Five stars and no grizzlies, please

Canada is proud of its pioneering past. In fact, it sometimes overdoes the image of sun-blistered pan-handlers fighting off grizzlies and hairy-chested navvies driving railway lines through ice floes with their bare teeth. The fact is that within a generation of the Canadian Pacific Railway linking this emergent country from east to west, Canada was building hotels of great style and people were flocking to see this new world in a level of unprecedented comfort.

Canada is proud of its pioneering past. In fact, it sometimes overdoes the image of sun-blistered pan-handlers fighting off grizzlies and hairy-chested navvies driving railway lines through ice floes with their bare teeth. The fact is that within a generation of the Canadian Pacific Railway linking this emergent country from east to west, Canada was building hotels of great style and people were flocking to see this new world in a level of unprecedented comfort.

Many of these Canadian Pacific Railway hotels have now passed into the traveller's lexicon as bywords for luxury. Banff Springs represents the days when only phenomenally wealthy people went skiing; the Royal York is the Queen's home in Toronto and the façade of Chateau Frontenac - probably the best known hotel in the world - is instantly recognisable from the air.

Recently, I determined to cross Canada from east to west, not by kayaking or heli-hiking, nor by white-water river rafting or quad-racing, but in comfort on the VIA Rail line from Quebec to Vancouver and by overnighting in some of those wonderful hotels, which recall an age of linen suits, bellhops and boat planes.

My journey started in Quebec, disembarking from the St Lawrence below the magnificent Chateau Frontenac. Quebec City is unique in North America, having retained its city walls and 18th-century French architecture. The pitched roofs of the old city are a fairytale delight and the chateau itself towers above them like the castle in which Sleeping Beauty has taken a suite. The chateau opened in 1893 and its distinctive central tower of 17 floors was added in 1925. Inside the colour scheme is a discreet mix of brass and sepia. The lobby positively glows and I love the fact that on each floor there is a brass Mitchell-Cutler mail chute built into the lift shaft. Letters posted on any floor drop directly to the post room, as at the Plaza in New York. Moreover, shoes left outside the door before 1am will be polished and returned by the time the papers are delivered to your room. It is in details such as these that the chateau remains a unique link with the days of gracious travel. The hotel has all the amenities one would expect, but its triumphs are Le Champlain, executive chef Jean Soulard's dining room, and the circular cigar bar in one of the chateau's many turrets. With its oak panelling and twin fireplaces, the cigar bar likes to boast it can offer any whisky you choose to name. No wonder Churchill stayed here a number of times, including the occasion in 1943 when he joined FDR and the Canadian prime minister to make preliminary plans for D-Day. The list of chateau celebrities is endless and includes royalty from virtually every country in possession of a throne, a special favourite being Princess Grace of Monaco who presided as patron of Quebec's annual winter carnival.

From the chateau I set off for Toronto using VIA Rail. Travelling in first class meant that I had access to the Panorama lounge before being called for my train and that my luggage was loaded for me. Moreover, not only was lunch included in the price of my ticket but also aperitifs and as many bottles of wine as I could wish to consume. Canada really benefits from its French legacy.

Arriving in Toronto was bound to be a bit of a disappointment after the sheer élan of Quebec. Toronto was built for trade and its greedy grid system sprawls unpleasantly. If Quebec is the Paris of Canada then Toronto is its Chicago. Nevertheless, the Union Station by Ross and McDonald is a magnificent piece of neo-classical railway architecture and its foyer, built in 1927, recalls Grand Central Station in New York. If only some of the recent kioskery had been more sympathetically installed this building might be a tourist venue in its own right.

I was staying at the Royal York, also by Ross and McDonald. Opened in 1929, the York was part of a bid by CPR to see off its Government-owned rival, the Canadian National Railway. Once the tallest building in the British Empire, the York boasted a library, now sadly dispersed, of 12,000 volumes. As at Le Frontenac, the public areas of this hotel are a triumph, the lobby wide and imaginatively lit by chandeliers and brass wall brackets with a coffered ceiling, handpainted with heraldic devices to resemble a medieval banqueting hall. Immediately on entering I felt calmed. Other people who knew much more about achieving my comfort were in charge and the baths were wonderfully deep.

The next day I was back down in Union station looking for the train west but this was no ordinary 125. I was booked to travel on The Canadian, the pride of VIA Rail. A fleet of 30 silver carriages from the 1950s, pulled by three diesels and measuring a third of a mile long, The Canadian is equipped with three restaurants and four viewing galleries. Not so much a train as a happening. Getting on board and finding my cabin recalled the embarkation scene from Titanic. The corridors overflowed with uniformed crew and pensioners who had shelled out $1,200 (£532) apiece for a three-night journey across the mighty Canadian Shield, the prairies, Rocky Mountains and down the Pacific coast as far as Vancouver.

As we moved west through the suburbs of Toronto, Bill, our activities coordinator, came on the Tannoy to draw our attention to "The Waver", an overgrown schoolboy known as Bruce for whom The Canadian is the highlight of every week. There he stood by the track holding up a VIA Rail sign as we waved back. Bruce has hardly missed this special departure in the past four years.

Life on board The Canadian is gracious but in a very Fifties way: brushed chromium rather than brass, upholstery that does not have leather, and beds that fold out of the wall like something on board a ship. But the dining-room staff did a fine and friendly job. We skirted the top of Lake Huron and then headed north through Ontario and an infinite succession of rocks, lakes and forest.

The vastness of Canada made a deep impression. However much forest and swamp grass, river and lake passed us there would always be more. That night as we dined Bill came on the Tannoy to tell us to put our watches back an hour as we'd be waking in western Ontario.

