Canadian Rockies By Rail

See The Most Beautiful Scenery In North America Without Leaving Comfort Of Train

(CBS)  Lunch in the dining car was an impressive selection of Alberta beef, thick pork chops or pasta with chicken. I was delighted to see northern pickerel, a trout-like fish, on the menu because I haven't seen a pickerel since my father used to catch them 40 years ago. The fish came in lightly breaded and fried cutlets and were delicious alongside cranberry-studded couscous and a green salad. A dessert sampler was delivered that included a slice of cranberry bread pudding on a puddle of crème anglaise and a wedge of maple-flavored cheesecake that was frozen in places and too sweet all over.

The day had been sunny with passing showers since we'd left Jasper, but an hour outside of Kamloops the sun shone brightly and we left the mountains behind for a landscape of semi-arid, high desert vistas of brown, rolling hills and scrubby, sagebrush vegetation. When we arrived in the provincial city of 85,000, people waved to us from their porches and atop horses. Room keys were handed out on the train and buses were waiting to whisk us to the hotels for the night. The bus driver, swept away by the excitement of our arrival, grandly pointed out the new water-treatment plant in town.

Dinners were optional, with a choice of two dinner-theater shows, including one that promised a spirited, comic competition between two lumberjacks. I've got a rule that I don't bother lumberjacks and they don't bother me, so I stayed in and enjoyed a quiet night in Kamloops.

There was a revolt in the breakfast car the next morning over the eggs Benedict, which the chef had, unfortunately, chosen to serve atop a hard, grainy, herbed scone, with a chipotle Hollandaise sauce. "It's too fussy!" thundered an English man at my table who asked for a poached egg and Canadian bacon and nothing else. My buttermilk pancakes were small and undercooked, with withered berries on the side.

That day, we ran alongside Thompson Lake for the first hour and then followed the Thompson River until it intersected with the mud-colored, roiling Fraser River that runs all the way to the ocean. At 9 a.m., two bald eagles perched in trees had everyone running to the windows. We would see many more eagles and osprey throughout the day, even seeing the birds swoop down to catch fish in the river.

By 11 a.m. the Japanese ladies were hitting the Baileys liqueur hard, and most of the others were getting familiar with both the wildlife and the bloody marys and mimosas that Charity and Iain poured freely. I, of course, stuck strictly to beer and wine. I was working, after all.

The Ponderosa Pines of the Rockies gave way to great forests of Douglas Firs that characterize the coast. At mid-day we met the river at the Cisco Crossings, with an 812-foot bridge that is the longest on the Canadian National line. Just upriver, a Canadian Pacific freight train crossed at the same time on another bridge, providing yet another spectacular photo op.

There were ladders and net placements and drying sheds on the steep walls of the canyon where native tribes (called First Nations in Canada) pulled up migrating salmon. Gray-sand beaches had been formed by the silty river as its flow decreased over the summer months.

Lunch was chicken crusted with a mustard dressing atop a cranberry-citrus glaze (stuffy!) halibut, and slices of roasted bison on a blueberry jus. It was tasty, if unexceptional, and dessert was a nearly inedible mélange of dried chocolate brownie and a little chocolate choo-choo train whose tiny freight car was filled with a dab of some kind of white pudding. Generally, I believe the food shouldn't try to outdo the most scenic railway journey in the world, but I'm sure some would disagree.

At any rate, I was eager to get back upstairs to my panoramic views. By mid-afternoon we had come upon the tall peaks of the Cascades, the spine of mountains that reaches all the way down the west coast, and by four p.m. we were on the outskirts of Vancouver, crossing under the Portman Bridge on our way downtown. The train arrived on time at 5:15 p.m., more buses awaited to transfer guests to hotels, and the staff personally shook hands with every guest.

Which wasn't stuffy at all.

The scorecard? Great scenery, fine service, slightly pretentious and very inconsistent food. Wonderful train trip, even if the bears can see you when you can't see them.