TUMBLING STONES ON THE NIGHT TRAIN TO HINTON

Riding the train in Canada – means built in romance and adventure, pretty much guaranteed with every ticket. The CNR and CPR once stopped almost everywhere along their respective lines from one end of the country to the other. What might have been an otherwise uneventful trip from Point A to Point B, was automatically transformed into an epic journey by the mere fact that it was a train you were riding on.

In the 1960s trains still had elegant dining cars, dimly lit, sin-inviting observation decks, long aisles to roam, windows to stare out of as the landscape constantly changed passing through dark forests and mountain gorges, through farmer’s fields and countless small towns, and across tall trestles and mysterious tunnels. All this set to a background railway symphony of throbbing diesel engines, lonesome whistles, clacking of steel on steel and the banging of couplings; the whoosh of air as the doors between cars opened and shut and the conductor punching tickets calling out the stops or announcing the dinner sittings.

Train time in Canada was governed not so much by railway timetables and pocket watches, but by the vast and often unforgiving landscape and the unpredictable weather and track conditions no matter what season you were traveling in.  Try as they might, the engineers, firemen, conductors, brakeman and station masters had little or no control over time. Getting on a train was to enter a fairytale realm with different laws of nature where time has no dominion. Not fast nor slow, but according to its own inscrutable rules and rhythms. Train travel by its very nature meant that the journeyer had to surrender to these dictates. But, in doing so, they would be generously rewarded with the rare opportunity to think, to ponder, to remember, to dream, and to imagine.

And, as everyone knows, in storybook realms – beyond the limits of time and space – anything might happen – including chance encounters with enchanting strangers you are fated to meet. And, so, it was with me, one evening in Edmonton when I bought a ticket for the west bound train heading to Vancouver, with a scheduled stop in my hometown of Hinton.

Back in the 60’s I had several memorable train rides. Across Canada to Montreal for Expo 67; trips back and forth between Hinton and Edmonton; out to Vancouver at Christmas and then again at Easter. For land-locked hippies like myself there was an almost mystical lure to the West Coast where fantastical things were happening in Vancouver and San Francisco. Fourth Avenue in Vancouver’s Kitsilano area vied with Toronto’s Yorkville District as Canada’s Haight Ashbury. There were many live music venues along “Rainbow Avenue”, including the Naam restaurant, likely the country’s first vegetarian restaurant and still happening.

My favorite hangout on Fourth, however was a small place called the Love Café, located in a two-story clapboard house at the far end of the strip. I would frequent the cafe with Herm, Bill Borzel, and Jay McCraw from Hinton, and Roger Dale a musician friend from Jasper (and now a celebrated artist living in France).

I was introduced to this out-of-the-way spot by Trish, the beautiful enchantress I met on that night train from Edmonton to Hinton, which is exactly where you would expect to meet someone like her. I first noticed Trish while descending the escalator into the lower reaches of the CN Tower, when the train station was still located there. Long hair, flowing dress, garlands of beads. So out of time and place gliding gracefully through the bustling and brightly lit station her feet scarcely touching the marbled tiles. Hard not to notice. And once you noticed, it was impossible to take your eyes off her.

I found my coach and settled into my seat for the four or five hour journey. Then, there she was again. Slowly swaying down the aisle coming in my direction. She smiled beatifically when she saw the empty seat beside me. I quickly brushed my stuff out of the way, and she sat down, still beaming her enigmatic smile. She knew she was gracing me with her presence. “I saw you in the station”, she whispered, and I felt like I was being initiated into some secret coven of druids. We exchanged the usual traveller niceties. “Vancouver”, she said, as if it was the elven kingdom of Lothlórien she spoke of. “Hinton”, I responded, a little hesitantly. She raised her eyebrows a little at this revelation and chuckled. “You’ll have to come and visit me sometime. At the Love Café on Fourth.” This was said not as a question nor an invitation, but more as if she knew I would.

As the train rumbled through the growing darkness she rummaged in her large purse and retrieved a small sheer-muslin bag filled with brightly coloured pebbles. “Want to see something magical,” she whispered again. Offering no explanation, she started to slowly turn and tumble the stones so new ones kept appearing at the open end of the pouch. As if in a trance, I watched the polished stones as they cascaded over each other. Waves of pebbles came into focus then disappeared from view. A kaleidoscope of moving colours.

Suddenly one shiny pebble caught my eye, standing out amongst a thousand others. My breath caught as I saw it. “Ah”, she said, pointing to the tiny stone and smiling softly. “See!” She tumbled the stones again and then again. Each time, a different pebble would catch my eye, sometimes red, sometimes yellow tinged or a dazzling blue. There would be a flash of recognition, of knowing. “See”, she would whisper again, pointing to the single stone that had caught my inner eye. Then she stopped saying anything as one tumbling stone after another would somehow catch our attention simultaneously.

I don’t know how many times we tumbled those stones before she tucked them safely away in her satchel. The rest of the journey also melted away and I have little memory of it. I disembarked into the cool night air at Hinton and watched the lights of the magic train heading west towards the mountains and the sea.

When, a few months later, as predicted, I visited Trish at the Love Café she smiled in recognition and wordlessly welcomed me to the restaurant where she worked and lived upstairs with her boyfriend. Later when the restaurant slowed down she directed me towards the single table set in the niche of the bay window at the front of the restaurant. In silence, she reverently reached into her satchel and retrieved her bag of coloured pebbles. She smiled. “Want to see some more magic?”

On my frequent return trips to the Love Café, I watched as Trish introduced others to her tumbling stones, some of whom I brought to her table so they too could marvel at the experience. We all left enchanted. Today, I still occasionally play her game of runes, but not with a bag of tumbling pebbles, for that alone is her enchanted domain, but with glistening rocks on a wave swept beach, or with flowers in the garden, or with the millions of stars in a winter sky. Magic….