It was an odd sensation the next day to open my blind and see lakes roll by as mist lifted off them. I picked up a coffee and muffin in the rear observation car before noticing that the scenery had suddenly changed. White aspen trees replaced conifers and the lakes were getting larger. We had entered a native reserve, Bill said.

Canada contains one quarter of the world's fresh water, and by my second day crossing the Canadian Shield I was beginning to feel I'd seen most of it when suddenly the landscape changed during lunch. One moment I was looking down at my salmon en croute and the next we were in Manitoba. No more rocks and dense forest outside, no more cuttings blasted through rocks, no more lakes even. Wide green prairies, strung with telegraph poles and tall shining grain silos lay either side of us. That evening we were 1,500km into our journey and stopping over in Winnipeg.

Winnipeg's gracious Beaux Arts station was designed for Canadian Northern Railways by Warren and Whetmore who also did New York's Grand Central. Opposite the station on Broadway stands Hotel Fort Garry which was a rival to the CPR's Royal Alexandra, now sadly demolished. A scaled-down version of the New York Plaza and topped off with that a steep chateau-style roof which is the unofficial trademark of all Canadian railway hotels, Fort Garry was built in 1913 by Grand Trunk Railways to a design by Ross and McFarlane.

For a place to stay it was a hard choice between this and the modern Fairmont on Portage and Main. But while Fort Garry has the legacy of people such as Laurence Olivier, Basil Rathbone, Louis Armstrong and Joan Crawford, the Fairmont has Clarence McLeod. Something of a legend in North America, the youthful Mr Clarence presides over the Fairmont's Gold Lounge, dispensing cocktails of champagne and charm as if the 1920s had never ended. No request is ever beyond Clarence. Knowing that one guest liked The New York Times with his breakfast, Clarence arranged for a rider to collect it at the Minnesota border and had it on the gentleman's table when he rose. Another time, when the Queen was staying, Clarence presented her with a poem which so tickled the royal fancy that she requested 23 copies for her entourage. The message got to Clarence after HM had left the Fairmont, so he arranged for all 23 copies to be biked to the royal jet and placed one on each seat.

I was due to depart two days later when The Canadian passed through again but unfortunately the great beast ended up running 12 hours late, the cumulative effect of two goods train derailments, a mudslide and a suicide on the line. I would miss a whole day in Vancouver. Hearing of this Clarence immediately opened a bottle of champagne for the strandees and even found me some swimming trunks when I expressed a wish to console myself by the rooftop pool. In the end we left Manitoba late that night and I woke to see the farmland of Saskatchewan slipping by. More silos, more dusty roads plus an infinity of cows. Time for a good book. Alberta looked pretty similar except for the pumpjacks nosing into the ground and bringing up oil. Then, however, white peaks appeared on the horizon. Such changes do seem to happen suddenly on this route. A wave of excitement sent people scurrying to the observation cars where their cameras flashed against the bug-spattered Perspex. We were approaching the Rockies, with peaks including Roche Perdrix and Roche Miette rising impressive and serene over the silty Athabasca river.

At Jasper we stopped to take on more water and fuel. After the sprawl and mediocrity of Saskatoon and Edmonton, Jasper, in a national park, seemed a triumph of good taste. The station and many of the shops are built of field stones, complete with green pitched roofs and we stepped down in glorious sunshine to hunt for souvenirs. Jasper is deservedly celebrated as a tourist centre though its shops sell the usual Canadian trivia - model Mounties, moose and maple leafs - plus outdoor gear for hearty types intent on heli-hiking or rock-climbing.

The last leg of our journey weaved overnight through the increasingly narrow Yellowhead Pass with the train creaking all night long as we buckled round tight corners and over ridges. The journey of a lifetime can sometimes feel like it. I woke to find we were heading downwards in the company of the plunging Thompson and Fraser rivers. Then suddenly, as ever, the landscape changed. We were out of canyons and into the wild verdant plain of the Fraser delta running down to Vancouver. The last phase of the journey through the suburbs of Vancouver took an agony of time with everyone on the train sweaty and desperate to get off now. We wanted baths; we wanted beds that didn't fold out of the wall and go bump in the night. At last we pulled into the great Canadian Northern Railway Station designed by Pratt and Ross and opened in 1919. A small jazz band was playing to greet us and I for one felt I had deserved it. All I'd done for the 6,000km between the Atlantic and Pacific was sit, eat and sleep but it still felt like a huge achievement.

I made for the Hotel Vancouver, built in 1939 to plans by Archibald and Schofield using the same French chateau style we'd seen across Canada. It was opened by George VI and Queen Elizabeth whose royal parlour is now Room 1407, featuring old furniture that the housekeeper, Ethel Ferguson, hid from Hilton management during a Year Zero phase when they'd taken over the hotel back in the 1960s and were trying to erase all vestiges of its Art Deco brilliance. Nowadays the Vancouver is restored to what the hotel calls its "Georgian" style, Art Deco with 25 tons of book-matched marble lining the hotel's interior walls. Sadly the Panorama Roof where couples in evening dress would dine and dance after the Second World War is now just a function room - but it still commands an impressive view: north to the snow-capped coastal mountains and south to the Straits of Georgia. It was good to have made it coast to coast and even to find another Mitchell-Cutler mail chute gleaming in brass as I came out of the lift.

The Facts

Getting there

Adrian Mourby flew to Canada via Air Canada (020-8276 6800; www.aircanada.com), which offers return flights into Toronto and out of Vancouver from £580. He travelled by train on VIA Rail, which offers first-class travel from Toronto to Vancouver from £1,159 through 1st Rail (0845-644 3553; www.1strail.com). Mourby stayed as a guest of Fairmont Hotels (020-7025 1600; www.fairmont.com). The price of its rooms ranges from £64 to £88 per night.

Further information

Canadian tourism office (0906-871 5000; www.travelcanada.ca).

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