utah, winter shangri-la

As a destination for skiers and snowboarders, Utah often gets overlooked – which is a shame, because the state is home to some of America’s best winter resorts, not to mention incredible slopes.

For a long time, Utah was the U.S. state most Antipodean skiers flew over on their way to Colorado resorts such as Aspen and Vail and Canada’s Whistler. But over the past five years, Utah has been stealing some of the limelight with its upgraded lifts, expanded ski terrain and entirely new communities, created by resort owners keen to inject fresh life into the three major resorts: Park City, Deer Valley and The Canyons. Add inspired new businesses such as the world’s only ski-in, ski-out whisky distillery, opportunities to heli-ski right from the resort, and world-class music acts, and you have all the ingredients for a cool winter break. 

It’s hard not to feel glamorous skiing in Park City – visit in January when the Sundance Film Festival hits town and you’ll share the slopes with a star-studded cast. Aside from the famous faces, much of Utah’s allure is in its accessibility: Park City is around a 35-minute drive from Salt Lake City airport; Deer Valley is directly next door and The Canyons ski area is also in the neighbourhood. 



Want to ski the steeper slopes of Alta and Snowbird, long-time favourites of more experienced skiers? Just book a shuttle through Park City transportation or Alta Shuttle and you’ll be whisked from your lodge to the adjoining valley, where the two are located, in an hour or so. 

Staying in Park City means you’ll have some of Utah’s best restaurants (Robert Redford owns one of them), bars and nightclubs on your doorstep. As a bonus, the town is on the U.S. tour schedule of major musical acts including LMFAO and Ice-T, both of whom performed here recently. Small wonder, then, that Paris Hilton and other “celebrities” often drop into town for the weekend. 

As for the slopes, the three resorts offer a smorgasbord of options for both skiers and snowboarders, though ’boarders are still not allowed at Deer Valley ski area. Intermediate runs dominate the resorts but there are plenty of options for beginners as well. Fans of high-speed cruisers will find themselves in heaven at Park City, which has some of the widest runs you’ll come across – think the ski-run equivalent of an eight-lane highway, perfectly groomed, and you’ll begin to understand the offerings.
 
But don’t be fooled into thinking there is nothing steep: a quick hike around the higher elevations of the Jupiter Peak area will reveal expert-only terrain leading to a lovely steep pitch below.

Deer Valley is a stone’s throw from Park City’s boundary. But despite their proximity, the resorts share no facilities, and skiing between them is against state law. Indeed, the two resorts couldn’t have more different atmospheres. 

Deer Valley is essentially a ski field built around a beautiful mountain community. Its runs are dotted with clusters of log cabins, condos and lodges including the historic Stein Eriksen (a favourite with Tom Cruise) and the new, five-star Montage. Both places are welcoming and friendly and are great places to refuel between runs. 

There’s plenty of slope-side accommodation in Deer Valley but with the bulk of visitors choosing to stay in Park City, guests rely on the regular shuttles that link all the resorts. If you do decide to bed down, you’ll have access to great food: Deer Valley has a reputation for serving up some of the best on-mountain meals, not only in Utah but in North America. Breakfast and lunch buffets overflow with fresh seafood and meats including wild boar, a local specialty. 



Deer Valley is also famed for its powder snow, and many visitors find its tree skiing the main attraction. Here, Utah’s light, fluffy snow – promoted on licence plates across the state as the greatest on earth – turns Deer Valley’s steeper slopes into exactly what thrillseekers are looking for.

No visit to this area would be complete without taking in The Canyons. One of the newest commercial ski resorts in North America, The Canyons sparkles with brand-new condominiums, dramatic modern buildings and an array of stunning resorts and high-speed lifts. Initial infrastructural problems have been ironed out, which makes getting around smoother than ever: the Red Pine Gondola has been repositioned to drop skiers right into the village; another new lift offers heated seats in a glass bubble; and lounge chairs have been strategically positioned to soak up the sun. 

Advanced skiers will love the fact that Wasatch Powderbird Guides can land on a helipad in the middle of the resort, making it all too easy to ski over to the hut, hand over your credit card and fly away for some runs in untracked snow.

Advanced skiers should include a trip to Alta and Snowbird on their itineraries. It does involve travel but you’ll be rewarded with some of the steepest and most dramatic terrain in Utah. Snowbird is enormous – one of those places where even the locals are still discovering new runs – and it is linked with Alta via a high-mountain tunnel. Alta has unbeatable terrain for advanced skiers and offers some of the best views in Utah: from the top of its ridges you can see Salt Lake City shimmering in the distance. 

While most people come for the snow, many linger for the shopping. The Park City area more than delivers in this field, with a wide array of shops complemented by an enormous factory outlet centre, TangerOutlets Park City, a 20-minute drive out of town. Be sure to take a roomy suitcase, as discounts are available on brands from Coach to Calvin Klein, not to mention all that cheap ski gear… •

oh say, can you ski?

If you thought that skiing in the United States was limited to Colorado, think again. Here, three alternative American states that are proving to be rather cool. 


IDAHO
There’s a saying among skiers in Idaho: Movie stars go to Aspen but the people who pay the movie stars go to Sun Valley. And they fit right in. 

Enjoying a shimmering setting in central Idaho, Sun Valley is one fancy snow resort. It’s skiing minus the hassles – there are no queues to use chairlifts; clouds don’t seem to settle on wide, blue skies; ski lodges dazzle with floor-to-ceiling windows, open fireplaces, stone walls; and the snow is first-class. 

