The Drive Across Canada by automotive journalist Mark Richardson is an engaging history of the people, politics, and persistence behind crossing Canada by road.
The Trans-Canada Highway now stretches roughly 7,700 kilometers from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to Victoria, British Columbia. Richardson shows how extraordinary that achievement was.
Long before a continuous highway existed, pioneering motorists and motorcyclists attempted to cross a country of mountains, forests, rivers, and vast distances, often relying on primitive roads, trails, ferries, and even railway infrastructure.
Richardson connects these early adventures to the political struggle to create a national highway linking Canada’s provinces. He also brings the story into the present through his own 2023 drive across the country, during which he encounters a hurricane in Newfoundland, wildfires in British Columbia, tragedies on the Prairies, and people whose lives have been shaped by the highway.
The result is more than a road-trip book. It is an entertaining combination of automotive history, Canadian history, and travel writing that shows how the Trans-Canada Highway became both a transportation route and a symbol of a country connected across a continent.