Great American Railroad Journeys

Clutching his 1899 copy of Appleton's Guide to Canada, Michael Portillo travels on the Ocean train from Nova Scotia to New Brunswick. Along the way, he investigates the world's biggest tide at Hopewell Rocks and admires its dramatic rock formations and caves. 

Michael apparently defies gravity on a magnetic hill in a 1965 Pontiac Bonneville. North of Moncton in Miramichi, he joins the Elsipogtog First Nation in a pow wow, where he learns about quilting and traditional dress. In Amherst, Michael investigates the history of an ambitious ship railway designed to ferry ships by rail over the isthmus between the Bay of Fundy and the Northumberland Strait. He quarries highly-prized Wallace sandstone for a 150-year-old family firm. 

In the Acadian fishing village of Neguac, New Brunswick, Michael discovers sea farmers are producing up to 15 million oysters a year. 

Michael takes to the water to investigate how it is done and is rewarded with a taste of the freshest mollusc he has ever sampled. 

Michael's guidebook leads him to Miramichi, where he reads that French-speaking Acadians settled after they were expelled by the British from lands they had occupied further south. Intrigued by a tale of 18th-century ethnic cleansing, Michael visits an historic village to find out about these people and why Britain took such drastic action against them. 

Boarding the night sleeper for the next 400 miles of his journey, Michael heads for Quebec City, where old Europe survives in the New World. With its narrow streets and flights of steps and a hotel modelled on a 16th-century chateau, Quebec City was the heart of New France and reminds Michael of Paris - yet the Quebecois national dish leaves him cold.

Michael Portillo explores the province of Quebec with his 19th-century Appleton's Guide to Canada. He takes the fabulously scenic Charlevoix train along the north bank of the mighty St Lawrence River to La Malbaie. 

Following his guidebook to the beautiful basilica at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre, Michael discovers the racks of crutches discarded by the healed and meets modern-day visitors in search of miracles. 

The Train de Charlevoix, built to transport pilgrims, now conveys tourists along the north bank of the St Lawrence River to the Murray lakes. Michael tours the fine 19th-century houses, which were once the haunt of the Gatsby generation. Taking to the skies in a seaplane, Michael flies over the Laurentian Mountains to land on an isolated lake, where he fishes for trout for his supper. 

At Baie St Paul, Michael heads for the high ground, where he discovers 6,500 tomato vines are under cultivation to produce wine. The waterfall at Montmorency is a spectacular sight – especially from a zip wire! 

From Quebec, Michael relocates to Canada's Central Plains to begin a 1,000-mile journey across the vast Prairie aboard Canada's last trans-continental passenger line. From the very heart of the country, he travels west to the majestic Rocky Mountains. 

On this leg, Michael explores the Manitoban capital, Winnipeg, the nation's chief railroad centre, known as the 'gateway to the west'. Joining the ranks of the 17,000 Canadian national students to have studied at the giant freight company's national training centre, Michael has a go at marshalling a wagon. 

In the French quarter of Saint Boniface, Michael cashes in at the Canadian Royal Mint and discovers the origins of the half-million Canadians who today identify as Metis. Michael meets a descendant of the 19th-century rebel leader now known as the Father of Manitoba and enjoys their traditional fiddle music.

Steered by his 1899 Appleton's Guide, Michael Portillo strikes west across Manitoba into the province of Saskatchewan. High above the prairie at Riding Mountain, Michael discovers how a middle-class British boy from Hastings transformed himself into an influential indigenous naturalist called Grey Owl. 

Deep in the prairie, Michael finds a network of railways that once served the wheat farmers of Saskatchewan and learns how communities grew up around the grain elevators used to load the crop on to rail wagons. The Wheatland Express welcomes a new recruit to the sidings on the afternoon shift. 

At Manitou Beach, Michael reaches the Dead Sea of Canada, a 14-mile lake three times saltier than the ocean. A Yellow Quill First Nations elder tells Michael about the healing properties of the water, and Michael tries it for himself. 

Michael digs into Canada's indigenous past at the country's longest-running archaeological excavation, discovers an Englishman, whose work earned him the title Canada's Wheat King, and, in the cultural hub of Saskatoon, Michael learns how to make a traditional Saskatoon berry pie. 

North east of the South Saskatchewan River at Batoche, Michael reaches the battlefield, where in 1885 the French-speaking Métis people and their indigenous allies lost their struggle against Canadian control

Michael Portillo continues west through the Canadian Prairie on his thousand-mile rail journey from Winnipeg, Manitoba, to Jasper, Alberta. Following his 1899 Appleton's guide, Michael explores a glossy, glassy, oil-rich Edmonton, second city of Alberta. On the banks of the North Saskatchewan River, he travels three centuries back in time to experience the life of les voyageurs, who travelled huge distances within Canada by foot and canoe to trade fur with indigenous people. 

Michael admires Edmonton's early 20th-century heritage streetcars, preserved by the Radial Railway Society, and seizes the chance to drive one across a spectacular high-level bridge over the North Saskatchewan River. 

Edmonton prides itself on its modern light rail system, offering rapid transit to 80 million passengers per year. Michael hears how this growing city plans to keep pace. His journey across Canada's vast open spaces reaches a dramatic scenic conclusion in the Rocky Mountains. Deep in the Columbia icefield in a massive, all-terrain Ice Explorer, Michael is awed by the scale, not least of the vehicle, but of the vast Athabasca Glacier. 

Travelling via Hinton to Jasper, Michael learns of the race to lay transcontinental rails through the Rocky Mountains on two different routes. 

In the woodland around Hinton, Michael marvels at the scale of Canada's forestry industry and discovers how the enchanting beaver, once slaughtered for its fur, is now pampered.