Upon opening the resort nearly 75 years ago, the man behind the project, Union Pacific Railroad chairman W. Averell Harriman, declared: “When you get to Sun Valley, your eyes should pop open.” He wanted haute cuisine, perfect service and nightly orchestral performances to complement the pristine snow action. 

All that, yet Sun Valley doesn’t feel at all precious; in fact, it’s extremely convivial. The region of Idaho Sun Valley calls home was built on mining and, to this day, an air of blue-collar wholesomeness overrides all the gold-plated taps in the bathrooms. The town Sun Valley’s built around – Ketchum – still looks like a mining village, with wide streets and preserved historical buildings. Granted, most mining towns don’t have billboards advertising Flexjet – a private jet company that promises customers they can save themselves the hassle of public air travel – but you can still get a steak here for US$10 at some diners, with a beer thrown in if you go on the right nights. 

In Ketchum, even Hollywood hipsters have to wait for tables at favourite local restaurants. Unless, of course, they own said restaurants.



Bruce Willis owns a bar on the main road in Hailey in Sun Valley (and has been spotted playing gigs there on occasion); Tom Hanks has a holiday chalet here; and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s soon-to-be-ex-wife Maria Schriver specially requested that a short but particularly challenging Sun Valley ski run be named after Arnie for his birthday in 2001. The locals don’t pay much attention: they’re used to seeing stars around town. 

In 1936, Harriman enlisted a hotshot New York publicist to spread the Sun Valley word. What followed was arguably history’s most successful public relations stunt. The publicist offered the biggest Hollywood stars of the day no-expense-spared invitations to enjoy Sun Valley. The likes of Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman took up the invitation, attracting an ever-increasing circle of Hollywood starlets. The cooler Sun Valley got, the more the stars lined up for invites. 

The Hollywood beeline became such a swarm that Sun Valley was documented on the cover of Life magazine in 1937. Before long, Harriman saw his vision realised: Sun Valley had become the most glamorous ski resort in the United States. 

All the stars are still there today – black-and-white photographs on the walls of the Sun Valley Lodge show a young Marilyn Monroe (who filmed the movie Bus Stop in Sun Valley) alongside Clark Gable, Janet Leigh, John Wayne, Lucille Ball and the Kennedys. Writer Ernest Hemingway liked Sun Valley so much he chose to live in nearby Ketchum; allegedly, he wrote several chapters of For Whom the Bell Tolls in a suite at the Sun Valley Lodge. 

Still, gold trimmings and chandeliers only count for so much. A ski resort should always be about one thing: skiing, and that’s where Sun Valley’s strength lies. 

Many regard Sun Valley’s Bald Mountain, with its windless, steep slopes that drop more than one kilometre, as the best single-ski slope in the world. Fringed by picturesque pine trees, the runs are not for the faint hearted; even the green runs here will have your adrenalin pumping. But the terrain is stunning, and the views from the top of the ridges seem to stretch forever. Less experienced skiers are also catered for, as Sun Valley consists of two mountains and the other – Dollar Mountain – might have been designed for beginners and intermediate skiers – its vertical pitch is just 191 metres and it’s treeless, making it ideal for those who are new to the snow.

CALIFORNIA
California may be synonymous with beaches and sunshine but it’s also one of the best ski destinations in North America. There are ski resorts stretching all the way from the north of the state to its Mexican border, and some, such as Mountain High, are easily accessible from major cities like Los Angeles. There are more than 30 ski resorts to choose from across California, and many of them – especially those located near Lake Tahoe – are close together, making it quite possible to sample a different resort every day. Best of all, because of California’s unique topography and climate, you can surf before breakfast and watch the sun set over the snow the same day. 

A 3.5-hour drive east of San Francisco, Lake Tahoe – America’s largest alpine lake – is the stunning centrepiece to the largest concentration of ski resorts in the country, most of them receiving more than 10 metres of snow in a typical season. 

Heavenly Ski Mountain, on the south bank of the lake, offers the best tree runs in North America, paired with lively Vegas-style entertainment options including casinos open around the clock. 

Mammoth Resort is popular for its elevation: it sits atop California’s highest mountain and boasts the state’s longest ski season – indeed, people have been spotted on Mammoth’s slopes in June. The resort, with some of the world’s best terrain parks, is a mecca for ski and snowboard pros. 

Just down the road, Squaw Valley offers equally impressive runs, with six peaks in a ski area that stretches across 1,619 hectares of mountainside.

UTAH
Utah is known as the powder capital of the world – the snow is so dry and deep here that you’ll need to master a whole new way of skiing. Each ski season, Utah receives more than 12 metres of the white stuff, making it the United States’ snowiest state after Alaska. Apart from its legendary powder falls, one of Utah’s biggest drawcards is the fact that its best resorts are easy for interstate and international skiers to access. Of the 13 world-class ski resorts in Utah, 11 are located within an hour’s drive of the state’s international airport. Touch down at Salt Lake City International Airport and you can be at Park City Mountain Resort, which sprawls over 1,335 hectares of skiable terrain, within 45 minutes of clearing customs. And the Canyons ski resort – the biggest of its kind in Utah, with nearly 1,500 hectares of terrain across eight mountains and five bowls – is less than 50 kilometres from the international airport. 

Both ski resorts are close to Park City, a former mining town that’s become one of the world’s premier après-ski villages, housing some 100 bars and restaurants, dozens of boutiques and a host of upscale hotels and inns including the world’s only ski-in, ski-out whiskey distillery.•

Champagne and bluebirds

Colorado, California and Utah all offer an amazing array of ski resorts for those who want to head Stateside in winter, says Lee Mylne.


