Alberta-based Brewster Tours formerly used its fleet of 20 tracked snow coaches only for summer tours of the Columbia icefields in the Canadian Rockies but has found a way to keep them busy year-round.
Brewster decided to launch the 'Dream Catcher' tours and market them to Europe and Asia. To its surprise, the winter tours caught on quickly in Taiwan.
"We developed this tour for the Germans and Japanese, but the Taiwanese are number one for this tour," says Brewster's director of sales Larry M Gale. Many Taiwanese have already taken the tour of the Columbia glacier, and are familiar with the snow coaches.
Brewster replaced its beef on a bun with hot noodles and added other Asian touches to the tour, including frequent stops. "They find the snow magical," says Gale. "They get out, they smoke cigarettes, and they touch the snow."
The snow coaches, which can plough through heavy snow and ice, carry the Taiwanese on back-country trails into pristine winter wilderness near Banff. The tours have two themes: Native Indians and local wildlife. Deer, moose, and elk are often seen, and cougar and wolf tracks are common.
For travel agents the tours have another bonus: They are never cancelled. "It doesn't matter if it's cold, or if it's snowing," said Gale. "No matter what, we can still run the tours."