Quebec’s winter wonderland that’s best explored by rail - The Times

The train waiting for us at Montreal’s Central Station, where the temperature outside hovered around minus 19C, was an unusual one. Canadian trains tend to be impressively robust, and this one was no exception: the passenger cars were pulled by two massive diesel-electric locomotives, fit for shouldering their way through snowbound mountain passes. Given that it was February and we were heading for a part of Quebec that receives an average of 6m of snow a year, I suspected we’d be needing all the horsepower we could get.

Snow, and lots of it, was exactly what I and my sons, 14-year-old Desmond and 10-year-old Victor, were seeking. We live in Montreal, where many people escape the cold by flying south for tropical vacations. Instead of fleeing the winter, this year we’d resolved to embrace the season that Canada does best. 

VIA Rail’s most famous train is the Canadian, the multi-day transcontinental service that connects Toronto to Vancouver. But the nation’s passenger rail operator also has several lesser-known routes. We decided to spend a week on a rail excursion to the city of Saguenay, almost 300 miles north of Montreal. 

For visitors planning a trip to Montreal, riding the train to Saguenay is an easy way to go deep into the Canadian wilderness, to a region where winter is both a season and a formidable force of nature, with a minimal amount of effort.

Guided by service attendants bundled up in scarves and parkas, we showed our boarding passes for Train 601, which consisted of a locomotive, a wagon for baggage and two passenger cars. What makes the train to Saguenay unusual is that it is connected to Train 603, which is pulled by its own locomotive. 

Directing us to the train in the rear, the attendant explained that the two trains would part company four hours out of Montreal, with the lead train making its way to a dot on the map named Senneterre, in the remote Abitibi-Témiscamingue region.

We filed aboard with two dozen other passengers, most of them clinging to steaming cups of coffee. I was delighted to see we were riding in one of VIA Rail’s stainless-steel streamliner coaches, originally built by Philadelphia’s Budd Company in the 1950s. Their broad leather seats, the acme of mid-century comfort, recline deeply, and combined with fold-up leg rests make daytime dozing hard to resist. Not needing any encouragement, Desmond rolled down the blind and spent the next three hours in a profound adolescent slumber.

Victor and I kept our eyes on the scenery. It was a brilliantly sunny day and, after crossing a pair of steel trestles over channels of the St Lawrence River, the train bore northwards into the Laurentian Mountains, following tracks originally built by the long-defunct Canadian Northern Railway. We passed the silver steeple of the small Catholic church in the village of Charette, and made a brief stop alongside a 1929 station, all brick and polished stone, which still bore an engraved sign reading “Shawinigan Falls” over the telegrapher’s bay facing the tracks.

It was north of Hervey Junction, where we parted company with Train 603, that our foreshortened train really engaged with the Canadian wilderness. The snow here lay thick, and the meanders of the Batiscan River, in the summer a popular destination for whitewater enthusiasts, were locked in ice. At this time of year, most of the other passengers were locals heading to cottages and camps for cross-country skiing and ice-fishing.

“On descend au mille soixante-quinze point un,” a middle-aged man in an adjoining seat informed the attendant. (“We’re getting off at Mile 75.1”— though Canada uses the metric system, trackside markers are imperial, a legacy of the railways’ British origins.) The train came to a gradual stop next to a small trackside cabin, where two snowmobiles pulling trailers already loaded with supplies were waiting. The man and his children clambered down the steps, from there they’d be whisked over snowy trails to a chalet in the woods.

North of our stop at Rivière-à-Pierre, we were traversing territory no longer served by roads. Many of the stops were named for hunting camps, among them the luxurious Triton Fish and Game Club, at Mile 90.7, where Winston Churchill once angled.

We pulled into the terminal, our last stop, just over an hour late, and 12.5 hours after we’d left Montreal. Jonquière, once a city in its own right, is now a part of an urban area known as Saguenay, which includes La Baie, nestled in an inlet on the Saguenay River, and Chicoutimi, where we’d be spending the night.

A pair of snowmobiles were parked outside the entrance to our lodgings, the five-star OTL Gouverneur Saguenay, where an open fire blazed in the hearth in the lobby. Making a mental note of the fact that the hotel had a highly rated spa, I attended to a more important order of business: feeding my now ravenous offspring. The train’s café sells wraps, bagels, sandwiches, snacks, beer and wine, but we’d held out for a later dinner. 

At the hotel’s surf-and-turf-themed restaurant, Boefish, Desmond made short work of a towering Angus beefburger while his pickier younger brother contented himself with a bowl of gourmet macaroni and cheese. 

The next day, after collecting a rental car at an agency near the hotel, we drove 45 minutes north to Le Valinouët, a mid-sized ski resort with six lifts and 36 pistes. Rather than hitting the slopes, though, we were going to spend the day tramping through a mysterious mountain landscape the Québécois call la Vallée des Fantômes (the Valley of the Ghosts).

As the boys strapped on snowshoes at the station’s rental desk (one day’s rental £20, day pass £42; valinouet.qc.ca), our volunteer guide, the retired engineer Eric Tremblay, explained the origins of the name. “The idea is that in the valley there’s so much snow that the trees disappear from view. They start to look exactly like giant snowmen, or even ghosts. And this year has been extraordinary for snowfall. So far we’ve got 9m.” 

After being whisked to the top of the mountain, we followed a narrow trail into the forest. Exposed to the wind on the chairlift, I feared that even our parkas wouldn’t protect us from the cold, but the trees served as a windbreak, and the moderately strenuous exercise soon warmed us up. (Tremblay’s advice: wear heavy mittens, rather than ski gloves, and avoid cotton trousers and T-shirts, which have a chilling effect.)

Meanwhile, the enchantment had begun. All around us were balsam fir, birch and black spruce, made unrecognisable by puffy mantles of white. One tree looked like a polar bear; another like a rearing stallion; several resembled pouncing spooks. We were in a marshmallow wonderland, and the boys set about provoking minor avalanches by using their ski poles to agitate the treetops which, rebounding from their burdensome snowpack, filled the air with scintillating crystals.

Tremblay led us to a minor peak, which offered a sweeping panorama of the snowscape. As we tucked into our lunch, we were assailed by chattering thieves. These were Canada jays, also known as “camp robbers”, whose rounded heads and black caps make them look like oversized chickadees (a North American relative of the tit). Tremblay encouraged the boys to feed them crumbled granola bars out of their outstretched hands.

The day, which had started out snowy and overcast, gave way to blue skies and milder temperatures. On our way back downhill to the ski station, Desmond and Victor turned the narrow trail between the trees into a kind of luge course, sliding on the bums of their snowsuits. The consensus was that snowshoeing, though it was more of a workout than downhill skiing, came with its own rewards.

It also made what was awaiting us, after a short drive back to our hotel, even more enjoyable. The spa at the OTL Gouverneur Saguenay features half a dozen outdoor whirlpool baths, all of different temperatures, ranging from frigid-plunge to near-bouillabaisse. I noticed that many of our fellow bathers were wearing tuques (knitted caps) to prevent their hair from freezing while their bottoms boiled.

After trying to keep up with my energetic boys on the trails, I took full advantage of the Nordic-style luxury to soothe my creaky limbs. The contrast between the ambient wind-chill above and the simmer below the neck was at once invigorating and relaxing and the perfect way to end a day of snow-packed adventure. This kind of winter, I could learn to love.

Taras Grescoe was a guest of VIA Rail (viarail.ca); Tourisme Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean (saguenaylacsaintjean.ca); and the OTL Gouverneur Saguenay, which has B&B doubles from £113 (otlhotelsaguenay.ca). Fly to Montreal