The longest highway in the world is the Trans-Canada Highway, stretching just over 10,000 kilometers in length from east to west. TCH is a ribbon of concrete and asphalt joining together diverse regions of a vast country. It was started in the 1960s as a means to connect all the provinces with a paved highway from coast to coast. It took many years to complete, and is now in the process of being twinned or motorway-ed for most of its length. It is so long that very few Canadians have driven its entire length, and Canada being the type of country it is, we couldn’t be satisfied with having just one highway, so there are actually two TCHes for much of its route, a northern leg from Prince Rupert east to Winnipeg, and a southern route from Tofino to Winnipeg. In the east, there is a northern route via North Bay, and a southern route via Peterborough, both of which meet in Ottawa. Now, there is a problem portraying something so long on a map. After all, the highway is only 20 metres wide, but its length is 10,000 kms. We have had to segment the map into sections in order to show the route in detail. For example, the route through Newfoundland can only be shown by chopping off the northern portion of the province. Atlantic Canada needed to be shrunk in scale to fit the page, while Ontario has had to be divided into two portions. The Prairie provinces form three insets on side 2, with BC forming the last inset. The TCH is noted by a red maple leaf at regular intervals. The TCH is an east-west highway, essentially, not a north-south one, so unfortunately, the northern territories are not included. They have their own road networks, except Nunavut, which has virtually no roads, but this is, after all, a thematic touristic map of a man-made wonder that is typically Canadian. It would take a couple of weeks to drive it from one end to the other, assuming that one would like to sleep at night, and is absolutely unique as a travel experience. We took the grandkids on a Grand Adventure cross-country trip in 2022, taking the northern route east and the southern route back – 20,000 kms in a month, with enough time to explore old Fort William, Louisburg, Labrador, Niagara Falls, and points in between. Exhausting, but fun. This is a great adventure map!
Map size: 27*39"
This map is also available in digital format and flat map for $39.95 (per side). Please contact map@itmb.com if you would want to place an order or for more information.
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here to have an overview of the map
