Trans-Canada Highway

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The Trans-Canada Highway is a series of provincial highways which join all ten provinces of Canada.

Trans-Canada Highway Halal Travel Guide

Canada is the second largest country in the world and a cross-country trip overland was no small obstacle. While the Canadian Pacific Railway's (CPR) last spike opened travel across Canada by train in 1885, an "all-red route" (entirely through British Empire|British territory) by road remained elusive for much of the 20th century. Albert E. Todd (the mayor of Victoria, BC from 1917-1919) had a Gold medal struck in 1912, to be offered as a prize for the first vehicle to drive from Nova Scotia across all of Canada to the Pacific. That award remained unclaimed for more than three decades, not through lack of effort, but through lack of infrastructure.

British freelance writer Thomas Wilby (“A Motor Car Tour Through Canada]”, 1914) and Reo head mechanic James Haney reached Victoria from Halifax only by carrying their 1912 Reo by train from North Bay to Sudbury, by ship across Lake Superior to the Thunder Bay|Lakehead and then back on the train to Selkirk. An attempt to motor on the CPR's rail tracks in British Columbia damaged two of the four tires; their attempt to find an "All-Red Route" failed as they had to cross briefly into the U.S. to avoid mountains between Paterson and Cascade, British Columbia. Later voyagers merely found more of the same; Percy Gomery (“ A Motor Scamper ‘Cross Canada]”, 1922) left Montreal with his wife to drive home to Vancouver in 1920; they got as far as Sault Sainte Marie (Ontario) before having to cross into foreign territory. A wartime effort forced a gravel road through a northern route Hearst -Geraldton (Ontario)|Geraldton -Nipigon in 1943, allowing Brig. R. Alex Macfarlane (rtd.) and former Royal Canadian Air Force squadron leader Ken MacGillivray to drive a new GM 1946 Chevrolet Stylemaster from Louisbourg, Nova Scotia, to the Pacific as the first to cross the nation entirely on Canadian roads. The Trans-Canada Highway Act (1949) funded construction of the current mainline, which officially opened in 1962. Paving of two lanes coast-to-coast was completed by 1970. The most lengthy uninterrupted highway in the world at the time and the Trans-Canada Highway system is recognizable by its distinctive white-on-green maple leaf markers.

Following 8030 kilometers (just under 5000 miles) of Trans-Canada Highway across all ten provinces is one of the three-longest single-country highway journeys in the world (along with the Highway 1 ring road around Australia and – if one ignores the brief detour into neighbouring Kazakhstan – the Trans-Siberian Highway across Russia).

Despite the distances, many Canadians have some interest in seeing the entire country and driving across Canada is a common way of doing it. The Trans Canada Highway is not one road but a system of provincial highways that together span the entire country:

Trans Canada Highway 1 (four western provinces, mainline)
Trans Canada Highway 16 - Yellowhead Highway (four western provinces, northern alternate)
Ontario Highway 17/417 (Ontario mainline)
Ontario Highway 11, Highway 71 (mostly-northern alternate)
Ontario Highway 69/400, Highway 12 ,Highway 7 (southern alternate)
Québec autoroutes 40, 20 and 85/route 185 (mainline)
Québec route 117/Ontario 66 (northern alternate)
Trans Canada Highway 2/16 (New Brunswick)
Trans Canada Highway 106/104/105 (Nova Scotia)
Highway 1 (]]Newfoundland]], Prince Edward Island)

It's quicker to list what isn't on the Trans-Canada: Labrador and the far north and high Arctic, Southwestern Ontario and the Niagara Peninsula and a chunk of southern Nova Scotia. The highway bypasses Toronto and Halifax.

Prepare

Greyhound Canada terminated its Prince George to Prince Rupert coach at the end of May 2018 and withdrew all domestic bus service west of Sudbury at the end of October 2022. A coast-to-coast trip by bus travel|motorcoach which formerly involved eight or nine changes of bus (across a few different coach lines) with many local rural stops has only become more fragmented.

