Trans-Canada Highway

Coast-to-coast highway, 7,837 km/4,870 mi long, linking Victoria, British Columbia in the west with North Sydney on Cape Breton Island in the east. A ferry across Cabot Strait carries traffic to an extension of the highway in Newfoundland from Port-aux-Basques to St John's. The highway has a series of ‘overnight parks’ for camping. The project was inaugurated by an Act of Parliament passed in 1949, and the mainland highway was formally opened in the summer of 1962; the Newfoundland section was finished in 1965-66.

The mainland route passes through Vancouver, Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, and Port Arthur, skirts the Great Lakes to Ottawa and Montréal, where it crosses the St Lawrence River, and continues south of the river, turning east at Rivière-du-Loup and into New Brunswick. Passing through Fredericton and Moncton, the highway enters Nova Scotia, crosses into Cape Breton Island, and ends its mainland section at the ferry terminus of North Sydney. The Trans-Canada Highway, or TCH, also runs across southern Prince Edward Island.

The path of the highway was decided by the provinces, subject to the approval of the federal government; the main criterion was that it should be the shortest practical east-west route through each province. By 1952 all provinces had signed agreements to participate except Québec, which remained outside the scheme until 1960.