mount Ogden.
And as we get closer to it,
you'll see that about 50 feet
above the tunnel that we go into,
you'll actually see the tracks
that we'll be on,
because to quote my mother,
what we'll be doing is chucking
a uey inside of the mountain.
So can you see, by looking
at the railcar in front of us,
you can probably see and probably
imagine which way the train
is going to turn.
And we're just seeing, quite
literally, the light at the end
of the tunnel. I
But Cathedral Mountain was
on our right-hand side,
Mount Stephen was directly behind us
as we emerged from this tunnel.
You'll see that Cathedral Mountain
is actually directly in front of us.
So rather incredibly, this train has
formed a three-quarter turn.
The train has now travelled for two
clays as it enters the final stretch
in Banff National Park.
This place covers over 2,500 square
miles of some of the world's
most majestic mountains.
It's also famous for what lies
beneath.
Just a few metres to the east
of the line, hidden in the limestone
rock are some thermal springs.
Deep in these famous cave systems,
guide Amar is taking us
into the area's history.
Banff National Park was created
around natural springs,
so here we have one of them.
Altogether, we have nine springs.
In the late 1800s when the railway
was being built across the country,
winter was coming -
work would stop.
Most men would go back east
to their families.
But three railway workers decided
they were going to spend their time
in the valley here.
So they started exploring
and they discovered these springs.
So what did they do?
They had their first bath
in a long, long time.
The railway company spotted
a financial opportunity.
After having their bath,
they quickly realised others would
love to have that same experience,
and perhaps this was their chance
to make their fortune.
In 1885, keen to make the most of
the springs,
the government opened up Canada's
first national park around the site.
It attracted wealth and tourism
to the region.
The iconic Banff Springs Hotel
followed shortly afterwards,
and the area still thrives today
with over four million people
visiting every year.
After 600 miles of luxurious train
trekking across the Rocky Mountains,
we pull in to Banff station.
Welcome to Banff, everybody.
SHE LAUGHS
And what a pleasure it's been.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thanks a lot. And thank you!
Thank you. See you.
Welcome to Banff, Mr Johnson.
Thank you.
Enjoyed it. Yeah. Pleasure looking
after you. A real pleasure.
SHE LAUGHS
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you. It was a pleasure looking
after you. Have a great time.
It's been a fantastic experience,
and the magnificent views are truly
world-class.
Our railway voyage
has shown us some deadly waterways.
We've crossed stunning bridges
through beautiful national parks,
while taking in some incredible
feats of engineering.
But for Pete and Jocelyn,
this isn't the end of the line.
Their Rocky Mountain railjourney
doesn't stop here.
So that's a real privilege and
we get to do it all again tomorrow.