Bear Creek Park Train

Chough, a 15-inch-gauge steam locomotive, was an international jet setter before settling down at Bear Creek Park Train. Built in Holland in 1968, Chough went on to serve stints in model-train stores and tracks in London, Kent, and Scotland before rolling onto Canadian soil in the spring of 1996. Today, he and chugging buddy Eddy the Engine haul passengers into the cottonwood forests of Bear Creek Park, passing through a tunnel decorated according to holiday or season. The pair trundles past Bear Creek Floral Garden and across King Creek Bridge before pulling back into the station, where passengers can slurp up ice cream and other treats.

Nearby, the 18-hole mini golf course offers a different way to commune with Mother Nature. Like the tank of a scuba-diving naturalist, the course is filled with fresh air. Each hole incorporates the surrounding landscape so that the putting greens blend into towering cedar, hemlock, spruce, and fir trees, and between holes nine and 10, gurgling water streams from a fountain sandwiched between Squamish basalt-rock columns.