From Victoria, take the BC Ferries connector to Vancouver. From there, a/schedules-2/ Rider Express runs Vancouver-Calgary-Winnipeg (one transfer). Kasper Transportation runs small regional shuttle buses Winnipeg-Sioux Lookout-Thunder Bay- White River (three transfers). Ontario Northland runs White River-Sault Sainte Marie (Ontario)|Sault Sainte Marie - Sudbury-Ottawa (three transfers). Greyhound runs hourly from Ottawa to Montreal; from there, /en Orléans Express goes Montreal-Québec-Rivière-du-Loup (one transfer) and then Maritime Bus crosses New Brunswick to North Sydney, Nova Scotia. Cross to Port-aux-Basques, Newfoundland on a Marine Atlantic ferry and then take DRL (one bus daily) to Street John's.

A cross-country trip by rail can take you Vancouver-Toronto-Montreal-Halifax with only a couple of changes of train, but can go no further. There is no rail service on the island of Newfoundland.

This journey covers 6 time zones and more than 8,000 kilometers, under conditions which vary from congested urban freeway (in Ottawa and Montreal) to thousands of kilometers of sparsely-populated wilderness (in northwestern Ontario) or steep mountain ranges (in the Rockies). The route passes through most of the populated areas of Canada, geographically the second-largest country on Earth. It is therefore not feasible to give a comprehensive description of a trip of this scale in a single article (although printing a copy of the Canada guide and everything under it would be a good start, a full description would fill a book).

Be sure to leave lots of time – a week just in driving time one-way is not unrealistic, assuming somebody is behind the wheel 24 hours a day with no stops to sightsee. Winter driving can take even longer; it is not unreasonable to expect to need a full week just to make the Winnipeg-Ottawa leg of the journey when there is snow on the ground. Bring a reliable vehicle - a full mechanical inspection before departure on a trip of this length is advisable. A cellular telephone can be useful as a means of obtaining roadside assistance, but expect huge mobile dead zones in sparsely-populated areas like Northern Ontario and the Lake Superior shore (a satellite phone may be of more use in these areas); coverage is also very sporadic in British Columbia's Rocky Mountains (where a satellite phone might or might not be able to make a connection depending on whether the mountains are in the way of a connection).

While it is similar in concept to the Driving in the Interstate Highway System in the United States and the Trans-Canada Highway is considerably different in scale and consistency. In densely populated areas (at least by Canadian standards) and in between nearby major cities the highway will often be divided with at least two lanes in each direction. But in lightly populated areas such as Northern Ontario or - in the case of the Yellowhead - much of Manitoba and Saskatchewan and the highway has only one lane in each direction, undivided, and has gravel shoulders and variable pavement quality. Much of the highway is not grade-separated and passes directly through many communities, functioning as the main street of the town.

Travel as a Muslim on the Trans-Canada Highway

This trip can be started almost anywhere in Canada. The highway runs from Victoria (British Columbia) to St. John's, Newfoundland (or the other way around, both cities declare a "mile 0" or "mile one" for the highway), with a third feasible origin point at Prince Rupert on the Yellowhead Highway. However, for practical purposes many travellers skip the trip to Newfoundland, and end it in Nova Scotia, others may skip Victoria and end in Vancouver.

Drive

The trip is listed from west to east (from Victoria), but obviously could be done in either direction. There are some locations where multiple routes are called the Trans-Canada highway; the shortest or most direct route is listed as the "mainline" in these cases.

Victoria to Winnipeg

The highway, designated as Highway 1 in the 4 western provinces goes through the magnificent mountains of British Columbia and western Alberta and the awe inspiring prairies of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Victoria (British Columbia) - GPS: 48.4292 ,-123.3641 - north on Vancouver Island to
Nanaimo - GPS: 49.1691 ,-123.9367 take the ferry to
Vancouver - GPS: 49.2713 ,-123.0276 drive east on the freeway to
Hope - GPS: 49.3823 ,-121.4428 continues North up the Fraser Canyon (impressive) to
Cache Creek - GPS: 50.8146 ,-121.3220 turns east to
Kamloops - GPS: 50.6738 ,-120.3469 then continues east through
the Shuswap Lake area (fishing, beaches) to
Revelstoke - GPS: 50.9930 ,-118.1909 (pleasant little mountain town).

