Wednesday morning and it's time to leave Jasper.  The fresh mountain air yesterday must have had the same effect as sea air on me.  I slept in till 8.30.  The first sleep in I've had since arriving in Canada.

I had a leisurely morning stroll once again, around the lodge, for the last time, bought a thank you card for Karen for all she did for me.  Everyone in this place makes you feel very welcome, and I can honestly understand why they are so proud of their little town.  At 10.30 I call the desk for assistance with my luggage, although they are both a little lighter now it is still going to be a big job dragging them both through the snow to reception, in some places it comes up to mid calf on me.  5 minutes later, they call me back and inform me that the train is running 3 hours late, via rail are shouting me lunch in town, so check out is now 12 noon.  Time to relax, read a bit and just take one last look at this beautiful place before I leave, but as Arnie says "I'll be back," and for longer next time.  It's snowing again as I'm checking out, only a light flurry but still, it's better than none hey.

On the way into town the cab driver told me he'd seen wolves down the road earlier in the morning so he drove through the area very slowly to see if they were still around, unfortunately for me they weren't.   He told me to always look carefully where there are deer, the wolves will be somewhere close by waiting to bring one down, or more often than not, they chase them onto the road and when they get hit by a truck the wolves then have dinner without having to work too hard for it.  And I thought the saying was "sly as a fox".

Got to Jasper station at 12 noon.  Checked the luggage in, Mack was spot on, thank goodness, no rearranging to be done.  I am given a voucher to have lunch at Papa George's restaurant at the Astoria Hotel.  It was too cold to wander around town for the last time, the wind chill made it about -30c, but it was still worth every penny spent to come here for the experience.

Back at the train station at 1.30, I can read for an hour to pass the time away in the warm waiting room.  An hour?  Make that 5 hours.  Although we had been told the train would be 3 hours late, it was announced that there was a further delay as the train could only go 15mph due to the snow and ice on the tracks plus they have to wait for freight trains to go through.  Ice was causing a problem with the switching too, the engineers had to clear all the ice away before they could get the switch to work.  Oh the joys of a northern winter. Mind you, I can think of worse places to be stranded in, Wigan for one - and I wouldn't have complained at all if they told me I had to stay here for another couple of days.  The train finally pulled out of Jasper about 5.40, we are now 7 hours behind time, it's also very dark so there won't be any photo's until tomorrow morning when the sun decides to show up.  We will also be entering another time zone so I'm not sure what time the sun will rise.

I got everything settled in my room and headed down to the lounge car for an ice cold orange juice and contemplated going up into the dome section to see what I could see in the dark. Walking between cars is an experience in itself, snow and ice build up between them and trying to push open and door without sliding on ice takes some practice. During my contemplations, champagne was served, again to welcome us onto the train, and not being an octopus I figured it would go well in the same glass as the OJ.  Canapes were served once again, see, I knew there was a reason to keep one hand free.  7pm and we're stopped again.  An announcement tells us that we are waiting for a freight train, apparently they have priority over passenger trains as they bring in more money.  We could be here for 30 minutes waiting.  At this rate I might make Toronto by next week.  lol.

Arrived at Edmonton at 11.45 but couldn't get off to take a photo of the station, mind you, looking through the window it would have been a fair hike all the way back there and it was bloody cold, brass monkey cold. Apparently some carriages are being left behind here, so I won't be able to get a photo of the original length of the train, but I can assure you, it was long, very long.  12.48 and it looks like we're finally leaving Edmonton.  I've never known a train to have so many stops between stations, nor such long waits.  We've not gone far, maybe only a few metres and we're slowing down again, 12.50 we're stopped.  By now we should be passing through a town called Biggar which is 7 hours away from Edmonton, and although you know my maths aren't that crash hot I figure it means, if we stay 7  hours behind I will be arriving in Toronto at 3am on Saturday 13th with a tour to Niagara at 10am.  I hope  I don't fall asleep and miss it.

