My Canadian Railway Adventure: A Train Ride to the Middle of Nowhere
"It's me again, this time, we'll continue our railway adventure through Europe" Said a middle aged man on TV with the type of British accent which nobody in Britain really spoke except the Queen.
I have done train traveling in Europe before. European trains in general are comfortable, frequent, and fast - no matter if you are taking a super bullet in Germany, or just the old, run - down airport connector in Budapest. Some even come with Wireless Internet and all sorts of fancy stuff I do not even know. Trains in Europe are a great method of transportation which allows people to move around affordably and efficiently.
But I still can't associate the word "adventure" with train traveling in Europe. Let's say my experience of train traveling in Canada sets the bar for what an "adventure is", I think train traveling in Europe is not even close.
In 2013 I worked a summer job in Manitoba, a province famous for its picturesque rural scenes and fearful mosquitoes. During my time there I learned a lot about the province's natural and human history. There was one place that I was particularly interested in. Churchill, Manitoba sits near the northern border of Manitoba. It is a very lonely town, befriends only with the big, cold Hudson Bay and the territory of Nunavut, which lies directly to its north. The nearest human settlement from Churchill is roughly 200 miles away (linear distance), with no road connection. The town of Churchill is famous for 3 things: polar bears, beluga whales, and northern lights.
There are only two ways to reach Churchill from Winnipeg, Manitoba's largest city: By a 2 hour airplane ride or traveling on a 1700 kilometer long railway beginning from Winnipeg's Union Station. The plane ride costs as much as 3 times more than getting the cheapest train ticket, and planes leave for Churchill every single day in compare to the twice- a - week train departure (2017 update: the train service was suspended indefinitely). However the train would offer travelers a great opportunity to fully discover the province of Manitoba, as it traverses from almost the southernmost part of the province to the northernmost part of the province.
With very little money, loads of time to waste, and a perfect excuse, I finally decided that I would make my way to Churchill by sleeping on a seat in the economy class for whatever time it took the train to transport me from Winnipeg to Churchill, before I left Manitoba for home.
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As the city of Winnipeg went out of the sight, what I saw was an ocean of golden wheat extended as far as the eye could see. Tractors were running in the fields and busily harvesting corps before the harsh winter hit. The sunflowers along the railroads perfectly served as the "unofficial tourist greeters" by trying to fascinate train riders who had never seen such scene (for example, me). When the western sun was about to draw the curtain, cows and horses in the field seemed to be totally unaware of the imminent darkness. I bet if their lives on the prairies were enjoyable, they must be waiting for the northern lights.
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The train ride to Churchill wasn't exactly what I expected. The train was almost empty, which allowed me to move the seats in the economy class around and make myself a bed. There were literally no entertainment system or internet on board. When the train passed one point only on the first day of journey my cellphone even lost its signal. There were no fancy chef services like other major rail routes in Canada: You either eat $7 a piece pocket-sized microwavable food you wouldn't pay attention at your local supermarket, or you eat food you packed with you before boarding the train. It was either this or that, or you had no food to eat.
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As a result, the dining car become a place where everybody on the train gathered in line and waited to buy overpriced microwavable food. It was in the dining car I met Liz, Uldo, and Pam. Liz was an anesthetist who escaped the misery of Detroit, Michigan right after the collapse of America's once prized automobile industry in the 1970s and worked for a Native American hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. She came to Manitoba for a medical conference but decided to travel north instead of heading straight back to the desert. Uldo was an automobile engineer from Germany who came to Canada with a Canadian rail pass (Still the only guy I know who possessed such thing) mostly for one thing: The "true spirit" of Canada (alcohol). Pam was an English Literature professor from the University of Manitoba who grew up in central Newfoundland. The reason why she went on the same trip was because there was a Canadian literature about early settler's struggles in Churchill, which fascinated Pam. It turned out that everyone on the train came from all sorts of backgrounds and each came with their own reasons. Yet we were all heading to the same destination and chose the same way to reach there.
Because by the time we left Winnipeg the air temperature was about 40 degrees Celsius (that's over 100 degrees Fahrenheit), the train had to travel very slowly to prevent derailment due to the expansion of tracks under extreme temperatures. It took us about 8 hours to travel our first 200 kilometers. By the time we reached the next station, we were 7 hours behind the schedule.
If you compare our next leg of the trip to the first leg, you can pretty much call the first leg "a smooth one". Our train got stuck in the middle of nowhere for over 10 hours for absolutely no reason. Fortunately the much of the 10 hours took place at night, so I was able to have a good sleep.
