Trans Canada Trail

Millions have traversed the country’s legendary wilderness by taking the Trans Canada Trail, but few know it stretches north to the Arctic as well.

In the Northwest Territories, there are two routes: the first is a water-based trail following the Slave River up from Alberta and across the bottom of Great Slave Lake before taking the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean. A separate route runs on the Dempster Highway, parallel to the Alaska Highway, leading from the Yukon into the Northwest Territories and all the way to the Arctic Ocean in Tuktoyaktuk.

Much of the trail in the territory follows rivers or lakeshores, with water routes totalling over 2,200 kilometres. Many of those routes follow traditional travel corridors used by Indigenous peoples for thousands of years, followed later by European explorers, traders, and missionaries.