Once again, I didn't get a whole lot of sleep on the train, maybe I'll be used to it by tonight.  Actually got into bed at 1am but we had so many stops and there was so much noise that I drifted in and out of sleep for most of the night.  At 6.00 I figured I might as well get up, showered and head off for some breakfast.  At least the train has stopped again so I will be standing still in the shower instead of rocking about.  Knowing how big breakfast is going to be I do some more work on my journal and finally go to eat at 7.50, still couldn't eat it all though.  Breakfast finished I head off to the dome to take some photo's of the sunrise over the Saskatchewan prairies. 10.30 we arrive in Saskatoon, get off  for about 5 minutes.  It is so cold your nose hairs freeze, it is a funny feeling I can tell you. Passed the rest of the morning away taking photo's, chatting with other passengers, reading and working on my journal.  Had lunch, poor chef is running out of food, by rights all staff should have finished their shift at 11am, with a new shift change at Winnipeg, you can see they are starting to look tired, poor buggers, but we've still got 7 hours to go before they can knock off.  6pm we passed thorugh Rivers, Manitoba, 6.15 through Brandon (should have been here at 8.35am) and we are 210 km from Winnipeg.  Poor chef now has to come up with something for us all for dinner also.  The guy deserves a medal for his creativity and endurance.  8.45pm and we finally pull into Winnipeg.  Everyone has to get off here whilst servicing is done, food restocked and new staff get settled.  Reboarding is at 9.10....yeah? good luck guys, the loo's are breaking down, a couple of the showers are out of order, it's going to take a little longer than 25 minutes to get all that fixed. I am directed across the road to a petrol station to purchase a couple of AA batteries for my mouse, bit daft really when there are 12 of them in my suitcase, didn't think about keeping any of them out.  Back in the station and the board has been changed to "departure time 9.15", ok, here we go, wonder if it will go up in 5 minute increments.  One lady who was boarding at Winnipeg, (don't know how long she'd been sitting waiting) decided she'd put her own departure time up on the board.  Don't you just love a great sense of humour, even the staff had to laugh. While waiting for the boarding call, the weather report comes on, it's a rather chilly -43c outside, no wonder I felt a bit cold running across the road.

 We reboarded at 9.15 (partly right guys) but finally pulled out of Winnipeg at 9.40, estimated time of arrival in Toronto now 5am Saturday morning, defnitely lost my Friday night stay at the hotel, but my new car attendant, Wendy, said she will sort something out for me to call the hotel when we get to Hornepayne (our next stop with a real station).  No champagne tonight, that lack of sleep last night has caught up with me and I'm in bed by 10.30.  Slept quite well apart from waking a couple of times to freight trains thundering past.  Finally got out of bed at 6.30, which is in fact now 7.30 Ontario time, clock put forward, must have missed the first call for breakfast while I was in the shower, made it though for the second call, just.  Getting back to the shower, wish I'd taken my camera with me, I had taken my glasses off, opened the screen door and thought "wow, someone must have some really good shower gel, there's a whole pile of bubbles still sitting around the drain, I stepped in and jumped right back out, it was bloody snow that had been thrown up during the night...if I think about it, next time I go in there I will take the camera.  A couple of young people on the train have actually built a snowman between two cars.

1.20pm and we've reached Hornepayne, time to get off and wander around a bit, -24c here, quite mild compared to Winnipeg :-)  Back on board and just in time for lunch.  Thank goodness we do get to get off now and again, we need to walk all this food off somehow and I can assure you, walking the train gets a bit boring after a while, it is nice to have a change of scenery.

Back up into the dome  car now, see if the scenery outside has changed, nope, it's been the same  now  for hours, a lot of trees broken occasionally by a lake or  river that are covered in snow, and although it sounds really dull it is still very pretty.  In some areas it looks like either a fire or a storm has gone through, there are huge areas with tree trunks snapped in half or completely uprooted, though some also look very black.  There is also a lot of what looks like reforestation going on, large areas of saplings, but then again, that could just be natural regrowth now that the light can get to them.

An announcement comes over the pa letting us now that we have made up a little time but there's no guarantee it will remain that way, and I for one don't expect any guarantees with the amount of snow that has been dumped on Canada, we haven't seen an area yet in 2 days that hasn't had a good amount dropped on it.  The guy first apologizes for the delay we have faced, and that on presentation of ticket stubbs to any Via rail office, a 50% discount will be given on the next Via Rail trip booked.  Now that sounds great, but those of us from overseas are now wondering if there will be a time limit put on it, 6 months, 12 months or something like that.  Looks like I'll be back here sooner than I thought hey.  lol.   ONLY JOKING.    We are going to see if we can come to some other arrangement with Via Rail to claim our 50% back.

A little story now for you.  We have a gentleman on board who was with us from Vancouver  to Jasper, and now again from Jasper to Toronto.  On the first leg he was quite entertaining with his stories of the places he'd visited as a sailor, apparently he was (is) an electrician in the navy, and has been to more places than I've had hot dinners.  As much as I love hearing about other people's journeys I have my limits as to how long I can sit, a couple of hours is a little too much so I excuse myself politely and have a break in my room.  This morning, whilst he was regaling others with his stories down in the lounge, Richard and I were in the dome with a Canadian couple from Sudbury (the last stop before Toronto), Bev and Dwight, and we were all having a bit of a giggle about the poor people down there with this guy when Richard asked if any of us had seen Only Fools and Horses.  It just happens that during my stay with Carol and Eddie there was a marathon of that show one night and I was in stitches watching it.  Richard had nicknamed the gentleman "Uncle Albert" and for those of you who have seen Only Fools and Horses you will now know what this chap looks  like, the splitting image and manner.  The only trouble with this story is that for the next hour I had The Beatles "We're so sorry, Uncle Albert" running through my head.  Thank goodness I kept the IPod out of the suitcase, now I'm listening to Bob Marley's Buffalo Soldier.