Road Walking on the Trans Canada Trail: What People Need to Understand

“The Trail is not perfect.”

Trans Canada Trail, Our Response to Concerns Over the Use of Roadway on the Trans Canada Trail

 

The Trail People Envision and Imagine

 

Most people have a vision of the Trans Canada Trail before they ever set foot on it. Understandably, they imagine an off-road wilderness footpath stretching across Canada, something akin to the Appalachian Trail, the Bruce Trail, or one of the great long-distance hiking paths of the world. In that imagined version, there may be a few road crossings, a stretch of sidewalk in a town here and there, or the occasional paved connector, but generally the trail is thought and expected to be a continuous route through forests, along rivers, over mountains, and across wild landscapes.

 

That public image is powerful. It is often how the Trans Canada Trail is advertised, promoted, photographed, and publicly understood. The images that circulate most widely tend to emphasize the most beautiful parts of the national pathway: rail trails under autumn leaves, coastal footpaths above the ocean, boardwalks through wetlands, paved urban greenways, mountain corridors, and serene forest paths. Those places on the Trans Canada Trail definitely do exist, are real, and many of them are extraordinary. Indeed, some of them are among the most beautiful places we have ever walked.

 

But they are not the whole story.

 

The Trans Canada Trail is wonderful, but it is not always a trail in the way many people imagine a trail. It is a national pathway made from many kinds of routes: rail trails, sidewalks, urban greenways, forest paths, gravel roads, highways, water routes, ferry links, and connectors. Some sections are among the most beautiful places we have ever walked. Others are long, exposed, noisy, dusty, or give way to unnerving road walks. Both realities belong to the TCT. Understanding that before you set out does not diminish the trail. It makes you better prepared for it.

 

This matters whether you are planning to walk across one province, cycle a famous rail trail, follow the pathway through your own community, or dream of crossing the country as we did on our #Hike4Birds on the Trans Canada Trail. The TCT is not one thing. At more than 28,000 km, it could never be one thing. It is a vast national network, stitched together across provinces, territories, municipalities, parks, waterways, highways, trail associations, local communities, and landscapes that vary enormously from coast to coast to coast.

For that reason, one of the most important things people need to understand before heading out is this: road walking is not an exception to the Trans Canada Trail experience. In fact, in many places, it is part of the experience.

 

The Reality: The TCT is a Network, Not One Continuous Footpath

 

When we began walking the Trans Canada Trail from the Atlantic toward the Pacific and then north toward the Arctic, the difference between the public image of the trail and the reality on the ground became clear in stages.

 

In Atlantic Canada, road connectors began appearing fairly early. In Nova Scotia, there were stretches of road between trail segments, sometimes 5 km, sometimes 10 km, sometimes a little longer. These connectors could feel unnerving, especially when we had expected the route to remain on rail trails or coastal pathways. At the same time, many of these road sections seemed to function simply as temporary bridges between existing trails, places where the off-road option was unavailable, incomplete, or still waiting for future development.

 

We encountered similar connectors in New Brunswick. There were beautiful trails, rugged wilderness paths, rail corridors, and forested sections, but there were also roads, industrial corridors, and practical links between more developed pieces of trail. Yet even at that stage, road walking still felt like something that happened between trails.

 

As we continued across the country, that changed.

 

In Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and the North, road sections were not incidental. They shaped the experience. They influenced where we could sleep, how much water we needed to carry, how tired we became, how much traffic we faced, how safely we could move, and how connected to nature we felt on any given day.

 

In Northern Ontario, road walking often meant highway shoulders, fast traffic, transport trucks, empty water and liquor bottles, noise, debris, and the constant mental strain of walking beside vehicles for hours.

 

In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the route often moved onto rural gravel roads, concession roads, and exposed prairie corridors that were hot, dusty, open, and not designed with walkers in mind.

 

In Alberta, there were sections where the distinction between “route” and “trail” became especially important, including alignments on busy roads and highways – so much so that at times felt that we had to choose to re-route to avoid sections too dangerous to trek.

In British Columbia, we encountered everything from spectacular rail trails and mountain routes to damaged sections and urban connectors.

 

In the North en route to the Arctic, these realities changed again. From Dawson Creek northward, highways and roadways were no longer occasional connectors between trails. They became the dominant reality of the land route to the Arctic. In those regions, road and highway walking was not simply part of the trail. For long stretches, it was the trail.  From Dawson Creek northward, the Trans Canada Trail’s land route follows a long sequence of northern highways: the Alaska Highway through northern British Columbia and the Yukon, the North Klondike Highway from Whitehorse to Dawson City, the Dempster Highway from Dawson City to Inuvik, and finally the Inuvik–Tuktoyaktuk Highway to the Arctic Ocean.

