Overview of all pages with the region #Western Canada

BC Highway 5 (Coquihalla): The Mountain Gauntlet

How British Columbia's fastest route to the Interior became its most demanding winter freight corridor — and what the 2021 atmospheric river revealed about its vulnerability

Posted on June 19, 2026 (Last modified on June 21, 2026)

British Columbia Highway 5 — the Coquihalla Highway — has a reputation among commercial drivers that is earned every winter. The 315-kilometre corridor from Hope to Kamloops climbs to 1,244 metres (4,081 feet) at the Coquihalla Summit, receives some of the heaviest snowfall of any highway in Canada, and closes multiple times each winter for avalanche control or storm-related hazards.

It is also the most important freight artery between the Port of Vancouver and the BC Interior. When the Coquihalla shuts down, the supply chain for much of western Canada feels it.

AB-63: Canada's Highway of Death to Fort McMurray

How Alberta's oil sands service corridor became one of North America's most dangerous industrial freight routes — and what a decade of twinning has and has not fixed

Posted on June 18, 2026 (Last modified on June 21, 2026)

There are dangerous roads, and then there is Alberta Highway 63.

For decades, the 465-kilometre corridor between Edmonton and Fort McMurray carried a grim distinction: one of the highest per-kilometre fatality rates of any Canadian highway. The road became so notorious that provincial politicians, safety advocates, and the families of accident victims campaigned for years under the banner of “Twinning 63” — arguing that the single-lane highway was a preventable killer.