On a ‘bluebird day’ in Colorado, you’ll step outside to cloudless blue skies, brilliant sunshine and dazzling white snow on the mountains. It’s the kind of day that skiers and snowboarders revel in, and that seems to be the norm on North American slopes.

And while Colorado may have the highest profile of all America’s ski regions, there are plenty of alternative options for those looking for fresh slopes, each with its own challenges and personality. 



California and Utah, for instance, rank high on the hit-list of snow-hounds heading for North America. Snow in California? Yes, you heard right. It may be synonymous with surf culture and beaches but California is also home to around 30 ski resorts – so you can surf, then drive to the ski-fields in the same day if the mood takes you.

There are ski regions throughout California, with the best-known areas, arguably, at Lake Tahoe, Mammoth and Big Bear. In northern California, Lake Tahoe, with 15 downhill and four cross-country resorts, boasts the highest concentration of ski resorts in the United States.

Just four hours drive from San Francisco, the ‘Big Blue’ – as Lake Tahoe is affectionately known – is astoundingly beautiful. It has an average 10 metres of snow and 300-plus days of sunshine a year and, at an altitude of just 1,897 metres above sea level, it is easy to acclimatise. The second deepest lake in the United States, Lake Tahoe never freezes over, so skiers and snowboarders get the exhilarating feeling of skiing right down to a lake renowned for its crystal-clear water and vivid blue hue.



Heavenly Resort in South Lake Tahoe has just opened a new tubing lift, giving access to a new four-lane tubing area at the top of the gondola at Adventure Peak. If you have kids, they may not want to leave... at least, not until they head off to try the evening Snow Cat Tours on offer at nearby Kirkwood Mountain Resort, exploring scenic ridgelines by the light of the moon and stars. 

Not only is it home to famous granite karsts and stunning waterfalls, but California’s Yosemite National Park also encloses the state’s oldest ski resort. Badger Pass Ski Area celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2010 and is a great place to learn to ski or board, with 85 per cent of its downhill slopes dedicated to beginner and intermediate-level skiers.

In ‘Ski Town USA’, the century-old Colorado town of Steamboat Springs, Stetsons and cowboy boots are as common as beanies and ski suits. Colorado’s western heritage is strong, even on the slopes. In fact, if you turn up on Mount Werner’s slopes for the chance to ski with former Olympian and World Champion Billy Kidd, now director of the Steamboat ski program, you’ll almost certainly find he’s wearing his trademark Stetson. A sign at the top of the gondola tells you if Billy is skiing that day, and you can join him for a run down Heavenly Daze.



Famous for its ‘Champagne powder’, an expression coined by local rancher Joe McElroy in the 1950s to describe the dry and fluffy snow found here, Steamboat Springs has an average 8.7 metres of snowfall every season. 

Kidd was the first American man to win an Olympic medal in skiing – a silver, at the 1964 Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria. He has called Steamboat home since 1970, but is not the only Olympic skier who lives here: the former silver mining town has so far produced 54 Winter Olympians, more than any other town in North America. 

Skiing started here on Howelsen Hill, the oldest ski area in Colorado, where the sport was introduced in 1913. The first Winter Carnival was held the following year, and it’s taken place every February since.  



Mount Werner, with 1,176 hectares of permitted terrain and 164 named trails to suit skiers of all levels, is one of six mountains from which skiers and snowboarders can choose – the others are Sunshine Peak, Storm Peak, Thunderhead Peak, Pioneer Ridge and Christie Peak.  

Mavericks Superpipe at Steamboat Springs, the longest in North America, is 198 metres long, 15.2 metres wide, has 4.6-metre walls and a five-metre radius. Steamboat’s terrain park features an outdoor sound system, a variety of rails and Mini-Mav, a miniature version of the superpipe with 1.5-metre walls, designed for novice riders. 

Over the past four years, more than AU$34.5 (US$30) million has been spent on improvements to the Steamboat Ski Resort area, adding enhanced terrain to challenge all levels of ability, faster and more comfortable chairlifts, and off the slopes, a host of new restaurants to try. Last season, Steamboat also poured AU$2.88 (US$2.5) million into – among other things – expanding its Kids’ Vacation Center, opening a new first-aid base facility and enhancing its already top-grade snowmaking system. 

Whether it’s a sunny day or one with heaps of fresh fluff, guests can be the first to enjoy the mountain through Steamboat Ski and Snowboard School’s popular First Tracks program. Instructors guide groups of skiers and riders through Priest Creek for untracked powder runs before others hit the slopes. Steamboat’s backcountry guide service, the Powdercats, offers access to 10,000 acres of pristine terrain on Buffalo Pass, 25 minutes from downtown Steamboat Springs. 

At Aspen, arguably Colorado’s most famous – and glamorous – ski resort, the Aspen Skiing Company invested nearly AU$9.2 (US$8) million in on-mountain improvements in 2009-2010. Over the past six years, it has spent nearly AU$150 (US$130) million on new lifts and gondolas, the Treehouse Kids’ Adventure Center, three new restaurants and the new Snowmass base village.

Aspen/Snowmass has also become the only resort in North America to have hands-free radio frequency gate access across its four mountains. Tickets are a plastic card with a chip inside detecting guests as they move through lift lines – so there’s no need to dig in your pocket to find your pass or ticket. A tunnel for skiers is being built on Buttermilk above the terrain park to separate terrain-park traffic and regular skiers.   

Aspen/Snowmass continues to be the chosen resort for world-class events, including the ESPN Winter X Games at Buttermilk Mountain.

