title: Siliguri

text: There are some important Hindu and Buddhists monuments in and around the city. Salugara monastrey is located away from Siliguri. Main attraction is the stupa, which is believed to be founded by the Tibetan Lama, Kalu Rinpoche. The ideal tranquil location for meditation was established by Tibetan monks and followers of Dalai Lama. Sed-Gyued monastery is located near Salugara monastery. It is a breathtaking monument which was destroyed by the Chinese army, and then rebuilt. The monastery is home to more than 90 monks of the Gelukpa division, and is used as a research centre. Ewam India Buddhist Monastrey is from Siliguri and is placed in the lap of nature near Bengal safari. The ISKCON temple in the city, also known as Sri Sri Radha Madhav Sundar Mandir locally, is one of the biggest Krishna centres in the North-Eastern region of India. The Sevoke Kali temple is an ancient temple on the banks of Teesta river close to the Coronation Bridge.This temple dedicated to Maa Kali, the Goddess of Destruction.


title: Siliguri

text: Siliguri also offers amusement and water parks to tourists and locals. Dreamland Amusemet Park, located near Fulbari, from Siliguri junction, is an agricultural land converted in a fun house. It has 5-6 usual rides with a mini Ropeway also. Savin Kingdom is an amusement and water park which is located near Dagapur in Siliguri. The water park has a pool, slides, artificial wave, and rain dance. It also has various joy rides like adrenaline junkies, sky train, break dance, go-carting, and artificial bulls. A multiplex, kids zone, restaurant are also there.


title: Siliguri

text: North Bengal Science Centre, established in 1997, is the only science sentre of North Bengal. The main attractions are Digital Planetarium, Science Shows, 3D Theater, Taramandal Shows, science galleries and a green Science Park. The Hong Kong market is known as the Chandni Chowk of Northeast India, a street market with a variety of shops popping out on the alleyways.


title: Warrant canary

text: A warrant canary is a method by which a communications service provider aims to inform its users that the provider has been served with a government subpoena despite legal prohibitions on revealing the existence of the subpoena. The warrant canary typically informs users that there has been a court-issued subpoena as of a particular date. If the canary is not updated for the period specified by the host or if the warning is removed, users might assume the host has been served with such a subpoena. The intention is for a provider passively to warn users of the existence of a subpoena, albeit violating the spirit of a court order not to do so, while not violating the letter of the order.


title: Warrant canary

text: Some subpoenas, such as those covered under 18 U.S.C. §2709(c) (enacted as part of the USA Patriot Act), provide criminal penalties for disclosing the existence of the subpoena to any third party, including the service provider's users.


title: Warrant canary

text: National Security Letters (NSL) originated in the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act and originally targeted those suspected of being agents of a foreign power. Targeting agents of a foreign power was revised in the Patriot Act in 2001 to allow NSLs to target those who may have information thought to be relevant to either counterintelligence activities or terrorists activities directed against the United States. The idea of using negative pronouncements to thwart the nondisclosure requirements of court orders and served secret warrants was first proposed by Steven Schear on the cypherpunks mailing list, mainly to uncover targeted individuals at ISPs. It was also suggested for and used by public libraries in 2002 in response to the USA Patriot Act, which could have forced librarians to disclose the circulation history of library patrons.


title: Warrant canary

text: The term is an allusion to the practice of coal miners bringing canaries into mines to use as an early-warning signal for toxic gases, primarily carbon monoxide and methane. The birds are more sensitive to these gases than humans, and became sick before the miners, who would then have a chance to escape or put on protective respirators.


title: Warrant canary

text: The first commercial use of a warrant canary was by the US cloud storage provider rsync.net, which began publishing its canary in 2006. In addition to a digital signature, it provides a recent news headline as proof that the warrant canary was recently posted as well as mirroring the posting internationally.


title: Warrant canary

text: On November 5, 2013, Apple became the most prominent company to publicly state that it had never received an order for user data under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. On September 18, 2014, GigaOm reported that the warrant canary statement did not appear anymore in the next two Apple Transparency Reports, covering July–December 2013 and January–June 2014. Tumblr also included a warrant canary in the transparency report that it issued on February 3, 2014. In August 2014, the online cloud service Spider Oak implemented an encrypted warrant canary that publishes an "All Clear!" message every 6 months. Three PGP signatures from geographically distributed signers must sign each message—so if a government agency forced SpiderOak to update the page, they would need to enlist the help of all three signers.


title: Warrant canary

text: In September 2014, U.S. security researcher Moxie Marlinspike wrote that "every lawyer I've spoken to has indicated that having a 'canary' you remove or choose not to update would likely have the same legal consequences as simply posting something that explicitly says you've received something."


