Doing (lots of) time on the 'Hudson Bay'

My second attempt to catch the 'Hudson Bay' - the railway operating between Winnipeg and Churchill - was much more successful. This train is much smaller than the Toronto - Vancouver 'Canadian'; with one sleeper car, a dining car, a couple of seating cars and a baggage car. And I now have an idea what it's like to be the only passenger on your own private train. Well, that's not entirely true, there were a handful of other passengers, but I was the only one in the sleeper car, and I didn't see anyone other than the three staff hanging out in the dining car for the first twenty-four hours. On day two I went to lunch and was surprised by other signs of life - passengers playing cards, chatting. Most of those onboard at this time were locals travelling from their communities to buy goods at Thompson. The operation of the train is more political than profitable - it is the only method of transport linking a number of communities and is considered a neccessity. I don't think much money is being made off the route, that's for sure.

The train moves through at least three strikingly different landscapes - farmland and gently rolling hills as it ducks into Saskatchewan during the first evening, vast forests of spruce and larch and glossy lakes in central Manitoba on the second day, and the barren transition zone leading into tundra up at Churchill. I wake to this landscape on the third day; rock carpeted with tiny red and mint-green plants, boggy ponds and emaciated, straggly pines. I was unprepared for how strange this landscape felt, how exposed and vulnerable we seemed, rattling oh-so-slowly over worn rails (really, I think that for the last couple of hours most able-bodied folk could've matched the train for pace). 

The VIA crew put me into my own little room, and on the last night I was watching a show on my computer when light from outside my window startled me. Realising with a jolt just what it was,  I hastily shut off the lights, computer and closed the door, then opened my blind to see great plumes of palest green and white burning and twisting across the sky. Aurora borealis, the wild and magical northern lights! I watched them intently until they faded away, not long after.

That night I dreamed of icebergs floating past a bay, and snow-capped mountains. The next day at breakfast we saw three caribou grazing near nearby, breaking into a trot as we passed.