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Our train then started moving, stopped, then started moving again. Because we literally had no movies or internet on board that could help us to spend all the journey time to Churchill, we were "forced" to go to the dining car whenever possible and began to talk to others. I would say it was a very rewarding experience as I had learned a lot about others' life stories, no matter if it was Liz's experience as a tour guide in West Berlin, or Uldo's visit to Hungary right after the fall of the Iron Curtain. It made me imagine how people used to travel before smart technology was even a thing,which I thought was way more interesting than just playing on a cellphone or a computer through the entire trip like people do nowadays.
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We were supposed to stop at Thompson, Manitoba for 4 hours. However the train was delayed by such a large margin, we only stopped there for 15 minutes just to allow people get on and off the train. Thompson, Manitoba was the last major settlement reachable by road that was able to provide travelers ready to go food and other essential services. Looked like there weren't enough time for me to grab some food, which means I had to continue to suffer from overpriced microwavable food until the train reached Churchill.
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Anyways, I had already survived on that train for 2 days. By the next day I would arrive in Churchill.
For some travelers who had access to vehicles, they would drive from Winnipeg to Thompson, which took about 7 hours, and then catch the train to Churchill in Thompson. In that way they would avoid most of the train ride in addition to paying much less for the train ticket just from Thompson to Churchill. Because the train was the only means of transportation that connected Thompson to Churchill, it was mostly used by the local Aboriginal community to travel in between the places in between the two settlements for business and visiting families. All of the sudden the empty compartments were packed with people. I had to give up my "bed" to other passengers so they could have a spot for a good sleep after waiting at the station for hours just for our train to arrive.
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The next morning I woke up, everybody around me plus at least half of the people who boarded train the day before in Thompson were gone. I assumed they must got off at Gillam , the last stop before Churchill and the northernmost settlement one can travel with a car in Manitoba in the early morning. When I looked out to the window, the landscape changed once again: trees became much shorter and scattered around countless number of small lakes. Only yesterday the trees were dominating almost every single scene I saw. Then one day later they became nothing else other than some decoration to the vast open land of the great north. While I was enjoying the scene outside the moving train, the announcement kicked in:
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"Dear Passengers, we'll be arriving in Churchill, Manitoba at 16:30 this afternoon. We are 8 hours behind our scheduled arrival time. We would like to apologize for any inconvenience"
As the clock hit noon, I could tell that everyone got very excited by the fact that we were only 4 hours away from Churchill (something in Europe which nobody really gets excited for). The Italian family sitting in front of me started to watch movies on their laptop. Their audio was too loud that I could tell they were watching a Dream Works animation without even checking with them. Apparently not all passengers liked the family's laughter and the movie's sound effects. Even Uldo and his German adventurer friend, who attempted to travel to Greenland via Churchill and Nunavut moved to the other end of the compartment. The family was totally unaware of other passengers' silent protest.
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What happened next was that I heard another laptop running on very loud audio with even some louder laughter. I looked across the aisle, and I saw a lady was watching Fast and Furious on her laptop. The Italian family paused their movie, looked at her from their seats, and then moved to a different compartment. Once the Italian family was gone, the lady pulled out a pair of headphones, and plugged it into her laptop.
The lady was a local Aboriginal college student who was on her way back to her hometown Churchill. I asked her how could I tell where I was in the middle of the northern wilderness.
"You see the little, white poles along the tracks? There are numbers written on it. When it hits 80, then you are almost in Churchill. As for how the numbers come from and why is Churchill number 80, no one knows".
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The train kept moving, eventually all the trees disappeared. What came into my view instead was the vast arctic permafrost. At the very end of the horizon I saw trees moving further away from our train: we were already behind the tree line. Welcome to the arctic climate zone.
Finally, after spending 3 days on a train, I arrived Churchill . Liz, Uldo, Pam, and I formed a hangout group during the 3 days we were in Churchill and we pretty much did everything together. We had seen both wild polar bears, beluga whales, and a few other animals that were only inhabiting in the arctic climate. However we did not get any chance to see the northern lights while in Churchill. Considering I had seen everything else, I was very satisfied about the trip to Churchill.
Then surprise hit me out of nowhere.......
On the train back to Winnipeg, I was lying on my "bed", looking at the stars outside the window. Suddenly the couple from Winnipeg I met in Churchill interrupted. "It's your lucky day, there is northern lights right outside!"
I called up Uldo. Together we followed them all the way to the very end of the train. There was a little window we could open up. I moved my head outside of the window to the direction where the couple were pointing at. In the darkness I saw a very dim cloud of greenness floating high in the dark sky. That was the very first time I saw northern lights. To be honest, at first I was a little disappointed.
