Around The World Without Flying: From Lake Louise to Banff

Our next tour from Lake Louise to Banff was along yet another route through the Rockies that was filled with many natural wonders and delightful sights. This was a tour through the Yoho National Park. The Canadians have had so much foresight preserving these gems for the future.

The first highlight was a view of a train wending it way through the ‘Spiral Tunnels’, albeit way below us in the distance. Now there is a long and interesting story behind this railway line. Originally British Columbia, which was very prosperous, was so far removed from eastern Canada its political leaders at the time were considering forming their own independent, sovereign state. Alarmed by this, a very forward-looking political leader from the east decided to travel there to offer them incentives to form a united Canada. He feared they would eventually decide to become part of America.

In the end he came to the conclusion that to keep them connected with eastern Canada, there needed to be a strong transportation link between the two sides of Canada, for people and goods. So he offered to build them a national railway line within ten years. Fortunately, as I am sure all Canadians would agree, his offer was accepted. But this man was a consummate politician. He realised that over in western Canada in particular, the railway line would have to come as far south as possible. If it were too far north of the border, the Americans might fill in the gap by building a railway line along the border and take away its business - and defeat its purpose. However, this meant the trains would have to travel through some of the most physically challenging parts of the Rocky Mountains.

That did not stop him. And so the railway line was built. But in one part of the line the grade of the track was too steep. After some accidents occurred, it was decided passengers had to get off the train for that section so they weren’t hurt, and get back on again at the bottom. This was not practical. A solution had to be found, and as soon a possible. The solution the engineers alighted upon was ingenious - build two tunnels through two adjacent mountains, through which the trains would loop in and out, giving them a longer distance to make the same ascent or descent.

The two tunnels were built by separate teams and such was the skills of their engineers, when the two tunnels broke through to each other, there was only one inch difference between their ends! These are known as the Spiral Tunnels. In fact, on my second day on the ‘Rocky Mountaineer', we travelled through the Spiral Tunnels and were told the story behind them. It was a fascinating journey and story.

After a quick view of the Spiral Tunnels, we then travelled to a spot known as ‘the natural bridge’, where people could view an interesting rock formation that spans the fast-running ‘Jumping Horse River’.

From there we went to Emerald Lake, that was rather like Lake Louise, although perhaps not in quite as spectacular a setting. We walked over a small bridge that had lovely baskets of flowers hanging over its sides to a small island where there were guest houses and a small reception place where a wedding was happening. Another idyllic setting for such a special occasion! In fact later we saw a bride climb into a canoe and be rowed out onto the lake, presumably for a photo shoot.

Finally we reached our hotel in Banff, an extraordinary group of castle-like tall old stone buildings with some newer facilities set amongst more tall mountains.

The Spiral Tunnels:

The train can just be seen in the centre of the photo.

The Natural Bridge:

Emerald Lake:

Some of the guest houses on the island. On the lower right are specially designed bear-proof bins. (Bears cannot use their paws to lever them open, which would encourage them to keep coming to the area.)