TRACKS LESS TRAVELLED:
Fall colours package tour from Toronto featuring the White River-Sudbury VIA Rail route

When exploring one of VIA Rail's least known routes, it helps if the tour guide happens to have written the book on passenger trains in Canada. As I joined around 40 curious travelers and rail buffs in Toronto's Union Station last fall, my brain hadn't yet connected the tour leader -- Winnipeg-based Daryl Adair -- with the “Canadian Rail Travel Guide,” a train-fan bible. During our five-day trip to Sudbury and the remote Ontario town of White River, Adair would be the target of endless questions -- both basic and obscure -- about trains and railroad towns.

Quite a few scheduled passenger rail routes crisscross northern Ontario -- including the Algoma Central Railway, the Northlander and Polar Bear Express. However their schedules and routes do not mesh well. The “Superior Colours of Ontario” package from Rail Travel Tours includes sections of the world-famous “Canadian” route as well as VIA's isolated “Lake Superior” service. The latter train, really a pair of self-propelled rail cars with no locomotive, heads west from Sudbury's classic downtown train depot three days a week into a wilderness few have seen.

Although July may seem early to think about fall colours, Adair brings leaf-peepers on the route only when September turns to October, and the tour must be booked and paid by July 27.

Following tracks last used by transcontinental passenger trains in 1991, the modest “Lake Superior” doesn't actually touch that Great Lake, but does voyage through 500 kilometers of sparsely populated territory.

Getting to Capreol near Sudbury takes about seven hours aboard the “Canadian” -- a refined way to travel deep into Ontario's boreal forest. VIA's cross-country run ought to be a required national pilgrimage, one that citizens try to make at least once in their lifetime. Perched in dome car seats, we pass through long corridors of fiery red maples.

The “Lake Superior” is an entirely different experience -- this working train serves an almost-forgotten frontier. Hunters, anglers and fans of the Canadian Shield rely on the pair of self-contained “Budd” cars to stop at cabins, canoe put-ins along rivers or lakes as well as several northern settlements that are accessed only by rail. And on the cusp of winter, the bush turns out its finest hues.

The changing leaves of birch and poplar tend to yellow and orange. Maples are more scattered here so the forest shows a subtler palate, but there are still vibrant reds -- just closer to the earth. Turning blueberry bushes and other ground-hugging plants serve up striking crimsons, while the bright berries of Mountain Ash trees shine orange or red.

Part of train travel includes the friendly ritual of getting to know your fellow passengers -- where they're from, what exotic rails they've ridden. But the real exploration begins when pressed up against the window, gazing at forest and water for long periods, in silence.

This also happens to be the way to glimpse wildlife. Some birds linger as we pass, and the observant among us will first spot foraging moose or bear. Since the train's engines can startle inhabitants of the rail-side marshes and bogs, it's often the engineer who gets the message back to riders before the beasts flee from sight.

This package is about a love of train travel and far-reaching woods. If you associate rail tours with fancy meals and well-appointed staterooms, there are many other possibilities at the VIA Rail-sponsored website www.trainpackages.ca .

The forests along the route inspire tranquility; and yet these tracks move huge loads of freight across the continent. Long-distance train passengers should put away wristwatches and printed schedules during the first wait in a siding while a two-kilometer-long freight rumbles by.

The furthest point west for the “Lake Superior” is White River, where the Canadian Pacific rails meet up with the Trans-Canada highway. This small northern town's modest attractions are outshone by the genuine welcome of its residents. If you're lucky, the mayor will stop by during an ample dinner presented by the local Historical Society and the seniors' Harmony Club. The fixations of modern life recede as you join the elders of White River in a piano-led sing-along.

While at the station before the next day's return to Sudbury, expect a reenactment of Canadian army Lieutenant Harry Colebourn buying a soon-to-be famous black bear cub while passing through White River in 1914. "Winnie" would later reside in the London Zoo and inspire author A.A. Milne to write his series of beloved children's books.

The tour's time in Sudbury brings home Canada's profound reliance on resource extraction. Situated on the long-flattened remains of a massive meteorite that left much copper and nickel -- and wealth -- Sudbury impresses not with big-city delights but a reputation for hard work, deep mines and its impressive greening of former wasteland.

A mining museum might appear a hard sell to train-and-tree fans, but the partly underground complex called Dynamic Earth wins over skeptics. It's a glimpse of the Sudbury area's 5,000 kilometers of tunnels -- plus a chance to stand under that famously huge five-cent piece, the Big Nickel. Both a compelling history lesson and belowground industrial tour, the museum is effective and real -- right down to the hard hats required during the tour of clammy (and mercifully shallow) former mines. 

Ed Drass is a freelance transportation columnist and writer based in Toronto. His trip was subsidized by Rail Travel Tours.