Suddenly the train conductor showed up and questioned us why we would sneak all the way to the end of the train. We explained, but she still chased us back to our compartment. Moments later, the train stopped.
It turned out that the conductor explained the situation to the train driver. The driver was generous enough to stop the train and let us observe the Northern Lights from possibly the best place one could ever imagine: in the middle of nowhere.
Across the dark sky, a green loop went from one end of the horizon to another. As time passed by, the Northern Lights became stronger and stronger. Eventually the simple loop turned out to be something absolutely memorizing: The green light waved like Mother Earth's scarf in the wind. Sometimes it shifted to one end, and sometimes it shifted to the other end. Yet "the scarf" was decorated by countless stars shining up on the dark dome. I had never seen that many stars before in my life.
During the Northern Lights watching event, I met some new friends. Because my camera wasn't good enough to capture the Northern Lights, my new friends generally shared their photos with me. I would say one of the most rewarding things about traveling was that you would definitely encounter some great people who just made your trip even better.
The next morning our train arrived in Thompson. I bid farewell with my newly made friends. I had learned my mistake of not bringing my own food to the train on my way up north. Fortunately there was a Safeway in Thompson. So I went in and bought myself a jumbo lumberjack sandwich, which lasted till the very end of my journey all the way to Winnipeg (in other words, never ended up buying overpriced microwavables for the rest of the trip)
Back on the train, I found Liz sitting with an Aboriginal girl in the dinning car. The girl told Liz and I about how her school in Winnipeg forbidding her and her fellow students from wearing traditional First Nations clothing and performing traditional Cree tribal practices while at school, all in the name of "making them less distracted" so they can "concentrate on school works better". It is really sad to see that for a great nation like Canada, where is backed by a constitution that guarantees all Canadians the freedom of association, there are still cases in which people's rights are being abused and undermined. It's even sadder to see that in this case it's the public institution which openly discriminates against the Canadian First Nations, who had historically suffered from the government's inhumane and oppressive programs like the residential schools. Coincidentally or not, both the government back in the days and the girl's school today justified their attempts at marginalizing the Aboriginal culture in the name of "making them more successful". The shadow of the past suddenly covered right over my head.
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| Lake Winnipeg from the north. It's basically impossible to see the lake from this angle unless taking a train as there were no roads or human settlement in the proximity |
I have done train traveling in Europe before. European trains in general are comfortable, frequent, and fast - no matter if you are taking a super bullet in Germany, or just the old, run - down airport connector in Budapest. Some even come with Wireless Internet and all sorts of fancy stuff I do not even know. Trains in Europe are a great method of transportation which allows people to move around affordably and efficiently.
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| A cowboy- western saloon style laundromat our train passed |
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| Train passing through a typical Manitoba town |
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| Manitoba farms are simply the most dominant scene in Southern Manitoba |
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| Northern Manitoba was a world of untouched and pristine forests completely isolated from the human civilization |
Because by the time we left Winnipeg the air temperature was about 40 degrees Celsius (that's over 100 degrees Fahrenheit), the train had to travel very slowly to prevent derailment due to the expansion of tracks under extreme temperatures. It took us about 8 hours to travel our first 200 kilometers. By the time we reached the next station, we were 7 hours behind the schedule.
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| Northern landscape was dominated by trees and creeks that are too remote they don't even appear on maps |
If you compare our next leg of the trip to the first leg, you can pretty much call the first leg "a smooth one". Our train got stuck in the middle of nowhere for over 10 hours for absolutely no reason. Fortunately the much of the 10 hours took place at night, so I was able to have a good sleep.
Our train then started moving, stopped, then started moving again. Because we literally had no movies or internet on board that could help us to spend all the journey time to Churchill, we were "forced" to go to the dining car whenever possible and began to talk to others. I would say it was a very rewarding experience as I had learned a lot about others' life stories, no matter if it was Liz's experience as a tour guide in West Berlin, or Uldo's visit to Hungary right after the fall of the Iron Curtain. It made me imagine how people used to travel before smart technology was even a thing,which I thought was way more interesting than just playing on a cellphone or a computer through the entire trip like people do nowadays.
We were supposed to stop at Thompson, Manitoba for 4 hours. However the train was delayed by such a large margin, we only stopped there for 15 minutes just to allow people get on and off the train. Thompson, Manitoba was the last major settlement reachable by road that was able to provide travelers ready to go food and other essential services. Looked like there weren't enough time for me to grab some food, which means I had to continue to suffer from overpriced microwavable food until the train reached Churchill.
Anyways, I had already survived on that train for 2 days. By the next day I would arrive in Churchill.