 

None of this is meant as a criticism of every road section. Some roads are quiet, scenic, and practical. Some are necessary because of geography, land ownership, infrastructure, or the sheer scale of Canada. Some are better suited to cyclists than walkers. Some may eventually be replaced by off-road trail as communities build, fund, and maintain new routes. But for those travelling the TCT now, especially on foot, the presence of roads matters.

 

It shapes the journey.

 

Is the Trans Canada Trail Really a Trail? Frequently Asked Questions
 
1. Is the Trans Canada Trail really a trail?

 

Yes, but not one kind of trail. It is a national pathway network. In some places, it is a beautiful off-road trail. In others, it is a rail trail, a paved urban path, a water route, a rural road, a highway shoulder, or a connector between more developed sections.

 

2. What do people get wrong about the Trans Canada Trail?

 

They assume it is mostly an off-road walking trail. The better explanation is that the TCT is a network, not a single continuous footpath. It connects existing infrastructure: local trails, former rail lines, roads, sidewalks, parks, water routes, and highways.

 

That is why it can be magnificent in one region and frustrating in the next.

 

3. Is the Trans Canada Trail all off-road?

 

No. The Trans Canada Trail includes many extraordinary off-road sections, but it is not entirely off-road. Road walking, highway shoulders, sidewalks, paved paths, gravel concessions, and rural connectors are part of the experience in many regions.

 

This matters because someone planning a week on PEI, the Kettle Valley Railway, or the P’tit Train du Nord may have a very different experience from someone trying to cross northern Ontario, the Prairies, Alberta, or hike to the Arctic.

 

4. Are there highway sections on the Trans Canada Trail?

 

Yes. Ontario out of North Bay westward, involves Highway 17 / Trans Canada Highway walking, narrow shoulders, fast vehicles, transport trucks, noise, and very few places to stop safely.

 

In both Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the TCT is not on major highways, but the majority of the trail is on exposed gravel rural roads, which are difficult, hot, dusty and not designed with walkers in mind.

 

In Alberta, there are a number of sections on very busy highways and roadways.

 

However, the route of the TCT north to the Arctic is almost entirely on roads and highways. From Dawson’s Creek BC northward, highways are not a minor connector; they cease being part of the trail and become the singular reality of the TCT.

 

5. How much of the Trans Canada Trail is on roads?

 

When we began to prepare and train for our hike in 2018- 2019 and the route was 22,000-24,000 km long, the TCT quietly noted in a posting titled “Our Response to Concerns Over the Use of Roadway on the Trans Canada Trail” that the national pathway - “Currently ….includes 8,265 Km of roadway, consisting of highways, side roads or country roads. The highest percentage of highway can be found in remote northern regions, where no other option exists.” 

Put another way, even the TCT’s own roadway-safety article says roadways are part of the Trail and make up about 30 percent of the network. The exact figure has and may continue to shift as the trail changes, but the larger point remains: roads are not an exception to the TCT experience. In many regions, they are part of the design.

 

6. Why are roads part of the TCT?

 

Roads exist because Canada is enormous. The Trans Canada Trail crosses a country of immense distances, varied landscapes, uneven population density, and very different local realities. In some regions, there are well-maintained rail trails, municipal pathways, park corridors, and historic footpaths. In others, there are few existing off-road corridors that can be linked together into a continuous route.

 

Many former rail lines are gone, private, active, damaged, or undeveloped. Some pass through areas where land ownership is complex or where a public trail corridor has not yet been secured. Rural municipalities and small trail organizations may not have the money, volunteers, or equipment needed to build and maintain long off-road routes across difficult terrain. In some places, especially in rural and northern Canada, there may not be a large enough local population to justify developing the kind of pathway that would make sense in a city, park, or more heavily used recreational area.

 

Water routes and winter routes also do not always translate into practical summer walking routes. A paddling route may be part of the national pathway, but that does not mean a hiker can easily follow a similar parallel corridor on land. A winter trail may be usable by snowmobile, skis, or dogsled in one season, but wet, overgrown, muddy, or impassable in another. In the North, there may simply be no other realistic land-based option besides roads and highways.

 

Acknowledging this does not excuse every difficult or unsafe condition. It simply helps explain why roads are part of the network. Geography, funding, land ownership, population density, maintenance, climate, and local infrastructure all shape what the TCT can be in a given place.

 

7. How does road walking change the TCT experience?

 

Road walking changes the Trans Canada Trail in almost every practical and emotional way.

 

It changes safety. On an off-road trail, your concerns may be footing, weather, wildlife, mud, roots, bridges, forest blowdowns, or route navigation. On a road, traffic becomes a constant concern. A narrow shoulder, a blind corner, a transport truck, a distracted driver, loose gravel, or construction can change the feel of a day very quickly.