Getting across the Rocky Mountains proved an obstacle for road and rail. Avalanche-prone Rogers Pass (in what is now Glacier National Park) was a key, vulnerable link in the Canadian Pacific Railway from 1885 to 1916, when traffic was diverted via a rail tunnel. The pass was incorporated into the highway, where a marker commemorates the Trans-Canada's 1962 official opening. Canadian National Parks|Parks Canada often closes areas of Glacier National Park in winter so that soldiers may trigger controlled avalanches using 105mm howitzers or explosives.

The highway continues to Banff - GPS: 51.1793 ,-115.5679, a major Alberta resort and scenic national park in the Canadian Rockies and then eastward across the prairies:

Calgary - GPS: 51.0638 ,-114.0243 where it goes through the centre of the city and from there continue to
Medicine Hat - GPS: 50.0430 ,-110.6735 . Continue through the endless prairies to
Moose Jaw - GPS: 50.4050 ,-105.5429 - in Saskatchewan before you come to
Regina - GPS: 50.4435 ,-104.6008 and then
Brandon - GPS: 49.8804 ,-99.9645 - in Manitoba finishing the western portion in Winnipeg.

This mainline route more-or-less follows the Canadian Pacific Railway line.

An alternative is the Yellowhead Highway, which follows Canadian National's "Grand Trunk Pacific Railway" from Prince Rupert. Trans-Canada 16 leads through Terrace and Prince George BC, Jasper National Park, Alberta's capital Edmonton, Saskatchewan border city Lloydminster and Saskatoon before joining the Trans-Canada mainline just west of Portage la Prairie - GPS: 49.973 ,-98.292 - in Manitoba.

From Winnipeg - GPS: 49.8875 ,-97.1520, highway 1 (Ontario 17) leads eastward to Kenora.

Set your watch ahead one hour when leaving BC for Alberta; as Saskatchewan does not use Daylight Savings Time, when heading east go ahead one hour on entering Saskatchewan (in winter) or leaving Saskatchewan (in summer). Winnipeg and Kenora are two hours ahead of Vancouver. The third time change (to Eastern Time) is made just west of Thunder Bay, within Ontario.

Fuel prices in British Columbia (and particularly in Vancouver) are higher than in the other three western provinces; heading east and they has begun to creep upwards again in Ontario and become worse still in Quebec.

Winnipeg to Ottawa

The Trans-Canada runs over prairie for a little way east of Winnipeg and then a long stretch of lightly inhabited forested country. It is called Highway 17 most of the way across Ontario, and 417 near Ottawa (as Ontario uses 400-series numbers for large motorways).

Winnipeg is 2170 kilometers from Ottawa. Towns on the route are:

Kenora - GPS: 49.7599 ,-94.4851 and Dryden, in the Central time zone. Move ahead one hour to Eastern time and enter
Thunder Bay - GPS: 48.4182 ,-89.2419 =
Wawa - GPS: 47.9972 ,-84.7595 (legendary for stranded hitchhikers)
Sault Ste Marie - GPS: 46.5097 ,-84.3200 =
Sudbury - GPS: 46.4908 ,-80.9967 (swing south here to reach Toronto)
North Bay - GPS: 46.3203 ,-79.4586 =
Pembroke - GPS: 45.8173 ,-77.1130

From Thunder Bay to the Sault and the road winds along the shore of Lake Superior and is quite pretty. However and the section from Wawa to the Sault sits in a snow belt and is frequently closed in winter; see Sault Sainte Marie (Ontario)#Winter Driving.

A few Trans-Canada Highway branches are signed as part of the system, providing alternate routes in central Canada:

An alternate, mostly further north, is Highway 11, which branches off at Nipigon (east of Thunder Bay) and runs via Hearst, Kapuskasing, Cochrane, and Temiskaming Shores to North Bay. Professional intercity drivers use this route in the winter to avoid lake-effect winds from Lake Superior and Lake Huron (and the above-mentioned feasible road closures between Wawa and Sault Ste Marie).
An alternate further south is Highway 69/400 from Sudbury. Instead of continuing into Toronto, take Highway 12 to bypass the city and reach Ontario Highway 7 ( Peterborough, Perth). Re-join the mainline Trans-Canada (417) in the west end of Ottawa.
An additional northern alternate exists in Québec (from Ontario 11, take Ontario 66 to Québec 117); rejoin la Transcanadienne in Montréal.

