On Tuesday, August 3, a ten-person wedding party stepped off the Canadian train from Toronto. A whirl-wind wedding at Tekarra Lodge followed before the newlyweds were whisked out of Jasper bound for Vancouver – all in 75 minutes. 

The wedding was a symbol of Dan and Maya Wilcock’s relationship: full of adventure and travel. Accompanied by eight friends and family that made up the wedding party, Maya and Dan, who currently live in Ottawa, boarded the Canadian train in Toronto bound for Vancouver about a week before the nuptials. As the train rolled across the Great Lakes region of Ontario, then the prairies and into the Rocky Mountains, the group celebrated the impending vows and enjoyed their pre-wedding honeymoon. 

Dan, originally from Australia, met Maya at a music festival when she was working in Sydney in 2002. He said from the moment they met, they have been inseparable, moving between Australia and Canada for the first five years, before finally settling together in Ottawa three years ago. Dan is now a permanent resident of Canada, and is applying for citizenship. 

Maya and Dan have spent time in Jasper before, and fell in love with the beautiful location. It was an easy pick for their wedding location along their cross-Canada tour.

“Maya and I chose Jasper as the location for our wedding because it is a stunning location and it already had a personal connection to our lives,” Dan wrote to the Fitzhugh in an email. 

The couple initially moved to Golden, B.C. when Dan emigrated from Australia. There they explored the local mountain ranges and spent their second anniversary at the Jasper Park Lodge. 

“I had spent much of my earlier life living in, and loving, mountain ranges in different parts of the world,” Dan said. “We were very excited to get married during our brief stop in Jasper, then continue on to enjoy the magic of the Rockies with our friends on the train.”

The idea to have a wedding on the train came from the couple’s journey on the Indian Pacific train that crosses Australia. The pair made that trip a few years ago, and fell in love with rail travel. 

“It made sense to us to have our wedding as a stop on the trip across Canada, paying respect to Maya’s home and my adoptive country,” Dan said. 

This time the couple got to enjoy the company of friends, with their eight-person entourage. They were delighted to bring along their friends and family for the trip. 

“For us, it was another wonderful adventure, another stop on our journey. We were delighted to have the company of a group of friends on the train,” Dan said. 

The ceremony took place at Tekarra Lodge, on the banks of the Athabasca and Miette Rivers. Maya and Dan took their vows on a ridge high above the two rivers in just 75 minutes. Ron Steers not only helped make sure everything happened on time, but also performed the ceremony. 

“There wasn’t much room for unexpected delays and we were so lucky it all worked out perfectly,” Dan said. 

Steers helped organize everything so the wedding didn’t cut any corners. Maya carried a bouquet from Elysion Florals and cakes were provided by the Bear’s Paw Bakery. There was confusion leading up to the initial ceremony, of where they would be getting married, but Dan said Tekarra Lodge was the perfect location. 

“It’s hard to imagine a better spot for our wedding ceremony,” he said, adding that it won’t be their first visit to the river-side spot. “It was breathtaking and we plan to return there in the future.”

The reception was held on the train after the stop in Jasper. The couple toasted their future together in the glass-domed dining car while passing beneath Mount Robson.

VIA hooked the couple up with a private suite complete with a king-sized bed at the back of the train instead of the regular bunk beds for their wedding night, and pulled out all the stops to ensure the couple had a wedding to remember. 

“VIA Rail and all the passengers were so positive and supportive and we experienced an overwhelming amount of good will,” Dan said. “Our dinner in the dining car that evening turned into a wedding reception with exceptional food and the company of both old friends and new friends on the train.”

When it came time to throw the bouquet, an announcement was made for all single ladies on the train to make their way to the observation car, and the flowers were tossed to a lucky VIA passenger. 

“We were really excited about our whistle stop wedding, but there was unexpected magic in the whole experience,” Dan said. 

VIA had another special guest onboard – newly appointed president and CEO of VIA Rail, Marc Laliberté. Dan said he was able to personally thank him for all that VIA had done for himself and his new wife during their trip. 

“We were able to tell him personally about the wonderful service we had experienced from VIA staff and that we are now fans for life,” Dan said. “The unexpected part of the journey for us was the unbounded positivity from VIA staff and our fellow passengers.”

VIA staff were happy to take part in the celebrations. Dan said they were told it may be the first time a couple has ever had a wedding on the Canadian. 

With the whistle-stop wedding over, Dan said there are more celebrations planned in the future, for friends that were unable to attend the train trip.

“We weren’t able to have all our friends and family on the train, so there will be more celebrations to come, including a trip to Australia when we can manage that,” he said. 

Altogether, Maya and Dan, along with their wedding party of 8, crossed 4,466 kilometres over 86 hours, consuming 48 cupcakes from Bear’s Paw Bakery in 22 railcars. They ate nine meals they described as amazing, crossed five provinces in four nights, all after three weeks of planning, just to put a ring on each other’s finger. 

The couple met with more friends in Vancouver and continued to celebrate their wedding. 

“We are now taking a few days to unwind and enjoy the start of our married life before heading home to Ottawa,” Dan said.