For some travelers who had access to vehicles, they would drive from Winnipeg to Thompson, which took about 7 hours, and then catch the train to Churchill in Thompson. In that way they would avoid most of the train ride in addition to paying much less for the train ticket just from Thompson to Churchill. Because the train was the only means of transportation that connected Thompson to Churchill, it was mostly used by the local Aboriginal community to travel in between the places in between the two settlements for business and visiting families. All of the sudden the empty compartments were packed with people. I had to give up my "bed" to other passengers so they could have a spot for a good sleep after waiting at the station for hours just for our train to arrive.
The next morning I woke up, everybody around me plus at least half of the people who boarded train the day before in Thompson were gone. I assumed they must got off at Gillam , the last stop before Churchill and the northernmost settlement one can travel with a car in Manitoba in the early morning. When I looked out to the window, the landscape changed once again: trees became much shorter and scattered around countless number of small lakes. Only yesterday the trees were dominating almost every single scene I saw. Then one day later they became nothing else other than some decoration to the vast open land of the great north. While I was enjoying the scene outside the moving train, the announcement kicked in:
As the clock hit noon, I could tell that everyone got very excited by the fact that we were only 4 hours away from Churchill (something in Europe which nobody really gets excited for). The Italian family sitting in front of me started to watch movies on their laptop. Their audio was too loud that I could tell they were watching a Dream Works animation without even checking with them. Apparently not all passengers liked the family's laughter and the movie's sound effects. Even Uldo and his German adventurer friend, who attempted to travel to Greenland via Churchill and Nunavut moved to the other end of the compartment. The family was totally unaware of other passengers' silent protest.
The lady was a local Aboriginal college student who was on her way back to her hometown Churchill. I asked her how could I tell where I was in the middle of the northern wilderness.
"You see the little, white poles along the tracks? There are numbers written on it. When it hits 80, then you are almost in Churchill. As for how the numbers come from and why is Churchill number 80, no one knows".
Finally, after spending 3 days on a train, I arrived Churchill . Liz, Uldo, Pam, and I formed a hangout group during the 3 days we were in Churchill and we pretty much did everything together. We had seen both wild polar bears, beluga whales, and a few other animals that were only inhabiting in the arctic climate. However we did not get any chance to see the northern lights while in Churchill. Considering I had seen everything else, I was very satisfied about the trip to Churchill.
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| An inukshuk in Churchill along shore of the Hudson Bay |
Then surprise hit me out of nowhere.......
On the train back to Winnipeg, I was lying on my "bed", looking at the stars outside the window. Suddenly the couple from Winnipeg I met in Churchill interrupted. "It's your lucky day, there is northern lights right outside!"
I called up Uldo. Together we followed them all the way to the very end of the train. There was a little window we could open up. I moved my head outside of the window to the direction where the couple were pointing at. In the darkness I saw a very dim cloud of greenness floating high in the dark sky. That was the very first time I saw northern lights. To be honest, at first I was a little disappointed.
Suddenly the train conductor showed up and questioned us why we would sneak all the way to the end of the train. We explained, but she still chased us back to our compartment. Moments later, the train stopped.
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| Northern Lights in the middle of nowhere. Photo credits to the friend from Winnipeg who shared this with me |
Across the dark sky, a green loop went from one end of the horizon to another. As time passed by, the Northern Lights became stronger and stronger. Eventually the simple loop turned out to be something absolutely memorizing: The green light waved like Mother Earth's scarf in the wind. Sometimes it shifted to one end, and sometimes it shifted to the other end. Yet "the scarf" was decorated by countless stars shining up on the dark dome. I had never seen that many stars before in my life.
During the Northern Lights watching event, I met some new friends. Because my camera wasn't good enough to capture the Northern Lights, my new friends generally shared their photos with me. I would say one of the most rewarding things about traveling was that you would definitely encounter some great people who just made your trip even better.
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| Later the Northern Lights got stronger. Photo credits to my friend from Winnipeg who kindly shared this photo with me |
Back on the train, I found Liz sitting with an Aboriginal girl in the dinning car. The girl told Liz and I about how her school in Winnipeg forbidding her and her fellow students from wearing traditional First Nations clothing and performing traditional Cree tribal practices while at school, all in the name of "making them less distracted" so they can "concentrate on school works better". It is really sad to see that for a great nation like Canada, where is backed by a constitution that guarantees all Canadians the freedom of association, there are still cases in which people's rights are being abused and undermined. It's even sadder to see that in this case it's the public institution which openly discriminates against the Canadian First Nations, who had historically suffered from the government's inhumane and oppressive programs like the residential schools. Coincidentally or not, both the government back in the days and the girl's school today justified their attempts at marginalizing the Aboriginal culture in the name of "making them more successful". The shadow of the past suddenly covered right over my head.
