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				<title>Canadian Train Vacations - Learning Center - Stories</title> 
				<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories</link> 
				<description>Join our CEO, John Parker, his wife Caroline and their baby Kate, as they explore Canada by train. Read notes from the field by our staffers and our clients.</description> 
				<language>en-us</language> 
				<copyright>Copyright 2012 Fresh Tracks Inc.</copyright>
				<category>travel</category>
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					<title>Winnipeg deserves a break</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-north-to-churchill/story-winnipeg-deserves-a-break</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[Returning from Churchill I again stop in Winnipeg for a night. It's sad, but Winnipeg is one of those places that some Canadians from the big cities, tend to - let's put it politely - 'ignore'.  They don't know what they are missing.First of all, Winnipeg people are even more friendly than the average Canadian - and in summer at least the city is very lively. After settling quickly into my hotel I take a stroll and come across an outdoor concert where people are swing-dancing in the warm evening sunshine... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:11:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>Churchill and the Hudson Bay Company</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-north-to-churchill/story-churchill-and-the-hudson-bay-company</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[Churchill was also a vital center for the Hudson Bay Company and they built a magnificent stone fort here at the mouth Churchill River, the Prince of Whales Fort. It took 40 years to build in the late 1700's but it was fully operational for only about 11 years and it didn't do what it was meant to do - because one summer day in 1782, when a French ship arrived off the coast one morning, the fort surrendered without a shot being fired... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:10:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>Other reasons to visit Churchill in summer</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-north-to-churchill/story-other-reasons-to-visit-churchill-in-summer</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[Most people visit Churchill in October and November when the polar bears gather in large numbers, but if you visit in summer there is not only a very good chance of seeing polar bears - there is much more to see besides.Perhaps the biggest draw is the migration of Beluga Whales to the estuary of the Churchill River. More than 3,000 of them gather here each summer to feed on small fish in the warmer waters of the river - and they are magnificent creatures... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Sun, 15 Aug 2010 14:08:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>Polar Bears</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-north-to-churchill/story-polar-bears</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[The small town of Churchill (pop about 900) styles itself 'The Polar Bear Capital of the World' - and with good reason.It is in a unique location, in a 'bay within a bay' at the southern end of Hudson Bay. Each October, when the temperatures plunge, ice forms in the rivers north of the town and flows into Hudson Bay. There, it drifts south and gets trapped in the area around Churchill - making this the first part of salt-water Hudson Bay to begin to freeze over... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:05:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>Who lives in the north?</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-north-to-churchill/story-who-lives-in-the-north</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[Most people find it hard to fathom why anyone would want to live in the north - which is why on a map of Canada you see most of the Canadian population huddled along the US border. Yet when you are in the north you meet plenty of people who just love it. Take Rhonda, the lady driving our little bus the next day around Churchill - a small town of about 900 people on the shores of Hudson Bay. Rhonda grew up near the US border but says, 'I always knew I would come north... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:04:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>The vastness of Canada</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-north-to-churchill/story-the-vastness-of-canada</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[Once again I am reminded of the sheer size of Canada. Coming from Europe, as I do, it is sometimes hard to grasp even after 15 years here. This week I am leaving my home in Vancouver on the west coast (though some 1 hour flight from the furthest west you can go), to see polar bears in northern Manitoba, somewhere in the middle of the country. So I fly due east for 2 hrs 36 minutes by commercial jet to Winnipeg, stay there overnight, then fly north for 2 hours 40 minutes on a twin prop ATR42 to Churchill, a small town of 900 people on the southern coast of Hudson Bay... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:58:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>Dogsledding</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-dogsledding</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[The next day we move to Banff and I finally - despite the unseasonally warm weather - get to do the dogsledding I have dreamed of since Vancouver. It is the last day of this leg of our journey - and, as it turns out, the last day the dogs will run this season.The day is warm and sunny and when we arrive at the trailhead the snow is starting to be slushy and a little patchy. About 80 dogs are harnessed to sleighs in groups of 6 or 8, sitting or lying peacefully in the snow two-by two in their tethers... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Sun, 04 Jul 2010 16:19:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>Grand hotels of the Canadian Rockies</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-grand-hotels-of-the-canadian-rockies</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[That night we stayed at the Chateau Lake Louise and had one of the best hotel rooms I have ever been in. It was a suite - with a semi-circular sitting room in one of the hotel's turrets; beautifully furnished, with a large and magnificent bathroom. The view was spectacular - the lake covered in snow below and in front, the leading edge of Victoria Glacier hanging sheer & precipitous before us. That evening the mountains were bathed in a pink glow as Katie played happily on the floor of her turret room, like a young princess oblivious to the world beyond her fairy castle... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Sat, 03 Jul 2010 16:30:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>The value of a good guide</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-the-value-of-a-good-guide</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[Our trip down the Icefields Parkway was also a great reminder of the value of having a really good private guide. I have been in the travel business for many years and you would be amazed at how few really wonderful guides I have met in that time. Some are lazy; others are just out for the tips. Most are eager but unsatisfying - because they don't know the area well enough, or they don't know how to talk to different types of people, or they are just 'following orders' and trotting out the same tired old cliche-ridden commentary... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:46:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>David Thompson</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-david-thompson</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[Sitting in a comfortable car driving down the Icefields Parkway, with the mountains and trees all around still swathed in snow and ice, it is hard to imagine David Thompson's first crossing of the Athabasca pass in the winter of 1810-1811. Thompson was not alone - he led a 'brigade' of fur traders - but during the crossing after what was euphemistically called 'much hardship and hunger', many of his men deserted or were sent back and he was left with just three men to begin the descent on the other side of the pass... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:41:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>The Icefields Parkway</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-the-icefields-parkway</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[We decide to postpone our eastward journey by train across the Prairies until our next trip, and instead to head south, down the spine of the Canadian Rockies along a road called 'The Icefields Parkway.'There is no north-south train here so to get from Jasper to Banff and Lake Louise - the main towns in the Canadian Rockies -  the road is the only option and I have done it a number of times before on buses... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:50:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>A Nature Safari to Maligne Lake</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-a-nature-safari-to-maligne-lake</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[This morning I am off on a nature safari around Jasper. I join a small group and we drive around looking for the local wildlife. Obligingly a herd of Elk - one of the largest species of deer - position themselves just inside the grounds of the hotel, but beyond that it is thin pickings. Our guide explains that in a few weeks we would be likely to spot Grizzlies and Black Bears, but nobody has bothered to tell them spring has sprung, so they are still lounging about in their dens - which I think is probably in breach of their contract with the tourist board... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:20:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>Jasper</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-jasper</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[We arrive in Jasper in the early afternoon, and it is soon obvious that our plan to experience spring in Vancouver and winter in the Rockies has come unstuck - for as we alight we are greeted by unseasonally warm sunshine and porters in shirt sleeves. We wait for a lift to our hotel in the tiny Jasper station and spend the time looking at old photographs on the walls: images of steam trains, men with handlebar moustaches and ladies in long dresses holdng parasols... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:10:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>Approaching Jasper and Mount Robson</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-approaching-jasper-and-mount-robson</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[If our journey so far were put to music, the night of creaking and grinding we had just experienced as we climbed up from sea level, would have been the bit in the middle of the symphony where the composer has a rush of blood to the head and bungs in a bunch of dissonant notes in the name of 'Art'. This morning, though, our mythical composer is back on top form - having decided the world is not so bad after all - and has us tootling along a straight track to one of his best jaunty ditties... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:50:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>Why I love train travel</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-why-i-love-train-travel</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[Perhaps it is true that when we 'like' something it is for logical reasons - but when we 'love' something it is beyond reason. So, at least, it is with me and travelling by train. I like it because it is a relaxing way to cover long distances and see a vast country; it is also much less stressful than flying these days - with none of the fear of dropping out of the sky or terrorism, and none of the hassle of the rules and security at airports... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:19:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>Accommodation and meals on The Canadian</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-accommodation-and-meals-on-the-canadian</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[Just a practical word about food and accommodation on overnight Via trains. In a nutshell, you can usually choose from three basic levels of accommodation on these trains. In economy you sleep in your reclining chair. Next up, you sleep in an upper or lower bunk with a curtain drawn across. And at the best level you sleep in a cabin with a bed. Within the cabin class there are several configurations, largely depending on the number of people per room... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jun 2010 15:08:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>A sense of belonging</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-a-sense-of-belonging</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[There is also another, deeper, reason to go off in search of Canada - I want to feel more of an emotional connection with the country that has just accepted me as a citizen. A sense of belonging is a powerful thing. As an immigrant I am very grateful to Canada for offering me a new home - but if I was put to it, I am still 'a Brit' in my bones. Perhaps most people who immigrate as adults feel like that - unless they come from a war zone, or poverty, or discrimination... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:56:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>Why this journey?</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-why-this-journey</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[I return to the cabin from the club car, to find Caroline and Katie asleep, so I climb into the comfortable top bunk and lay between the crisp white sheets listening to the sound of the train. In the Fraser Valley we were clipping along with a nice steady clickety-clack, now we are pulling up into the mountains and going very slowly. I imagine the train out there in the dark, edging along this section of track carved into the canyon wall - the cold, turbid waters of the Fraser River roiling and crashing below... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:34:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>The club car</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-the-club-car</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[By the time I arrive at the club car Gary is busy serving drinks and canapés and loose gaggles of passengers are chit-chatting about this and that. I didn't feel like joining in, so I get my beer and sit quietly in the corner with my book as the lights of Vancouver pass by and the train begins its canter across the Fraser Valley to the Coast Mountains. Snatches of conversation drift by. A fellow opposite, travelling with his partner is explaining how they are returning to their home in Jasper where he is a park ranger in the national park - 'with a horse, a cowboy hat, a gun and all that'... