1959 cross-province train trip starts and ends in Vernon

A recently posted video on YouTube by Reel Life / Canada Motorsport reveals a more pristine British Columbia interior in a video of a train and steamship journey across British Columbia in 1959.

The video is a 37-minute time capsule, filmed by Vernon photographer Richard Heggs when he made the cross-province trip as a 20-year-old. It's a 3,000-km Triangle Tour of interior B.C. from Vernon to Prince Rupert to Vancouver and back.

The video starts with a departure on the Canadian National continental train from the station in Vernon – what does that street look like today? – as filming continues through the Okanagan and Thompson countryside to an overnight stay in Kamloops.

Check out Hegg’s shots of Kamloops’s neon-lit downtown.

Video of rugged B.C. countryside are interspersed with stops at the Birch Island, Blue River and Jasper train stations before heading west to Prince Rupert, across what appears to be a largely empty countryside.

Hegg takes a vehicle tour in Prince George and captures a bustling, growing city with a new neighbourhood under construction, the building of the Prince George Hospital and a number of sawmills that seem to dominate the industrial scene.

Heggs’ train ride terminates in Prince Rupert, where he boards the SS Canadian Pacific to Vancouver before catching the continental back to Vernon.

The film is one in a series produced by Reel Life / Canada MotorSport, featuring vintage film footage and contemporary video of all varieties.

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