For decades, crossing Canada by car meant crossing into the United States. The mountains, the lakes, the sheer scale of the Canadian Shield - every attempt to find an 'all-red route' through British territory failed. In 1912, a gold medal was offered for the first car to drive from Halifax to Victoria entirely on Canadian roads. It went unclaimed for 34 years. Early attempts ended with cars loaded onto trains to bypass impassable sections, or detoured briefly into Michigan or Washington.

The breakthrough came in 1943, when wartime urgency pushed a gravel road through northern Ontario from Hearst to Nipigon. Two years later, a Chevrolet finally made the journey entirely on Canadian soil. The Trans-Canada Highway Act of 1949 funded the proper road, which officially opened in 1962 - though paving wasn't complete until 1970. For a country that had existed since 1867, it took over a century to become driveable.

From Victoria, the highway winds north along Vancouver Island before crossing to the mainland by ferry. The real drama begins east of Vancouver, where the road enters the Coast Mountains and follows the Fraser Canyon - a gorge so deep and dramatic that the river below looks like a thread of jade. The historic Alexandra Bridge spans the chasm where gold rush miners once picked their way along cliffs.

The Rockies lie ahead. Through Rogers Pass in Glacier National Park, the highway threads between peaks that avalanche with such regularity that concrete snow sheds protect the road and military artillery crews sometimes trigger controlled slides. Banff and Yoho National Parks offer scenery so pristine it looks artificial - turquoise lakes, glaciers tonguing down from high peaks, wildlife bridges where elk and bears cross safely overhead. Calgary interrupts with a million people, then the prairies begin.

Saskatchewan and Manitoba stretch the highway into a seemingly endless line pointing east. The land is flat, the sky enormous, the farms measured in sections rather than acres. Grain elevators punctuate the horizon like prairie cathedrals. Small towns appear and vanish - Regina, Swift Current, Moose Jaw, names that sound like they belong in a different century.

The monotony is deceptive. This is some of the most productive agricultural land on Earth, the breadbasket that feeds much of the world. The Trans-Canada runs arrow-straight for hundreds of kilometers at a stretch, crossing time zones without the road ever curving. In winter, blowing snow can close the highway for days. In summer, thunderstorms build into anvil clouds that dwarf the land below. Winnipeg marks the eastern edge of the plains, a city built at the confluence of two rivers, gateway to what lies beyond.

From Winnipeg to Sudbury stretches the hardest section of the Trans-Canada - 2,000 kilometers of Canadian Shield, the ancient granite backbone of the continent. Lakes appear every few minutes, their shores thick with spruce and birch. Rock cuts expose pink granite billions of years old. Small towns are rare and far between; cell phone coverage vanishes for long stretches.

The highway hugs the north shore of Lake Superior for hundreds of kilometers, winding through some of the most beautiful - and most treacherous - driving in Canada. In winter, lake-effect snow can drop a meter overnight. The road curves constantly, climbing over ridges and dropping into valleys where moose browse in the ditches. Wawa, famous for stranding hitchhikers, marks the midpoint. The sign at its edge - 'Next Services 150 km' - is not a joke. This is wilderness disguised as a highway.

East of Sudbury, the highway splits - one branch heading to Toronto, the Trans-Canada proper continuing to Ottawa and Montreal. The character changes: more traffic, more French, more history. Quebec's autoroutes carry the route along the St. Lawrence, past villages that predate the highway by centuries. The Maritime provinces bring fishing boats, lighthouses, and the smell of salt air.

The crossing to Newfoundland requires an eight-hour ferry ride, the highway essentially floating across the Gulf of St. Lawrence. On the island, 900 kilometers of two-lane road wind through boreal forest and past coastal communities where the cod fishery defined life for five centuries. Moose are a genuine hazard - heavy enough to kill drivers in collisions. The road ends at St. John's, where Signal Hill once received the first transatlantic radio signal. From here, there is no more east. Only ocean, and Europe beyond.