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:52:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>All aboard</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-all-aboard</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[Eventually we are able to board - and it is so nice just to be able to walk out to the train without any of the stress or inconvenience of elaborate security checks. The smiling Via Rail man just takes our tickets at the gate, and as the light fades we stroll eagerly out into the warm evening and board The Canadian - a rather dashing-looking train made of stainless steel, with a pale blue trim. The twin engines are humming away at the far end of the platform and at the back, nearest to us, is a two-level 'club car' for sleeper passengers - with a glass dome on top and a lounge at the back where passengers can look out of the rear glass door and ruminate on the track slowly clickety-clackety disappearing behind them... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:47:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>Clowning around</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-clowning-around</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[We are a little early for our 8.30pm departure - about 3 and a half hours early actually - and why is that? I am not really sure - it's just with a baby you definitely need all this stuff and you definitely want to get everywhere 'in plenty of time'.We check in with the friendly Via crew and I leave Caroline in the waiting room and go to park the car and buy a takeaway dinner because - alas - since Via adjusted the departure time of this train from 5... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:29:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>Baby baggage</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-baby-baggage</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[Caroline took care of Katie as I unload our bags onto the pavement. A memory flashes to my mind from years ago - of when I met up with a married friend in Nepal, and he turned up in Kathmandu driving an old motorbike, with his wife on the pillion clutching their new baby in her arms. All three were helmet-less, and they had no baggage - just a bottle of baby milk in one pocket, and a diaper in the other... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:38:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>Via Rail's 'The Canadian'</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-via-rail-s-the-canadian</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[Leaving the West End we head east across the city, along streets lined with cherry blossoms, through the bustling downtown core, to the downtown east side and Pacific Central railway station - the terminus for both Via Rail trains from the east, Amtrak trains from the south, and Canadian and US Greyhound buses.How appropriate it must have seemed - when the station was on the drawing board of the Canadian Northern Railway in the mid 1910's - to build a grand neo-classical edifice at journey's end... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:54:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>Whither Vancouver?</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-whither-vancouver</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[Here's a piece of arcane cultural trivia for you: Hands up all those who know that 'Whither Canada?' was the working title of the show that became Monty Python's Flying Circus?' In the end, of course, the BBC rejected it - along with 'The Toad Elevating Moment' and 'Owl Stretching Time' - but since one purpose of this journey is to get a sense of where my new country is headed, I thought I would ask, 'Whither Vancouver?'It's an interesting question  - and one that I think deserves more attention from Vancouverites themselves... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:10:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>It Is Cold 'Out There'</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-it-is-cold-out-there</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[Please forgive us Vancouverites if we are just a little smug about living in such a spectacular place - especially in spring when the city is wondrous and the rest of Canada is still, as Vancouverites like to think, 'freezing their butts off' under a blanket of snow and ice. Vancouver weather may not be everything you might wish for - it does rains a bit - but the air is always fresh and if you ask anyone who has moved here from the east if they mind the rain, they will inevitably say, 'at least you don't have to shovel it... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:53:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>A Glimpse of Vancouver Life</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-a-glimpse-of-vancouver-life</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[I buy a coffee and sandwich at my old West End coffee shop and remember a small incident there that perhaps says something about Vancouver's urban lifestyle. I was in a hurry, I recall, and the service was slow when two men in front of me were asked for their order. At first they want two skimmed-milk lattes, 'vente' size - which I think means 'big'. 'No, make that two soy lattes', says one.'No, make that one skim, one soy', says the other... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Tue, 25 May 2010 22:37:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>An Example of Canada's Livable Cities</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-an-example-of-canada-s-livable-cities</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[We turn off on Denman Street in the neighbourhood called the West End so I can pick up a coffee and sandwich, and to take a short nostalgic diversion through our old haunts. I lived in this neighbourhood for more than 10 years and Caroline lived here when she first came to Vancouver in 2008 - and we both have a lot of fondness for the area. The West End is bounded on two sides by the sea - English Bay to the south and Coal Harbour to the north... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Mon, 10 May 2010 22:37:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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					<title>Springtime in Vancouver</title> 
					<link>http://www.canadiantrainvacations.com/learningcenter/stories/series-rockies-winter-rail/story-springtime-in-vancouver</link> 
					<description><![CDATA[At a certain time of year it is possible to enjoy the best of two seasons in Canada on one short trip - springtime in Vancouver, on the Pacific coast, and winter in the Canadian Rockies. One day you are relaxing in shorts in an outdoor café under a warm sun and a canopy of cherry blossoms - and the next, enjoying a sleigh-ride, a long walk in snowy woods and a romantic evening by a log fire. The link between these two worlds is a comfortable overnight sleeper train from Vancouver to Jasper, called The Canadian... [click the link to read more]]]></description> 
					<pubDate>Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:39:00 -0500</pubDate>
					<author>John Parker</author>
					<category>travel</category>
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