Ottawa to Moncton

While the road from Kenora to Sudbury is long and sparsely-populated, past Arnprior - GPS: 45.4389 ,-76.3577 and the Ottawa Valley the highway becomes wider and traffic heavier as one enters Ottawa - GPS: 45.4206 ,-75.6896 -Gatineau and the national capital. Ottawa to Montreal is just over two hours by freeway, passing through small towns like Embrun - GPS: 45.2729 ,-75.2783 and Hawkesbury - GPS: 45.6044 ,-74.5999 on Ontario 417 (which becomes Québec autoroute 40). Be sure to refuel before leaving Ottawa as petrol in Quebec costs more (with a further increase on Montreal island) due to high taxes, and while the fuel stations on the Ontario side of the border charge lower prices than Montreal and they charge higher prices than Ottawa.

While it is feasible to bypass Montreal by taking Autoroute 30 southbound at Vaudreuil-Dorion - GPS: 45.4227 ,-74.0344 and rejoining the Trans-Canada (as Autoroute 20) on the south shore, "la Transcanadienne" goes directly though the city and is heavily congested during peak hours.

Downriver from Montreal - GPS: 45.5217 ,-73.5946, autoroute 20 follows the south shore through Drummondville - GPS: 45.8861 ,-72.5015 to Lévis - GPS: 46.7906 ,-71.1749 . Traffic for Québec City exits northbound at Ste. Foy and the last pair of bridges across the St. Lawrence River. (It's also feasible to follow the north shore from Montreal to Québec via Trois-Rivières - see Windsor-Quebec corridor - but the distance is slightly longer and that route is not part of the Trans-Canada Highway.)

Continue to follow the south shore from Lévis down to Rivière-du-Loup - GPS: 47.8315 ,-69.5324, a small town near enough to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence that one begins to spot salt water marine life, such as whales. The road forks at this point; Trans-Canada traffic turns south onto Route 185 (partially widened as autoroute 85) toward Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! - GPS: 47.6707 ,-68.9800 and Edmundston - GPS: 47.3633 ,-68.3272, New Brunswick while continuing to follow the river eastward would lead to the Gaspé Peninsula.

Set your watch ahead another hour upon entering New Brunswick. From Edmundston and the highway largely follows the New Brunswick-Maine border to Fredericton - GPS: 45.9645 ,-66.6458 - and the provincial capital and a long-established United Empire Loyalist town and then heads eastward through Moncton - GPS: 46.0922 ,-64.7959 and onward to Nova Scotia. (The highway skirts the edge of Canadian Forces Base Gagetown just east of Fredericton; do not leave the highway in this area unless you want to be a live-fire training target. This area is clearly marked by very large signs at each end of the military base.)

The mainline Trans-Canada Highway crosses from Sackville (New Brunswick) directly into Amherst (Nova Scotia) - GPS: 45.8347 ,-64.2133 =. An alternate route exits onto New Brunswick route 16 at Sackville to cross the Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island and then crosses back to Nova Scotia from PEI on a seasonal ferry.

Prince Edward Island

The Trans-Canada Highway crosses the Northumberland Strait by the way of the 9-km Confederation Bridge (in the west) and the Wood Islands ferry crossing (in the east). If you land on the island using the bridge from New Brunswick and the TCH starts in Borden and meanders across the southern part of Queens County towards Charlottetown - GPS: 46.234, -63.128 about the halfway point and then crosses into Kings County ending at the ferry terminal in Wood Islands.

The time to drive from Borden to Wood Islands, if you don't stop to explore along the way, is roughly 95 minutes. If you've incurred the cost of crossing from the mainland to PEI (and back), it makes sense to stop and look around; PEI has some of the most beautiful countryside anywhere. Also and the series of books starting with Anne of Green Gables took place in PEI and sites associated with them attract many visitors.

