Upcoming cross-Canada trip suggestions

[2dogs1van]

My partner, our two dogs, and I head out from Seattle to Florida this Monday in our '87 Westy. We do this trip trip every fall and return every spring. We avoid interstate highways as much as we can, as we prefer to take the slower secondary scenic roads instead (the "Blue Highways" of William Least Heat Moon). We've done a different southern route, a northern route, and a diagonal route through the U.S. each time for the past 4 years.

This year we'd like to drive across Canada from British Columbia to Nova Scotia and then head down the East Coast of the U.S. from Maine to Florida.
I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions for scenic routes to take across Canada. (We'd like to avoid the Trans Canada Highway as much as possible.) Any "must see's" along the way? Recommended campsites? Do you think the weather will be too cold in the prairie provinces this time of year to camp comfortably? Any and all advice welcomed.

We have our free Canada National Parks pass, btw. Thank you very much to the generous people of Canada for that.

(And I did a search here on the Samba with the term "Canada" but didn't come up with much for folks traveling across the country. Lots of info about north-south trips from the U.S. to Canada though.)

Thank you! And fingers crossed no break downs this year.....

[dobryan]

Sounds like a lot of fun. I drove the Trans Canada Highway in 2015 so I am no help....
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Dave O
'87 Westy w/ 2010 Subaru EJ25 (Vanaru) and Peloquin TBD

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." Robert Louis Stevenson

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[danfromsyr]

you will be at times doing more than flirting with wintery weather.. so be prepared to keep warm, dry, fed and hydrated if you have to wait something out.. make sure your tires are as new as possible to deal with a cold/wet/slick road surface. the older tires get the harder the rubber gets.
if when travelling thru the eastern portion of canada try to swing thru Quebec and more specifically Tadoussac, Qc
https://www.google.com/search?q=tadoussac+canada

you can watch whales from the shore and take a ferry across the St Lawrence and then into Maine that way.

I can offer some hints and advice in the new england area.. will post that later or PM me
You will be in the off season for many much of the campgrounds.. so check ahead 1st before you are 'counting' on any specific location for a night.
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[Gauche1968]

Somewhere up there in BC is a back road that leads to a park in Washington State with no customs control on it (there is no way out onto the road network in the US, you can only go back to Canada) Anyway, that is a bit of a novelty to experience.
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1984 Vanagon GL
1984 Vanagon Westy

[rfoubi]

The weather really starts to get iffy at this time of year. You should still do it though. Nice days are really nice with the fall colours, but if the weather moves in the passes will get snow at this time of year.

If you are looking for a different route through BC, take the #3 (Crowsnest Highway). Windy and scenic through the kootenays. Hopefully you have winter tires and/or chains for the passes. If you end up taking that route send me a message and you can camp in our driveway! Rossland BC. Enjoy! Nelson is nice, and if its snowy over kootenay pass you can detour through ainsworth hot springs and an awesome free ferry across kootenay lake. (Balfour to Crawford Bay).

We have driven across the states more than we have canada even though we live here. But the one time we did the coast to coast in canada we ended in october and it was beautiful. Im sure people out east will pipe up about whether you will be too late for the fall colours but out here in BC they are prime right now.

Have fun!

[campism]

My wife and I like to "collect" enclaves, geopolitical anomalies like the Eastern Shore of Virginia and the Kentucky Bend, places in a given state that can only be reached by road by going through other states/provinces. The ESV from the main part of Virginia only through Maryland (ignoring the bridge tunnel) or the Bend through Tennessee. Last visit out west we made the trip to Point Roberts, Washington, a little nub of land that hangs below the border with Canada into the Strait of Georgia, by crossing at Blaine and driving toward Delta BC. Incidentally, the border posse at Point Bob will look at you curiously when you give this particular reason for your visit.

A Westy parked in Point Roberts.

Heading east from there be sure to check out the Frank Slide area east of Crowsnest Pass and the Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump near Lethbridge AB.

Southeast of Winnipeg MB there's a twofer enclave, two parts of Minnesota that can only be reached by land through Manitoba. The Northwest Angle and Elm Point are next for us.

.
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'87 Westy in Wolfram Grey Metallic, tragically crushed by a falling hickory tree in my own driveway and now gone, leaving me Vanagonless and with no plans to replace it, alas.

[JonCanadian]

The TransCanada through northern Ontario and Quebec is pretty nice. Two lane highway mostly and very scenic. Places to see in Ontario would be Lake Superior Provincial Park (just north of Sault Ste Marie), Kilarney and Algonquin Parks. A driving route from Sault Ste Marie to Sudbury to North Bay to Ottawa to Montreal on the TransCanada is great. Keep in mind that many campgrounds will now be closed and you might get some snow and frost in the evenings. From Montreal to Quebec on the north shore of the St Laurent is boring and is a big highway. The south shore route (Hwy 132) is prettier. East of Quebec city, Parc Bic is good to see. If you have time, follow the south shore all the way around to Gaspe and then into New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Alternatively, passing through Sherbrooke into rural Maine or going from Montreal into Vermont and New Hampshire is good too.

[campism]

Once you get back into the U.S. and are making your way south through Maine, keep an eye out along U.S. 1 for installations of the Maine Solar System Model, a scale (size of sun, planets and relative distances) model of our home turf. Here's our van with one of the more recognizable planets.

http://pages.umpi.edu/nmms/solar/

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'87 Westy in Wolfram Grey Metallic, tragically crushed by a falling hickory tree in my own driveway and now gone, leaving me Vanagonless and with no plans to replace it, alas.

[Jeffrey Lee]

[dhaavers]

x2...beautiful 2-lane highway...

A few widely-spaced suggestions:

- Banff National Park/Lake Louise

- Thunder Bay:
...Kakabeka Falls Prov. Park
...Amethyst mines
..."Sleeping Giant"
...Terry Fox memorial

- North shore of Lk. Superior:
...Neys Prov. Park (& others)
...Wawa's "Great Goose" (pic above)
...Soo Locks @ Sault St. Marie
...(side trip to Whitefish Point...???)

- Ferry across Georgian Bay to Tobermory (Lk. Huron)
- beautiful beach & lighthouse @ Goderich
(Watch sunset from the beach, quickly climb bluff & watch it again!)

- Toronto!
- Niagara-on-the-Lake
- Niagara Falls (of course)
...
...
...

What a fun trip! I'd love to do this if I had 6 months or more...

- Dave
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86 White Wolfsburg Westy Weekender
"The WonderVan"
<EDITED TO PROTECT INNOCENT PIXELS>

[Gauche1968]

I have been hit by a snowstorm in May on the Trans Canada about 200 kilometres out from the Sault, same thing can happen in October. And by snowstorm, I don't mean a few flakes--I mean road closed snowstorm. Next day it was like 65 degrees.
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1984 Vanagon GL
1984 Vanagon Westy