 

It changes pace. Road walking can sometimes be faster because the surface is firm and direct, but it can also be exhausting because the body moves differently on pavement, gravel, and cambered shoulders. Long straight roads can make distance feel endless. On hot days, exposed roads can feel much longer than the measured kilometres.

 

It changes sound. Instead of birdsong, wind in the trees, waves, rivers, or the rhythm of your steps, road sections often bring traffic noise, engine brakes, motorcycles, transport trucks, construction equipment, and the constant need to listen for what is coming behind you.

 

It changes stress. Walking beside traffic requires a kind of attention that off-road walking usually does not. You are not only moving through a landscape; you are also monitoring vehicles, shoulders, intersections, driveways, dogs, dust, and sightlines. That level of alertness can become mentally draining over long days.

It changes water access. Trails often pass streams, parks, towns, campgrounds, or natural water sources. Roads may not. On some road sections, especially across prairie and northern landscapes, water planning becomes more serious. A ditch full of agricultural runoff, a private farmyard, or a distant gas station is not the same as a reliable stream or campground tap.

 

It changes camping options. On a trail, especially in parks, forests, or backcountry areas, there may be established places to stop. On a road, there may be fences, private land, narrow shoulders, wetlands, gravel pits, industrial areas, or long stretches with nowhere obvious to rest.

 

This affects not only overnight camping, but also simple things like where or if you can sit for a break or lunch, where to get out of the wind, or where to stop safely in bad weather.

 

It changes shade. Roads often remove you from the shelter of the forest. In the Prairies, that can mean long periods of exposure. In summer heat, the lack of shade can become one of the defining parts of the day. On gravel and paved surfaces, heat rises from below as well as above.

 

It changes bathroom stops. This may sound minor until you are walking all day beside roads, farms, towns, ditches, or traffic. Privacy can become rare. Services may be far apart. What is simple in the woods becomes more complicated in exposed human landscapes.

 

It changes the wildlife experience. Road walking can still bring wildlife, birds, and extraordinary moments, but it often changes how you encounter them. Instead of quietly moving through habitat, you may be watching birds from a shoulder, seeing animals beside ditches, or passing through landscapes shaped by agriculture, industry, or traffic.

It changes navigation. On a well-marked trail, you follow blazes, signs, paths, or obvious corridors. On road sections, the route may depend on apps, maps, turns, highway signage, construction updates, and whether the official line actually matches what is safe or practical on the ground.

 

It changes emotional fatigue. Long road sections can wear you down in ways that are difficult to explain until you have done them. It is not only the distance. It is the exposure, the noise, the lack of rest, the traffic, the repetition, and the feeling that you are moving through a landscape designed for vehicles rather than people.

 

Most of all, road walking changes how “wild” or “connected to nature” the trail feels. This does not mean there is no beauty on roads. Some of our road walks were memorable. Some gave us views, open skies, and acts of kindness we would not have found elsewhere. But they are different from forest footpaths, rail trails, coastal routes, or mountain corridors.

Road walking in Nova Scotia on connectors, road walking in New Brunswick through industrial corridors, highway walking in northern Ontario, dusty prairie roads in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, and the northern highways toward the Arctic all taught us the same thing: roads are not just a surface underfoot. They change the nature of the trek entirely.

 

8. Do roads and highways diminish the Trans Canada Trail?

 

No. Understanding that roads and highways are key components and a large part of the Trans Canada Trail makes the national path more understandable. The beautiful sections are still beautiful. The rail trails, coastal routes, urban greenways, wilderness paths, and mountain corridors are still part of the TCT as well. But the road sections are real, too, and being honest about them helps people prepare.

 

What Should Hikers Know Before Road Walking on the TCT?

 

Road walking on the Trans Canada Trail begins with expectations. If you set out believing the TCT is always an off-road footpath, the first long road connector can feel like a failure, a mistake, or simply a shock. If you understand from the beginning that roads, highways, sidewalks, gravel concessions, and rural connectors are part of the national pathway, then you can prepare for them physically and mentally.

 

There is no simple or straightforward formula for walking on the side of roadways or busy highways for days, weeks, or months at a time. There is no rulebook that can tell you exactly what to do in every situation. Conditions change too much. Traffic changes. Weather changes. Shoulders appear and disappear. Construction begins. Smoke rolls in. Dogs come out from farmyards. A quiet country road in the morning can feel very different by late afternoon when you are on a busy highway. A route that looks reasonable on a map may feel very different when you are exhausted, standing on the edge of it with a pack, a cart, and vehicles rushing past.

