Search for ""

On 28 May 1980, 22 workers on a Canadian Pacific Railway steel crew were killed in a bus accident on the Trans-Canada Highway near Webb, Saskatchewan, west of Regina. It was one of the deadliest motor vehicle disasters in Canadian history.

The White Pass & Yukon Route railway was built to meet the demand for transportation to the gold fields of the Yukon River basin during the Klondike Gold Rush. Completed in 1900, it was a feat of engineering and one of the steepest railways in North America. It ran 177 km from Skagway, Alaska, to Whitehorse, Yukon. Today, tourist rail excursions run on a portion of the original line.

Military aviation began with the use of balloons for observation as early as 1794, during the French Revolution.

Mackinaw Boat, a strong flat-bottomed boat, pointed at each end and with a hold in the middle, was used by fur traders during the French regime for running downstream. It was later adapted for open water by the addition of 2 sails and a steering oar. By the 1870s a distinctive type, 6.7 m to 8.

Icebreakers were first used in the Canadian Arctic in the 1920s to deliver supplies and services to Native and isolated settlements during the short summer season, and to back up claims of Canadian sovereignty over the NORTHWEST PASSAGE and ARCTIC ARCHIPELAGO.

Transport Canada is the federal government department responsible for the regulation and administration of transportation policies, programs and services to promote the safety and efficiency of the national transportation system.

The Nova Scotia Nautical Institute was an institute for seamanship training founded in 1872. It was common in England and Canada, which followed England in marine matters, to have people called "crammers" to assist mariners to pass their examinations, following apprenticeship on board ship.

The Royal Commission on Transportation (MacPherson Commission) was appointed by the federal government (1959) to investigate transportation policy, particularly freight-rate inequities.

Although the Scandinavians claim to have pioneered the RO-RO concept, the first purpose-built RO-RO ferry was the Motor Princess, launched at Esquimalt, BC, in 1923 for Canadian Pacific. It ended its long career with British Columbia Ferry Corporation in the 1970s as the Pender Queen.

The CF-100 Canuck, manufactured by A.V. Roe Canada (Avro), was the first jet fighter designed and built entirely in Canada. It flew in front-line air defence from 1953 until the early 1960s.

Control was the problem, and the men who showed the way to the practical helicopter were Juan de la Cierva of Spain, with his autogyros, Heinrich Rocke of Germany and Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky of Russia and the US.

Once the spring timber drive reached the main rivers, the timber was assembled into rafts for transportation to the shipping port.

The earliest automobile racing took the form of speed trials and tours. In 1900 F.S. Evans set a record of 3 hrs, 20 min, driving an automobile the 60 km between Toronto and Hamilton.

These 2 great journeys were first made just before the end of the 18th century, and by the same man. Alexander Mackenzie reached the mouth of the river which now bears his name in 1789, and was the first European to cross the North American continent (to Bella Coola) in 1793.

Samson, first locomotive in North America to burn coal and the first to run over all-iron rails. Built in New Shildon, England, it was shipped to Pictou, NS, to haul coal from the Albion Mines 9.6 km over a tramway to Dunbar Point on Pictou Harbour.

The birchbark canoe was the principal means of water transportation for Indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands, and later voyageurs, who used it extensively in the fur trade in Canada. Light and maneuverable, birchbark canoes were perfectly adapted to summer travel through the network of shallow streams, ponds, lakes and swift rivers of the Canadian Shield. As the fur trade declined in the 19th century, the canoe became more of a recreational vehicle. Though most canoes are no longer constructed of birchbark, its enduring historical legacy and its popularity as a pleasure craft have made it a Canadian cultural icon.

The Trans-Canada Highway is a continuous road that allows vehicle travel across Canada. The highway runs through each of Canada’s 10 provinces, from Victoria, British Columbia, to St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. At 7,821 km, it is the fourth-longest highway — and second-longest national highway — in the world.

Inuit and subarctic Indigenous peoples have traversed the North since time immemorial. Indigenous knowledge and modes of transportation helped early European explorers and traders travel and survive on these expanses. Later settlement depended to an extraordinary degree on the development of transportation systems. Today, the transportation connections of northern communities vary from place to place. While the most remote settlements are often only accessible by air, some have road, rail and marine connections. These are often tied to industrial projects such as mines.

A dugout canoe was a common type of canoe, traditionally used by ​Indigenous peoples and early settlers wherever the size of tree growth made construction possible. The dugout canoe was most popular along the West Coast, where waters teeming with sea life—whales, seals,  sea lions, salmon,  halibut, herring, eulachon and shellfish—sustained a complex maritime culture. (See also Northwest Coast Indigenous Peoples in Canada.)

Canada's first highways were the rivers and lakes used by Indigenous peoples, travelling by canoe in summer and following the frozen waterways in winter. (See also Birchbark Canoe; Dugout Canoe.) The water network was so practical that explorers, settlers and soldiers followed the example of the Indigenous peoples. (See also Coureurs des bois; Voyageurs.) To a greater extent than most other countries, Canada depends for its social, economic and political life on efficient communication and transportation. (See also Economy; Politics.)