With more skiers and riders searching for challenging off-piste terrain, Colorado ski resorts hold increasing appeal, with several options for the more adventurous, including heli-skiing, hike-to terrain and cat-skiing. For those who don’t mind doing a bit of hiking to find the freshest powder, plenty of avalanche-controlled, in-bounds, hike-to options are available that help manage the risks of shredding steep terrain and deep powder.

On the other hand, if you’re looking to get at near-virgin terrain without taking the time to hike, you can also take a snowcat ski-and-ride tour. Many Colorado resorts offer guided and unguided tours for skiers of intermediate to expert ability, with access to diverse terrain. 

Telluride’s Palmyra Peak is home to more than 80 hectares and almost 610 vertical metres of in-bounds hike-to terrain, including runs The Peak, Tram Shot, Sunrise and Electric Shock. It is also home to Helitrax, a service that allows untracked powder skiing in small, personalised groups on some of the highest helicopter-accessed terrain in the world.  

Copper Mountain last year opened Woodward at Copper, the world’s first indoor/outdoor ski and snowboard camp. The 20,000-square-foot Woodward at Copper Barn gives campers access to Snowflex jumps, foam pits, a spring floor, Olympic-grade Flybed trampolines and indoor skateboard features. You can develop your tricks in The Barn, then progress to the terrain parks and Superpipe. 

Utah’s largest ski and snowboard resort, The Canyons, is one of the five biggest in the United States, with eight mountains – all part of the Wasatch Range that joins the southern edge of the Rocky Mountains. The Canyons Ski Resort is just four miles from the historic Main Street of Park City, best known as the home of the annual Sundance Film Festival founded by actor and director Robert Redford. The resort has more than 1,400 skiable hectares of diverse terrain, with 146 trails to suit everyone from beginners to extreme skiers and snowboarders. 

Since opening in 1997 as the third of Park City’s snow resorts, The Canyons has expanded to include 16 lifts, and is about to embark on more development that will open up hundreds more hectares of terrain over the next three years. Experienced skiers can also take part in the early-morning First Tracks guided ski tour, becoming each day’s first skiers onto the perfectly groomed Aspen-lined slopes.

There’s also plenty to occupy a rest day. Utah Olympic Park showcases the city’s hosting of the 2002 Winter Olympics and has a lot to offer, including a ski museum, a screaming thrill-ride on Xtreme Zip, the world’s steepest zipline, which gives you the sensation of ski-jumping while you’re harnessed safely to a cable, travelling at 80 kilometres per hour. And every day you can venture out again, knowing that each day is likely to offer – as it says on Utah licence plates – ‘The Greatest Snow on Earth’. •

wide, wild and wonderful

It’s one of the world’s last frontiers, characterised by seemingly endless highways, soaring mountains and towns that seem to be stuck in time. But you come to Canada’s Yukon for its people, who match their surroundings in resilience.

Let’s make sure there are no trucks on the road,” says pilot Dave Sharp, banking the seven-seat Piper Navajo to the left. The Alaska Highway below is deserted, but I spot another hazard. 

“It’s a bit bendy, isn’t it?” I ask timidly. 

“Yeah,” says Sharp, “but there is a straight stretch coming up.”

Thankfully, Sharp is a seasoned bush pilot and he lands the tiny plane onto the highway with ease. As we touch down, I notice that the road, a major thoroughfare, is not even tarred. “It can’t be,” Dave explains. “It would all crack up in winter. There is permafrost right underneath.” 

We’ve landed in Canada’s Arctic Circle during the summer solstice, when the midnight sun kisses the horizon before bobbing up into the sky again. We have flown in from Dawson City, a speck of a town in the state of Yukon, to see this phenomenon. 

Fiery red and purple clouds catch the sunrays and diffuse them to a golden halo. These are the same rain clouds we’d avoided just a few minutes ago, lingering above Tombstone Territorial Park with its dramatic slabs of granite that remind me of my hastily filed folders back home, edging this way and that. 



To say that the Yukon is vast is an understatement. Up here, toasting the sun at midnight, we’re hundreds of kilometres from the nearest town and even farther from where we began. 
Dawson City, located at the junction of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers, was built on the proceeds of gold. Before the mineral boom, people settled here to fish for salmon and hunt moose up the Klondike Valley. After the discovery of gold in the late 19th century, a massive influx of prospectors from neighbouring gold-rush sites (San Francisco and Alaska were the closest) created a conurbation of unexpected proportions and the locals were moved to Moosehide, five kilometres downriver, to make way for the new residents.

Dawson acquired city status in 1902 and became the capital of the new Yukon Territory. Canvas tents were replaced by hotels, saloons, opera houses, churches – and later on, schools – transforming the original mining camp into the biggest city west of Winnipeg and north of San Francisco. 

Strolling around town today, I can’t help but feel as though I’m on the set of a Western. The facades of buildings are ornately decorated and weatherboard houses and shops are painted in a rainbow of colours, from subdued pastels to brilliant oranges and reds, linked by raised boardwalks. I pass old-fashioned shops bearing their original names with period dresses in their window displays, similar to the outfits town guides wear to recapture the mood of times past. It turns out there’s a good reason for the boardwalks: much of Dawson is a frozen swamp. 



At the height of the Canadian Gold Rush in the early 1900s, Dawson earned a reputation as the Paris of the North.

Most payments were made in gold dust and in busy places such as saloons, there was so much spilled gold that a profit could be made just by sweeping the floor. But for every lucky prospector, there were many more that failed to find fortune.