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| The condo building with a giant wolf mural in Thompson |
As the train left the endless forest and entered the the flat prairies where the sky became so big that only the heart could imagine its four margins, the dark yellow wheat along the railway line whispered into my ear that we were back to the civilization. The cellphones started to work again, and I could see many passengers began to call their families and uploading pictures to the internet.
Then I met Sharon and Robert, an elderly couple who lived on a farm near Dauphin. When I first met them, Sharon appeared to be very anxious and was seeking for helps from the train conductors. Robert, in sharp contrast to his wife, was quietly reading the Holy Bible at a window side table where the sunshine could pour right onto the book. I approached the couple and asked them whether I could help them out. It turned out that prior to their trip to Churchill, Sharon and Robert received their very first digital camera and cellphone from their son as gifts to make their trip more memorable. However, They forgot to bring along the chargers for both the camera and the cellphone. The camera went out of the battery by the time they arrived Churchill and their cellphone died sometime on their way back home. The couple had great times in Churchill, but they ended up having no pictures that could remind them all the amazing things they saw. They tried to inform their son about the train's arriving time, but they couldn't use a cellphone with no power in it.
Fortunately one of the train conductors was kind enough to lend Sharon her own cellphone. The conductor even told the train driver to stop at the intersection that was not far from the couple's farm so Sharon and Robert's son could pick them up and drive them home in the fastest way possible. As for the photos, I promised the couple that I would e-mail them some of the best photos I took in Churchill. To show their appreciation, Sharon and Roberts offered me and the train conductor each 5 dollars. However we both declined as we felt helping others should never be done for the sake of or originated from making money. Robert then opened his bible and shared a few verses with me. Before the couple disembarked the train, Robert pointed to me where his farm was - he had a red barn that looked exactly like the ones I saw in some romantic movies. Sharon left me a stack of paper all folded together where she wrote her e-mail as well as her address and other contact information. She told me that she just learned how to send e-mails and modern technology definitely made her life experience much more complex. I felt happy that Sharon and Robert did not go home with any regrets caused by what we see as the necessities of the modern world which we could not live without but were totally unfamiliar to them.
The train finally arrived in Winnipeg. At the train station I opened up the stack of paper Sharon gave to me. It turned out the couple's information wasn't the only thing in there - I found a $5 note. Later on I arrived at my hotel, and the first thing I did was to shoot up my computer and opened up my e-mail. I wanted to share some of my great memories in Churchill with Sharon and Robert which they did not have the luxury to obtain for themselves. I also wanted to let them know that my decision of sharing my photos with them was something far beyond what a $5 note could possibly represent. So I wrote to Sharon something that Robert might know better than anybody else - something that they would easily understand and appreciate:
" A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity."
- Proverbs 17:17
I began to realize that adventures were definitely not like how they were being shown on the television. Adventures are experiences that shapes authentic relationships with the others. In many cases adventures even mean hardships we must conquer in order to survive. Most of all, adventures always teach us lessons - lessons that open our eyes, clear our minds, and make us better people.
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| "A lake and its lagoon" |
Fortunately one of the train conductors was kind enough to lend Sharon her own cellphone. The conductor even told the train driver to stop at the intersection that was not far from the couple's farm so Sharon and Robert's son could pick them up and drive them home in the fastest way possible. As for the photos, I promised the couple that I would e-mail them some of the best photos I took in Churchill. To show their appreciation, Sharon and Roberts offered me and the train conductor each 5 dollars. However we both declined as we felt helping others should never be done for the sake of or originated from making money. Robert then opened his bible and shared a few verses with me. Before the couple disembarked the train, Robert pointed to me where his farm was - he had a red barn that looked exactly like the ones I saw in some romantic movies. Sharon left me a stack of paper all folded together where she wrote her e-mail as well as her address and other contact information. She told me that she just learned how to send e-mails and modern technology definitely made her life experience much more complex. I felt happy that Sharon and Robert did not go home with any regrets caused by what we see as the necessities of the modern world which we could not live without but were totally unfamiliar to them.
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| The train station in Dauphin |
" A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity."
- Proverbs 17:17
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| Scenery not far from Sharon and Robert's house |
I began to realize that adventures were definitely not like how they were being shown on the television. Adventures are experiences that shapes authentic relationships with the others. In many cases adventures even mean hardships we must conquer in order to survive. Most of all, adventures always teach us lessons - lessons that open our eyes, clear our minds, and make us better people.
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