 

Instead, road walking is not one skill. It is a combination of expectation, visibility, judgment, patience, staying aware, and being willing to stop or change plans when the road no longer feels safe.

 

For us, handling road walking meant slowing down, staying visible, paying attention to traffic, checking maps carefully, listening to local advice, and being honest about when a road felt merely unpleasant and when it felt dangerously unsafe.   Some road sections were practical. But there is no denying that others were loud, exposed, dusty, hot, unnerving, and exhausting. A road section is not automatically a bad section, just as an off-road section is not automatically safe or easy. But road walking changes the experience, and anyone planning to hike or cycle long distances on the TCT should know that before setting out.

 

It also meant accepting that our pace and the wear on our bodies changed. On paper, a road can look easier than a trail. It is usually more direct. It may have fewer technical aspects to contend with.   But walking all day on pavement or gravel can be hard on feet, knees, hips, and morale. A day that looks simple in kilometres may feel much harder because of exposure, heat, traffic, or the lack of safe places to rest.

It meant carrying enough water, especially in agricultural, prairie, and northern regions where services could be far apart, and natural water sources were not always available or usable. It meant thinking ahead about where we could stop, where we could get off the road, and whether there was any shelter from sun, wind, storms, or smoke.  In these areas, we ultimately had to carry 20 litres of water in our trekking carts – which in turn shapes the weight you are deal with.

 

It meant being visible. On road sections, we could not assume drivers were watching for walkers. Many were not. Some moved over. Some did not. Some slowed down. Some seemed annoyed that anyone was there at all. Some drove directly at us.   Bright clothing, lights, reflective gear, and careful positioning helped, but they did not remove the risk. Road walking requires constant attention and the ability to move out of the way quickly if you have to.

 

It meant listening to local people without surrendering our own judgment. Sometimes locals knew about construction, closures, bad shoulders, or safer alternatives. Sometimes they warned us away from a section for good reason. Other times, people and police told us something was impossible simply because they could not imagine walking it. We had to listen, ask questions, and still make our own decisions – often at times when there weren’t a lot of other options available.

 

It meant understanding that official does not always mean easy, pleasant, or safe in the moment. The official line on a map matters, but so do weather, visibility, shoulder width, traffic, fatigue, daylight, and the condition of your body. The most important thing we learned was that road walking requires humility: the willingness to accept that the official trail may point in one direction, but that the conditions in the moment and common sense also still matter a great deal.

 

This lesson leads into one of the larger truths of the Trans Canada Trail. Long-distance travel is not simply about determination. It is also about adaptation. Sometimes you continue. Sometimes you slow down. Sometimes you stop early. Sometimes you wait. Sometimes you take the road because the trail is impassable. Sometimes you leave the road because the road is no longer safe. None of that is failure. It is part of travelling across a country as large, varied, and complicated as Canada.

 

Understanding the Trans Canada Trail

 

In acknowledging these realities, we are not trying to diminish the Trans Canada Trail. We are trying to describe it accurately, because accurate expectations matter when people are planning to walk, cycle, paddle, or travel across it.

As we already noted, a road section is not automatically a bad section, just as an off-road section is not automatically a safe or easy section. Some of the most insightful days on the TCT happened on roads. Some of the most frustrating and difficult days happened on trails. We have followed beautiful rail trails that felt effortless and we have followed official trail sections that were flooded, destroyed by wildfires, overgrown, washed out, or impossible with our gear. We have walked roads that gave us enormous skies, generous strangers, unexpected wildlife, and stunning vistas. We have also walked roads that left us exhausted, anxious, dusty, and desperate to reach a safer place.

 

That is why honesty and knowledge about roads and highways - gained from lived experience matters.

 

The TCT contains some of the most beautiful pathways we have ever walked, but it also contains roads, highways, sidewalks, gravel concessions, industrial corridors, and long connectors. Both realities are part of the national pathway. For anyone heading out to hike a province, cycle a section, or dream of crossing the country, knowing that matters. Honesty does not make the trail smaller. It makes people better prepared for the trail they will actually find.

 

The Trans Canada Trail is no less meaningful because it is complicated. In many ways, that complexity is part of what makes it such an honest reflection of the country it crosses. Canada is not one landscape, one story, one surface, or one experience - neither is the Trans Canada Trail.

 

It ventures along coastal footpaths and city sidewalks. It includes both rail trails and rural roads. It traces mountain corridors just as it follows prairie concessions. It includes ferry crossings, water routes, gravel shoulders, forest tracks, and northern highways. It is beautiful, frustrating, inspiring, difficult, practical, imperfect, and still developing.

 

The important thing is to know what you are setting out to do.

 

See you on the Trail!