The majority of the “stampeders” arrived far too late, when the gold fields were in the hands of big companies. After suffering incredible penuries to get to Dawson – whether they’d climbed the treacherous Chilkoot Pass laden with enough provisions to last each of them a year (a government requirement) or risked their lives on boats that, more often than not, sank – most found no stakes to claim and had to return home or stay on in Dawson as labourers. The winter weather contributed to their despair. I learn about all this firsthand from TRVL editor-in-chief, Kieran Meeke, whose grandfather, Henry McHenry, once called the Yukon home. 

McHenry had run off from home in County Antrim, Ireland, at 16 to join the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897. He was adopted by two prospectors and put in charge of their mules. 

Animals played a vital role in the Klondike. A good team of dogs was worth at least CAD$1,000 (CAD$27,000 in today’s money); a top set could reach CAD$1,700 (CAD$46,000). They were the only means of transport in the area and prospectors’ lives depended on them. 

McHenry’s most enduring memory was putting the mules’ heads under his coat, close to his chest, to warm them up and so he could pull icicles from their nostrils. After his time in the gold fields (and with a gold pocket watch encrusted with a big nugget to prove it), McHenry became an engineer with the Canadian Pacific Railway and eventually returned to Ireland to marry his sweetheart. He lived to be 83. His nugget watch, inherited by his eldest son – now living in Canada – is back where it began.

Extraordinary tales of gold-rush women also abound in the Yukon – women who traversed the Chilkoot Pass, shot the rapids and finally arrived at the isolated community with its harshly cold climate. They came as entertainers, madams and, in a few cases, entrepreneurs; their modern-day incarnations include locals such as Wendy Cairns, a onetime can-can dancer who (with Kim Bouzane) bought the rotting 1900 Bombay Peggy’s building 14 years ago, slowly transforming the former bawdy-house into a themed boutique hotel in which every room is decked out with period furniture. 

On a crisp morning in neighbouring Whitehorse (530 kilometres south of Dawson), I find myself sitting beside a camp fire in the company of a group of women who have come to a retreat of a different kind: Beverly Gray’s stunning 2.4-hectare property in the mountains overlooking Rat Lake. 

Beverly is an herbalist, an aromatherapist, a natural health practitioner and health-product formulator, and my companions are all here to learn about local plants and their medicinal uses. Gray has a kettle on the open fire and passes around herbal concoctions that we drink from recycled jam jars before following her along a mountain trail to pick spruce buds for our salve-making session in the afternoon. 

The following day, I attend the launch of her book The Boreal Herbal: Wild Food and Medicine Plants of the North, a guide to harvesting, preserving and preparing herbs and flowers, at the Aroma Borealis Herb Shop she owns in Whitehorse. 

Later, I take to the Yukon River for a canoe trip followed by a hike. The beauty is overwhelming. We retrace the steps of early prospectors just before the Whitehorse Rapids and find the remnants of a makeshift log tram once built to transport provisions. In the distance, we spot a group of schoolchildren learning how to kayak.

They breed them tough from an early age in the land of the midnight sun. •

mad for montreal

Once a city divided over language, heritage and culture, the Canadian metropolis of Montreal is united in its love of the arts, says Justin Wastnage.

I had a sense that Montreal was going to be different the moment I picked up my newspaper. Having arrived in the dead of night in a standard North American limo and driven around very North-American-style streets, I had not glimpsed much of what makes the city so different from its US and Canadian peers. Yet any city in which a daily newspaper supplement of jazz edges out the sports section and the pull-out on autos deserves a closer look. 

Montreal was Canada's largest city until the pro-French language laws of the 1970s helped already-burgeoning Toronto take top honours. But Montreal continues to be considered the country's cultural capital. Foreign tourists to Montreal flock to the patchwork of seventeenth-century French buildings in the charming vieux quartier. But savvier visitors from neighbouring provinces and US states converge on the city every weekend to sample its vibrant arts, fine dining and eclectic fashion scenes. 

Montreal is, in short, very different from the Canada of picture postcards. Sure, there are Mounted Police but here, they are called gendarmes; there is a mountain but, at 233 metres, Mount Royal is hardly the Rockies; and while ice hockey is still a local preoccupation, festivals celebrating comedy, fireworks, and of course jazz, draw bigger crowds.

 

Much of the city's difference lies in the history of Quebec, the province in which Montreal sits. Settled by the French 400 years ago, it has a population of seven million people, who have stubbornly held onto a distinctly European way of life despite being located within a Commonwealth country. Today, half of all the wine sold in Canada is bought in Quebec - naturellement, as it's the perfect accompaniment to unpasteurised cheeses in which Quebec excels, despite their being banned almost everywhere in North America. The province's farms also produce foie gras in defiance of US-inspired food laws. 

Just as is the case in its big brother, New York, taking a walk around Montreal is the best way to appreciate its bold contrasts. Like New York, the city has a significant Jewish heritage and a multicultural mix that few other big cities can rival, and that has resulted in a metropolis comprising a series of village-like neighbourhoods rather than a sprawl of soulless suburbs. 

And just as New York, in the island of Manhattan, has a neat geographical tool with which to divide its residents into two camps, Montreal has a clear-cut dividing line in Saint Lawrence Boulevard. The innocuous street, officially le boulevard Saint-Laurent, separates not only east from west but new money from old, the creative arts from industry and, most importantly, French from English residents. 

