British-Columbia

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.

The Yellowhead Highway (Highway 16) stretches from Portage la Prairie, Manitoba to Prince Rupert, British Columbia — over 3,000 kilometres of Canada’s northern transcontinental corridor. For much of its length, the Yellowhead is a serviceable two-lane highway through boreal forest and prairie. But two sections in the mountain west require specific attention from commercial drivers: the Jasper–Hinton corridor in Alberta, and the McBride–Tête Jaune Cache section in British Columbia.

These stretches are dangerous for overlapping but distinct reasons: extreme wildlife density, remote location, severe winter weather, mountain terrain, and in the case of the BC section, a troubling history of violence against highway users that has given this road a dark nickname.

The Trans-Canada Highway is the longest national highway in the world, stretching over 7,800 kilometres from Victoria, BC to St. John’s, NL. For most of its length it is a manageable, if sometimes remote, route. But two sections in the western mountains stand apart: Rogers Pass through Glacier National Park in British Columbia, and the Banff–Lake Louise corridor on the BC–Alberta border through Banff National Park. Together, these segments represent some of the most consequential driving in Canadian commercial trucking.