The Making of a Cross Canada Route

I'm in

+1 for the "Beaver Trail" or Beaver Cross Canada Trail or Beaver DS Trail .....whatever it is I love the Beav.....and the DS and the Canada.

Can't wait till you come out west lots of stuff to see in Alberta.

Paved roads might be necessary to get into towns for gas/maintenance/repairs......

Keep it alive . SWEET. SWEET. SWEET.

Pincher Creek area of Alberta is pretty darn nice and fairly historical as well. Waterton Lakes National park is spectacular, and an obvious stopping point for someone traveling through that way. There are a myriad of logging and mining roads running east through B.C. from there as well.
I don't know much about east of Pincher Creek though.

The Beaver Trail .......hmmmm.

No worries on keeping it alive, we're commited to it.

Paved roads will be used, it would be next to impossible not to. Almost every town is paved, even the very remote one's. As some one else mentioned it would be a annoying, I think, to be criss crossing slab just for the sake of trying to stay on gravel. They are dual sport bikes after all so some pavement will be utilized, we're just trying to limit the amount of it as there a few areas where it will have to be used as there are no other choices (a few Northern locations, crossing towns, getting to a ferry, linking fun trails and back roads, etc).

Two and half weeks until a group of us head out to ride Labrador and NFLD for a few weeks. Not much happenning between now and then riding wise for me. NFLD looks very promising, lot's of old rail beds to explore. The main one across the middle (T'Rail) is almost 900 km's long and a few of the others we plan to ride look great as well :)

The Beaver Trail eh. :)

Very, very cool.

Another thought would be organizing the trail or maps or waypoints into say, 1 week travel blocks. That would give users an idea of how long things should be taking and would maybe give someone realistic expectations of what could be accomplished during a typical vacation.

Another advantage to having the route available with GPS formatting would be the ease that others could add trail, replace trail that gets paved or provide go-arounds for bridge outages or logging road changes.

Just a suggestion.

Thanks for taking the time to do this.

I would also think that if you do get around to publishing a road book or roll chart, that you might look to the chambers of commerce or tourism boards to help with funding. Once this is done, it could breathe new life into some smaller towns.

Cool, cool, cool.

Tom B

What a great project, and a very entertaining story.


That looks like a friendly dragonfly chomping mosquitoes for you.

I'm just coming back from Radisson in Northern Québec. There is a road at the 274 km on the Trans Taïga that leads to Chibougamau. This road is 400 km of pure gravel. You cross some of the big rivers like the Rupert and the Eastmain.

One of the challenge will be refueling. The map that you show crosses many south-north roads that don't have any refueling point that far north. 400 or 500 km of autonomy seems to be the minimum at least in Quebec.

If you need any informations or help about the Quebec territory, just le me know. I and some friends pretty well know the territory.

this is a great RR - y'all be sure to rate the thread - this is at least a 4 star thread IMHO!

We did the Route Du Nord last fall when we went up to Radisson, out to James Bay and then east down the Trans Tiaga to the very end.

Here's our ride report.

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=506183&highlight=trans+Taiga

Wish I could string together more than a few hours at a time to go explorin' with you guys! Keep uyp the great work!!!

Some good idea's thanks Tom.
When we publish it, our intent is to have a series of files for download or that we bundle and email out.

Roadbook files that you can print out yourself and either tape them together for a roadbook or have someone print them for you on a continous roll.

A google earth file that will enable you to see the entire route and zoom in to see specific locations. This can be used fairly easily to copy over to a paper map if you choose.

Some gpx files for the days or sections that we choose not to roadbook (the more easily navagated days).

A word document broken down into a day by day (or section depending on terrain) describing a "what to expect", etc. It's hard to breakdown into days as people's riding time, speed they ride, stops, etc all vary.

Based on receiving the above informaion we feel the route should be navigated without problems. Going over the provided information would also enable you to just pick a section based on terrain and location for a "typical week or two" vacation. Maybe folks will break it down and complete the route in "chunks", who knows. We hope people will ride the entire route, this is the intent and will let you see Canada from coast to coast. The people and the landscapes change dramatically as you cross the country.

As the route will be free there should be no reason not to have the most recent "version" of the route before heading off on your trip. We hope to receive input from those of you who ride the route as to any changes needed or sections that get blocked,paved, watered out, etc so we can make changes to the files we distribute. Most of the route takes public roads so we don't anticipate any changes, the rail trails have been there for many years and unless bikes loose their access rights the route should be pretty stable. We're doing our best to keep the route from utilizing roads-areas that are subjectable to road-trail closures. This seems to be an issue in some area's with logging and mining companies who decommision a road once they are done with it or who end up "owning" or building the road and restrict access to it with gates, etc
We're steering clear of these area's, sometimes at the expense of some great riding, for the simple reason that we don't want to be continually changing the route.

Gidday Fraser, there are some secions close to "home" that aren't completed yet :)

YEEAAAHHH!!!!! ---------"BEAVER TRAIL"--------

Completely subscribed! Need to get me a Dual Sport now! I can always blame it on you guys when the wife finds out about the new bike in the garage!

Fantastic work! Keep it comin'!

I would sugges that you add in a Maritime loop that allows riders to take in Nova Scota, PEI and New Brunswick. That way, someone could follow the route Ont, Que Nfld and carry on with a loop Nova Scotia, PEI, New Brunswick, Quebec. The dualsport clubs in NS and NB would be glad to lay out the routes in our provinces (rather rash of me to speak for them but I know that they would be in for this.

Interesting idea.
Could you email or pm me the links to the clubs?
Thanks

Hi Guys,

Just jumping in. Link for Nova Scotia is http://www.dualsport.ca/

and the link for the Nova Scotia Off Road Riders Association (NSORRA) is http://www.offroadriders.ca/

jcolborne@pathfinder-group.com - Jonathon might be a good starting point contact from NSORRA. I am a new member so don't know a lot of the guys just yet.

From here I think you can connect with all three. Hope this helps.

Regards,

Grant

I think this is a great idea! I find myself thinking that it would be great to also have the more challenging options included somehow. Don't know how it would work in the format you're using though.

The link to the New Brunswick Dual Sport Club is:

www.nbdsc.ca

The NB route is pretty much established. Last summer NBDSC helped a group from New Jersey do a trip through most of NB. They were riding KTM 950's and similar bikes, loaded with gear. The trail was made suitable for them, challenging, mostly dirt, but fun. Search the ride report on ADV called "The Jersey Boys Run" or something like that. The NB portion was near the end of their trip. This is a great idea. A trail I'd like to ride once I get my bigger bike (I ride a KDX 200 Dual Sport now), but looking for a 650 Adventure bike in the next year or two to add to the stable.

Keep up the good work!!

Very interesting idea. We're a bit worried of scope creep as what we've already planned is a big undertaking. But given folks will have to travel through that area .... Either add to the trail or perhaps have some available routes as an "interesting" way to get to the start.

This WILL be discussed, thanks.