 

As I stroll around one village, Le Plateau de Montréal, I am easily taken by its charm. Independent designer boutiques jostle for space on Saint Laurent with cafés, bookshops and specialty stores. The main street could have been transported here from any trendy suburb in Australia. But as I walked further away from The Main, as Montrealers call Saint Laurent Boulevard, I get a sense that Le Plateau is more than just another Prahran or Darlinghurst. In fact, Wallpaper magazine - the Bible for design, architecture and fashion aficionados around the globe - recently declared Le Plateau one of the hippest 'hoods in the world. 

Le Plateau has the highest population density in Canada and it's the sheer dint of numbers, often, that makes the area so vibrant. The former working-class suburb still has exterior staircases on its terraced, Victorian-era houses between upper-level units and ground-floor flats, giving the area a distinctive architectural twist. 

It is not only the vernacular architecture that reminds me I'm in an historic part of town. Settling in for lunch at one of Le Plateau's - and Montreal's - best-loved cafés, St Viateur Bagel, I am engaged in an argument most locals hold dear to their hearts. "Have you had bagels before?" I'm asked by Ruby, a typical Montrealer of mixed Caribbean, Arab and Scottish ancestry. Talk of Greenwich Village bagels or even of Warsaw beigels is quickly scotched as a great Montreal obsession takes hold. 

 

Montreal, not New York, is the home of bagels, I am told repeatedly and by many patrons. Bagels are hoicked out of the wood-fired oven 24 hours a day at St Viateur, and the café is a great spot from which to watch locals come and go. The dough here is boiled in honey-water before baking to make the dough less chewy, or so they tell me. Served with smoked salmon, cream cheese and lemon, it is indeed sublime.

The Mile End part of Le Plateau is also home to Schwartz Charcuterie Hebraïque. Over 80 years, Schwartz's deli has welcomed pretty much anyone who's anyone in Montreal, from Leonard Cohen to Céline Dion. 

More upmarket culinary experiences can be had in the city, too, in the form of the specialised Olive & Olives and glorious Maison Cakao, where Canada's youngest female master chocolatier, Edith Gagnon, works her magic, her little shop reminiscent of Juliette Binoche's in Chocolat. 

Le Plateau is home to the bulk of Montreal's animation, film studio and computer-game technicians, who now make up a hefty proportion of the city's workforce. Once, it was the financial hub of Canada: today, the stock exchange's former home on Rue Saint-Jacques (once known as Saint James Street) is now more likely to be deployed as a film set for Hollywood movies. Due to strict city planning rules, five percent of any new development's budget must be spent on public art, and the streets of Montreal contain perfect examples of architecture from almost every period of North American modern history. Those rules, combined with favourable tax laws, mean blockbusters are in production most weeks, somewhere in this city, which has doubled on celluloid for Boston, Chicago and New York - though Robert de Niro let Montreal play itself in The Score. 

The workers on these films are a new kind of Montrealer: French-speaking, but equally at ease in English. The city's language battles of the past are now relegated to the past, it seems. Road signs, still, are written only in French but in stores, nowadays, there is translation where, a decade ago, there was none. 

The fall of the Berlin Wall made that city's eastern neighbourhoods "cooler" than those of the richer, established suburbs in the west. Likewise, the rise of a new French élite in the 1980s made the western, English-speaking half of Montreal deeply unfashionable. But in recent years, there has been a swing back. The Golden Square Mile, once home to half of all of Canada's wealth, was chosen by Formula One race-car driver Jacques Villeneuve as the location for his ultra-hip eatery Newtown (a translation of his family name) and the achingly cool Crystal de la Montagne hotel is one of a brace of design-led establishments to have opened its doors in the city's west in recent times.

Both sides of a once-bitter linguistic divide get together over summer to party as only Montreal does. Starting with the Grand Prix in June, the city's events calendar bristles with outdoor festivals, held most weekends in summer. In the past, loyalties were divided between celebrating Quebec's national day, Jour St Baptiste, and commemorating Canada Day, which falls a week later. 

But truly, both are just a warm-up to the biggest ticket in town: the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal. The world's biggest jazz festival, it attracts more than two million attendees annually. In 2008, local boy Leonard Cohen performed for the first time in 15 years and Woody Allen showed off his clarinet skills - but 2009 is the festival's 30th anniversary and people are talking about the prospect of getting Prince, Norah Jones and Aretha Franklin together on one free stage. 

As I bobbed back and forth with 100,000 others to the beats of 14-piece a capella group Naturally Seven, recreating the lush studio sounds of today's R'n'B singers, I couldn't help thinking that any city that does jazz this well has a perfect right to devote an entire section to it. 

I'd give it a whole newspaper.

right on track

So much more than a way to reach the best destinations, using trains to holiday around Canada is a fascinating journey in itself, writes Kristie Kellahan. 


If the vast expanse of Canada, dotted as it is with cosmopolitan cities, pristine national parks, mountain ranges and world-renowned ski resorts, was explored some other way than by rail – as a scenic selfdrive trip, say, or using the country’s convenient domestic airline network – it would have the makings of a terrific holiday. That it can be enjoyed from the comfort of luxury trains that are temperature-controlled, decked out with mod cons and replete with fine-dining facilities, makes Canada one of the world’s most superb destinations.

The tradition of rail travel in Canada extends back to the era of steam. Hardy frontier people laid tracks through the unforgiving Rockies, and early steam trains were crammed with fossickers eager to unearth gold on their hopeful journeys into the heartland.



