Mark Richardson - Canadas Road: A Journey on the Trans-Canada Highway from St. Johns to Victoria

In Victoria theres a large sign in a park beside the road down by the Pacific that declares itself Mile Zero. Theres no such sign here. There is a sports complex downtown called the Mile One Centre, but its not technically on the highway.

No the TCH begins in Atlantic Canada at the dump.

The TCH technically begins on the Outer Ring Road at the Logy Bay Road overpass, says Emily Timmins, the communications manager for Newfoundlands Department of Transportation and Works. Thats about five kilometres from downtown. If you drive in from the west, as I did, then the road just keeps going without anything to suggest youre no longer on the TCH until you pass the Robin Hood Bay Regional Waste Management Facility and, after a kilometre or so, come to a stop at Quidi Vidi Lake.

It was not an auspicious end to the 4,000 kilometres Id just driven from Toronto, so I headed over to the Mile One Centre for a photo. Tom Petty was playing that night and parking was an issue; security tried to shoo me from putting the car right beside the sign, but a gentle chat and a little persuasion won the day.

Ill be telling stories as I drive west. Two thousand twelve is not just the 50th anniversary of the Trans-Canada Highway opening officially in 1962, on the day I was born, but also the 100th anniversary of the first road trip through Canada from ocean to ocean.

There were several pioneering drives across the country before it became simple, and Ill also be retracing their routes and telling their stories:

• The Thomas Wilby drive of 1912, in which a snooty English journalist was chauffeured across the country and wrote a book that never once named his driver.
• The Perry Doolittle drive of 1925, in which the founder of the Canadian Automobile Association swapped the wheels of his Model-T Ford to drive along railway tracks where there were no roads.
• The Alex Macfarlane drive of 1946, the first time anybody was able to drive across the country on all-Canadian roads. That trip earned Macfarlane the Todd Medal, created in 1912 by the future mayor of Victoria to award to the first person to drive across Canada, all four wheels on the road.

Im carrying the Todd Medal with me on this road trip. Im also carrying a horseshoe from Wilbys journey and a 1925 CAA radiator badge. Ill be more comfortable than all those pioneers, of course. General Motors provided me with a 2012 Chevy Camaro convertible for this drive, and the CAA is ready to rescue me should I get into any trouble. That may happen when I dip the wheels of the Camaro into the ocean here to begin the journey Im hoping the wharf wont be too slippery, and this journey doesnt end in the water before its even begun.

Follow me on this road trip, and well explore Canada together.

Day 1: Trinity Bay, NL

Trans-Canada Distance: 90 kilometres

THEN: (Whitbourne) Its not been so far to drive today, but back in 1962 this was the end of the paved road west from St. Johns. The highway turned to corrugated gravel before Whitbourne and separated the casual tourists from the determined traveller.

Author Edward McCourt described his 1963 drive along it, in his book The Road Across Canada , as an endless succession of iron-surfaced washboard, gaping pot-holes, and naked rock a shoulder-twisting, neck-snapping, dust-shrouded horror. And by all other accounts, he was being kind.

Edward McCourt.

It was not until 1965, when McCourts book was published, that the road was properly paved across the province, at great expense. And canny premier Joey Smallwood made sure the great expense came from the pockets of the federal government, not the provincial coffers.

NOW: (Petty Harbour) I began my drive with the Camaros wheels in the Atlantic Ocean, dipping into the water on a wharf at Petty Harbour, just south of Cape Spear, the most easterly point in Canada. Like all the pioneering drivers, its important to drive out of one ocean in order to drive eventually into the other one at the opposite side of the country. I did a trial run with some friends yesterday, but then it was late in the afternoon and today it was noon: low tide.

The Camaro dips its wheels in the Atlantic.
Mark Richardson

The reluctant tide meant I had to drive a lot farther down the boat ramp, with the rear driving wheels venturing down onto the wet concrete that had been submerged just a couple of hours earlier. It was very slippery. The CBC sent a cameraman to record the event for posterity, and he slid his shoes around on the concrete. If this is too slippery for those tires, this video could go viral, he warned, probably rather hopefully. Last year a YouTube video of a million-dollar Ferrari Enzo crashing into the sea during the Targa Newfoundland was viewed millions of times. You can see it online if you have a cruel sense of humour and irony.

But all went well, the wide tires gripped and the car made it back onto the road. I gathered some salty Atlantic water in a bottle, which Ill pour into the salty Pacific when I reach the opposite coast, and then drove into St. Johns with the top down for a last look at the Mile One Centre before heading out to the dump and the real start of the Trans-Canada Highway.