Emily Whitlam ventures where few buses will ever travel, heading for the Athabasca Glacier in the Canadian Rockies aboard one of Brewster Transport Company’s Terra Bus off-road vehicles
This summer, I sampled some of Canada’s public transport during a three week trip, which started in Vancouver and ended in Toronto. My travels took me through four provinces: British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec and Ontario. The country’s coaches are predominantly of the Prevost brand, with many inner-city service buses being New Flyer Xcelsiors, D40LFs, DE40LFs (the hybrid version of the D40LF), and some vehicles from the Low Floor Series by manufacturer Nova Bus – the latter type of single-deck service buses make up the bulk of British Columbia-based BC Transit’s fleet.
Holiday highlight
By far the greatest highlight of my holiday was experiencing one of Brewster Transport Company’s mighty Terra buses, which each weigh 25,000kg (or the equivalent of 60 large grizzly bears!). These vehicles were running tours up to the Athabasca Glacier, situated along the stunning Icefields Parkway road. Produced by Foremost Industries (based in Calgary), the Terra Bus is a tri-axle all-wheel-drive snow coach with a carrying capacity of 56 – at a towering height of 3.96m and length of 14.89m, this design belittles the Prevost coaches which transport intrepid travellers to the coach station at the foot of the glacier. I felt rather small standing next to the 1.5m tall tyres, which are inflated to 20 pounds per square inch – a low pressure, in order to reduce damage to the surface of the ice.
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Brewster Transport owns a total of 22 ice explorer vehicles in Jasper National Park, which are permitted to travel at speeds of up to 11mph on the glacier. There is only one other Terra Bus in the world, a modified vehicle named ‘Ivan the Terra Bus’ which resides at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. I was lucky enough to ride on board fleet number 539 ‘porcupine’ – the buses were helpfully named after animals, ensuring any oblivious tourists didn’t board the wrong vehicle back to the car park!
Conceived in 1892 by Jim and Bill Brewster (aged just 10 and 12) as a business offering guided tours of local scenic spots, Brewster Transport Company Limited was originally named ‘W. & J. Brewster, Guides and Packers’ upon official opening in 1900. The boys combined their love for the wilderness with entrepreneurship, starting out by running excursions and hauling construction supplies – they even contributed to the completion of Sulphur Mountain’s weather observatory in 1902. The enterprise became influential to tourism in Banff when the Canadian Pacific Railway named the business as its official outfitter there in the early 1900s. After operating horse-drawn carriages for over a decade, in 1916 the company purchased five motor coaches, developing the business into what it is renowned for today.
Historic values
As a nod to its past, Brewster currently operates open top tours from the Fairmont hotels in both Jasper and Banff, using a heritage-inspired sightseeing coach that has been modelled to appear like a 1930s vehicle. The coach also has modern attributes, including USB charging ports for phones – modern technology juxtaposed with the guides who wear period costume during the trip.
After returning home to the UK, it seems evident that, the further into the wilderness I ventured on my travels, the quirkier the public transport system became in order to cater for the area’s high concentrations of tourist traffic – this success in the tourism industry really is a testament to the pioneering Brewster brothers. With its impressive Terra buses, Canada has definitely been the most adventurous place I have visited in terms of its bus routes!
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