Today, there’s been a glorious rail renaissance: swanky, modern trains connect the nation’s most popular tourist destinations, passing through scenery that inspires the clicks of millions of camera shutters. In between sips of fine local wine and bites of tasty Canadian salmon, modern-day rail passengers can check their emails with complimentary highspeed WiFi and play board games in the lounge car. Sleeper cabins are decked out with comfy flatbeds and fluffy doonas, stashed away during the day to make way for reclining seats so you can sit back comfortably and watch the scenery unfold through large picture windows.

Two of the largest touring companies offering journeys by rail around Canada are Rocky Mountaineer and VIA Rail. Rocky Mountaineer’s season runs from April to October, covering many favourite scenic destinations across Canada during trips of varying lengths. Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2010, Rocky Mountaineer has an enviable reputation within Canada and around the world. Recently, in fact, it was named the world’s top train experience by the Society of American Travel Writers.

VIA Rail is part of the fabric of travel within Canada. Operating year-round on many appealing intercity and cross-country routes, this rail-tour company is well established and highly respected for its service and safety standards and the warmth of its on-board crew. Honoured with just about every major tourism award there is, VIA Rail is favoured by Aussie and Kiwi travellers for its broad coverage of Canada’s destinations and excellent on-board amenities. 

Ultimately, the Canadian rail journey you choose will depend on a number of considerations: your budget, the time you have available for travel and the destinations you most want to see. Here is a snapshot of the best Canada has to offer.



Vancouver
For a relatively small city (about 600,000 residents at last count), Vancouver must be doing something right: it consistently ranks as one of the most liveable cities in the world and has done so for more than a decade. You’ll find all the buzz of a bigger centre here: a thriving food and wine scene, galleries and museums hosting international touring exhibitions, excellent shopping, and spas worth their mineral salts. 

Vancouver has also become the third-largest centre of film production in North America, after Los Angeles and New York City, so don’t be surprised if you see starlets browsing the chi-chi boutiques along trendy pedestrian boulevard Robson Street, where foot traffic exceeds 80,000 shoppers on busy weekends. Take in the view from 42 levels above street level at Cloud 9, the revolving rooftop restaurant and lounge at the Empire Landmark Hotel: with spectacular 360-degree vistas of Vancouver, it has been wowing visitors since 1973.

Whistler
The Rocky Mountaineer’s sister train, the Whistler Mountaineer, links the city of Vancouver with story-book-pretty resort town Whistler, proud hosts of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. This spectacular three-hour trip through the renowned Sea to Sky Corridor takes you along Howe Sound and into the Coast Mountains. The journey features some of the most beautiful scenery in North America and is especially lovely in winter, when snow-capped peaks transform the surrounding landscape into a pristine wonderland.

Whistler is popular with Aussie skiers and snowboarders, who appreciate the village atmosphere, world-class runs and lively après-ski scene, full of award-winning restaurants and bars.



Rocky Mountains
If there’s one crown jewel to trump all the scenic jewels in Canada, it is the Rocky Mountains. This breathtaking mountain range stretches almost 5,000 kilometres across Canada and the United States, covering just about every kind of terrain. To come close enough to be able to ooh and ahh at the area’s soaring peaks, clean rivers, wide open fields and abundant wildlife should surely be on everyone’s Bucket List. The Rocky Mountaineer train offers a two-day, all-daylight rail journey through the Canadian Rockies. The bubble-dome helming the rooftop carriage affords spectacular 360-degree views of the soaring peaks and valleys of this unique landscape. Many visitors have been so taken with the journey that they have taken it three more times so as to marvel at the differences in the landscape from season to season.

Jasper
The charming alpine town of Jasper vibe: snow everywhere; elks wandering down the main street; surrounded by beautiful lakes and ringed by towering mountains. Its permanent population of about 5,000 swells sixfold in summer, when warmer weather turns the mountains around town into a natural playground for hikers, horse-riders and abseilers. Jasper has a quaint small-town atmosphere and lots of cosy chalets and B&Bs, at which the proprietor, who brings you homemade shortbread along with tales of bear- and wolf-spotting, could well be a sixth-generation Jasper local.

Lake Louise
Ever felt the urge to walk on water? Lake Louise may be calling your name. During winter, the frozen expanse of the lake – which is around 2.5 kilometres long and has a glacier at one end and towering peaks on either side – has to be one of the most spectacular outdoor ice-skating rinks in the world. Those who choose to amble, Jesus-style, or hit around a puck in a pick-up ice-hockey game are equally welcome. 

When the Canadian Pacific Railway was established across Canada, the area around Lake Louise was developed as a series of hill resorts, as a stopover for Europeans taking the slow route to the exotic Orient. The average length of stay then was about six weeks and Swiss mountain guides were imported to shepherd visitors up and down the hiking trails. Descendants of these Swiss guides work on the mountains today.



Banff
Ah, beautiful Banff. Seemingly created as the fairytale home of a fairytale princess, Banff is a gorgeous little town in a valley surrounded by soaring mountains. More than two dozen of these mountains stand more than 3,000 metres above sea level, making this one of the most popular hiking and outdoor-sport destinations in the world. A visit to Banff National Park, Canada’s first national park, is recommended at any time of the year, as is a dip in the healing waters of the sulphuric hot springs. A ride to the top of Sulphur Mountain in the Banff Gondola is worth it for the sweeping views over the city, way below. Spend the night – if you dare – at The Fairmont Banff Springs, a historic hotel at which reported ghost sightings are almost as frequent as hot breakfasts.