Moncton to North Sydney, Nova Scotia

Be sure to leave New Brunswick on a full tank; fuel prices in Amherst (Nova Scotia) are (as of 2022) six cents a litre higher - due in part to Nova Scotia's 15% value added tax on all purchases. Follow NS 104 through Springhill - GPS: 45.6428 ,-64.0640, Truro - GPS: 45.3656 ,-63.3004, Stellarton-New Glasgow - GPS: 45.5890 ,-62.6495 and Antigonish - GPS: 45.6217 ,-61.9903 to Port Hawkesbury - GPS: 45.6181 ,-61.3579 . (It is feasible for all except large trucks to bypass the one road toll at the Cobequid Pass, between Springhill and Truro, by going to the old road NS 4 for the affected section.) As Halifax is not on the Trans-Canada Highway, traffic for that city exits onto NS 102 southbound at Truro.

Cape Breton is an island, joined to the rest of Nova Scotia by one narrow causeway at Port Hawkesbury. Much of the island is parkland. Two parallel roads run from the causeway to the former coal mining town of Sydney (Nova Scotia); the Trans-Canada Highway follows NS 105 on a western path through Baddeck - GPS: 46.0994 ,-60.7543 (home of an Alexander Graham Bell museum) while NS 4/104 takes a more eastern path through Louisbourg (where a former French fortress village has been largely restored) and ends in Cape Breton.

NS 105 ends at the Newfoundland ferry in [[North Sydney (Nova Scotia)|North Sydney - GPS: 46.2106 ,-60.2471. Reservations for the six-hour Marine Atlantic crossing to Port Aux Basques GPS 47.5777, -59.1420 are advisable.

Set your watch forward another half hour upon entering Newfoundland.

Port aux Basques to St. John's

In Newfoundland and the Trans-Canada (highway #1) follows a wide 900-km (550-mile) arc to the north from Port aux Basques through Corner Brook - GPS: 48.9513,-57.9418, Deer Lake - GPS: 49.1834 ,-57.4310, Grand Falls-Windsor - GPS: 48.9441 ,-55.6519, Gander - GPS: 48.9542 ,-54.6106 and then southeast to the Avalon Peninsula and St. John's - GPS: 47.5621 ,-52.7124 =. The highway is two lanes and most of these points (with the exception of St. John's and possibly Corner Brook) are small towns or villages. This route largely avoids the sparsely-populated, rugged and inaccessible south coast of Newfoundland, instead following the path of the former "Newfie Bullet" narrow-gauge railway. (The former rail line is now trailways.) There are a few feasible side trips: north to the Great Northern Peninsula (where a group of Vikings settled in northwestern Newfoundland briefly but didn't stay permanently) via Gros Morne National Park, south to Saint Pierre and Miquelon, France from the Burin Peninsula, or east along the historic Bonavista Peninsula.

In St. John's the Trans-Canada Highway ends inauspiciously on an Outer Ring Road which runs north of the city, past the airport. A more suitable ending point for a trans-Canada journey would be Signal Hill, a National Historic Site associated with the early Marconi experimentation in trans-Atlantic radio, or Cape Spear (just south of the city) as the easternmost point in Canada.

Stay safe as a Muslim in Trans-Canada Highway

The weather in parts of Canada can be extreme in winter. In much of northwestern Ontario, distances are long, settlements few and far between and cellular telephone coverage incomplete or sporadic. Be sure that your vehicle is in top condition and that you are carrying adequate supplies before setting out. In the west, this route crosses the Rocky Mountains and can be dangerous during winter storms - sometimes the road may even be closed due to snow avalanche risk.

In Newfoundland, a animal moose on the highway is a Canadian stop sign and is not to be ignored lightly. These animals are numerous, much heavier than deer or other wildlife and have a much higher centre of gravity. A moose through the windscreen in a vehicular collision can be deadly for both the vehicle's driver and the moose.

Unless you have two (or more) drivers, be prepared to spend at least a week on the highway - not including tour and sightseeing stops. The distances involved are not to be underestimated.

Beware of construction zones. There's an old joke that Canada's roads have two seasons - winter and construction - so be prepared for construction slowdowns with little notice anywhere along the route. Not only will construction slow you down, but you may have to contend with rather long stretches of very narrow temporary lanes (one in each direction), flanked by barrels, and some portions may be on rough temporary surface or shoulder.

Trans-Canada Highway

From Halal Explorer

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