Toronto
Toronto’s claim to fame as Canada’s most populous city and its economic capital is backed by a cosmopolitan sophistication. Here, along with more than 2.5 million residents, you’ll find several of Canada’s most cutting-edge fashion designers and globally lauded chefs. As one of the principal destinations for immigrants to Canada from all parts of the globe, it’s home to sushi-train restaurants, African drumming bars and Turkish hammams – often, all on the same street. 

rolling through the rockies

Canada’s west coast is famed for spectacular scenery, from the towering peaks of the Rocky Mountains to some of North America’s largest national parks. Patrick Horton makes tracks around the region aboard the luxurious Rocky Mountaineer. 

It’s a crisp spring morning in Vancouver; the distant North Shore Mountains are purple shadows in a sparkling blue sky when I arrive at the train station. My luggage is whisked away from me and I’m promptly led to my seat aboard the Rocky Mountaineer, Canada’s most acclaimed train. Ground crew gather on the platform and wave us off as we slip out of the station, slowly treading the tracks on a journey that will end nearly 900 kilometres northeast of here in Jasper, within the largest national park in the Rockies.  

The Rocky Mountaineer offers four spectacular journeys across western Canada. I’ve opted for the “Journey through the Clouds,” which will take me across three massive mountain ranges – the Coast Mountains, Cascades and Canadian Rockies – over two days, with an overnight stop in the sprawling desert town of Kamloops. 

Urban Vancouver slips away, gradually replaced by the lush spring foliage of the Fraser Valley. Snow-clad Mount Cheam looms more than 2,000 metres above me as breakfast is served: a feast of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs and good, strong coffee. I leave my seat in the dining carriage on more than one occasion to dash out to a vestibule and take photo after photo of the magnificent countryside. Much of this scenery can be enjoyed from the comfort of my seat: the train’s premium GoldLeaf class features a bi-level custom-made carriage topped by a dome of glass. 



After around 60 kilometres, the train veers north as the Fraser River, which we’ve been following, begins to breach the Cascades, a magnificent mountain range which extends all the way down to northern California. We’re travelling well above the water on a ledge that was blasted and dug out of the valley in 1882. The rock face was (and still is) so steep that workers at the time were lowered down from above to drill holes for dynamite. 

Work began on the line in 1880 with the support of then Prime Minister John Macdonald, keen to persuade the independent state of British Columbia to become part of Canada and not the U.S. By 1883, the track extended to Calgary from the east, but crossing the Rockies was proving an incredibly difficult task – hundreds of square kilometres of wilderness had to be surveyed to find a route. Thousands of Chinese workers were brought in to help complete the project, and the last spike connecting rails from east and west was driven home in November 1885.

I begin to get a feel for just how treacherous the terrain is as we reach Hells Gate, a huge canyon where towering rock walls squeeze the river into turbulent rapids. The train edges east at the small town of Lytton, where the crystal-clear waters of the Thompson River merge with the muddy flow of the Fraser. 



The rest of the day passes by in a blur of waterfalls, river rapids and majestic mountains. Late in the afternoon, we finally near Kamloops, where we will alight from the train to spend the night in a hotel. As we pull into town, our attention is called to some of the city’s hairiest residents: a colony of beavers clustered around a pontoon. It gives us a taste for wild Canadian fauna, for which we’ll get a deeper appreciation, thankfully, on day two.  

Another clear blue sky heralds our departure the next day. This is our Rockies-crossing day but before we get there, we have to gain some altitude, following the North Thompson River. After lunch, we slip beneath the awe-inspiring Albreda Glacier, some 3,000 metres above us, yet still dwarfed by 3,954-metre-high Mount Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. 

Thirty kilometres on and we reach Yellowhead Pass. There’s a buzz around the carriage, not just for the fact that we’re crossing the border between British Columbia and Alberta but because someone has spotted a black bear ambling alongside the forest edge. Then another wildlife sighting: this time, it’s a moose. Our attendant tells us that this is her first moose sighting in the two seasons she’s been working on the train. 

After two days, it’s time to say goodbye to the Rocky Mountaineer, but our adventure isn’t over yet. We’ll spend the next two days in Jasper before moving on to Lake Louise, Banff and Calgary by bus. 

Jasper is a paradise for adventure-seekers. Some of my fellow travellers enjoy a game of golf at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge, which has a splendid course made all the more exhilarating by animal sightings: bears and elk have all been spotted on the green. 

Accommodation at the lodge is extremely comfortable, with rooms offering shimmering views over a mirror-surfaced lake, mountains forming a dramatic backdrop. The property is noted for its fine dining and I try the bison, the establishment’s signature dish. 



When it’s time to depart, we pile aboard the bus and make our way to the dramatic Icefields Parkway. Flanked by saw-toothed mountains, lakes and glaciers, this road connects Jasper with Lake Louise, 230-odd kilometres to the south. Along with California’s Highway 1 and Australia’s Great Ocean Road, this has to be one of the greatest scenic drives in the world. We stop to ogle waterfalls and distant avalanches of snow and another bear before we reach Athabasca glacier – a huge tongue of ice and part of the vast Columbia Icefield, which covers some 325 square kilometres. 

If the Rockies are Canada’s crowning glory, Lake Louise is the jewel. Scooped from the earth by glaciers and filled with crystal-clear water, this beautiful body of water is hemmed by mountains that create a picture-perfect setting for The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise resort hotel. 

The dramatic scenery continues on our final day as we leave the Rockies for a helicopter ride en route to Calgary. From the ground, it’s hard to appreciate the scale and sheer majesty of this mountain range. It’s only when I’m in the air, skimming over snow-laden ridges and deep valleys slashed with raging rivers, that I begin to understand the countryside and the significance of the rail line and the Rocky Mountaineer. •