title: Warrant canary

text: In March 2015 it was reported that Australia outlawed the use of a certain kind of warrant canary, making it illegal to "disclose information about the existence or non-existence" of a Journalist Information Warrant issued under new mandatory data retention laws. Afterwards, computer security and privacy specialist Bruce Schneier wrote in a blog post that "[p]ersonally, I have never believed [warrant canaries] would work. It relies on the fact that a prohibition against speaking doesn't prevent someone from not speaking. But courts generally aren't impressed by this sort of thing, and I can easily imagine a secret warrant that includes a prohibition against triggering the warrant canary. And for all I know, there are right now secret legal proceedings on this very issue." This is not the first Australian law to outlaw warrant canaries. The “Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment Act 1995” was probably the first, making it illegal to "disclose information about the existence or non-existence" of Interception Warrants.


title: Warrant canary

text: That said, case law specific to the United States would render the covert continuance of warrant canaries subject to constitutionality challenges. "West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette" and "Wooley v. Maynard" rule the Free Speech Clause prohibits compelling someone to speak against one's wishes; this can easily be extended to prevent someone from being compelled to lie. "New York Times Co. v. United States" protects one exercising the First Amendment to publish government information, even if it is against the wishes of the government, except under grave and exceptional circumstances previously set by act and precedent. The latter[?] also carries the weight of acting against a direct government intervention similar to a government intervention against a warrant canary.


title: Warrant canary

text: The following is a non-exhaustive list of companies and organizations whose warrant canaries no longer appear in transparency reports:


title: Warrant canary

text: In 2015, a coalition of organizations consisting of the EFF, Freedom of the Press Foundation, NYU Law, the Calyx Institute, and the Berkman Center created a website called Canary Watch in order to provide a compiled list of all companies providing warrant canaries. Its mission was to provide prompt updates of any changes in a canary's state. It is often difficult for users to ascertain a canary's validity on their own and thus Canary Watch aimed to provide a simple display of all active canaries and any blocks of time that they were not active. In May 2016, it was announced that Canary Watch "will no longer accept submissions of new canaries or monitor the existing canaries for changes or take downs". The coalition of organizations which created Canary Watch explained their decision to discontinue the project by stating that it has achieved its goals to raise awareness about "illegal and unconstitutional national security process, including National Security Letters and other secret court processes." The Electronic Frontier Foundation also noted that "the fact that canaries are non-standard makes it difficult to automatically monitor them for changes or takedowns." They explained that the project had run its course, that ample attention had been brought to canaries, and detailed warrant canary strengths and weaknesses they observed.


title: Warrant canary

text: In 2016, Riseup failed to update their warrant canary, due to sealed warrants from a court. The canary has since been updated, but no longer states the absence of gag orders.


title: Larry Clark

text: Lawrence Donald Clark (born January 19, 1943) is an American film director, photographer, writer and film producer who is best known for his controversial teen film "Kids" (1995) and his photography book "Tulsa" (1971). His work focuses primarily on youth who casually engage in illegal drug use, underage sex, and violence, and who are part of a specific subculture, such as surfing, punk rock, or skateboarding.


title: Larry Clark

text: Clark was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He learned photography at an early age. His mother was an itinerant baby photographer, and he was enlisted in the family business from the age of 13. His father was a traveling sales manager for the Reader Service Bureau, selling books and magazines door-to-door, and was rarely home. In 1959, Clark began injecting amphetamines with his friends.


title: Larry Clark

text: Clark attended the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he studied under Walter Sheffer and Gerhard Bakker.


title: Larry Clark

text: In 1964, he moved to New York City to freelance, but was drafted within two months into the United States Army. From 1964 to 1965, he served in the Vietnam War in a unit that supplied ammunition to units fighting in the north. His experiences there led him to publish the 1971 book "Tulsa", a photo documentary illustrating his young friends' drug use in black and white.


title: Larry Clark

text: Routinely carrying a camera, from 1963 to 1971 Clark produced pictures of his drug-shooting coterie that have been described by critics as "exposing the reality of American suburban life at the fringe and ... shattering long-held mythical conventions that drugs and violence were an experience solely indicative of the urban landscape."


title: Larry Clark

text: His follow-up was "Teenage Lust" (1983), an "autobiography" of his teen past through the images of others. It included his family photos, more teenage drug use, graphic pictures of teenage sexual activity, and young male hustlers in Times Square, New York City. Clark constructed a photographic essay titled "The Perfect Childhood" that examined the effect of media in youth culture. His photographs are part of public collections at several art museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Photographic Arts, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.


title: Larry Clark

text: In 1993, Clark directed Chris Isaak's music video "Solitary Man". This experience developed into an interest in film direction. After publishing other photographic collections, Clark met Harmony Korine in New York City and asked Korine to write the screenplay for his first feature film "Kids", which was released to controversy and mixed critical reception in 1995. Clark continued directing, filming a handful of additional independent feature films in the several years after this.


title: Larry Clark

text: In 2001, Clark shot three features — "Bully", "Ken Park" and "Teenage Caveman" — over a span of nine months. As of 2017, they are his last films to feature professional actors.


title: Larry Clark

text: In 2002, Clark spent several hours in a police cell after punching and trying to strangle Hamish McAlpine, the head of Metro Tartan, the UK distributor for "Ken Park". According to McAlpine, who was left with a broken nose, the incident arose from an argument about Israel and the Middle East, and he claims that he did not provoke Clark.


title: Larry Clark

text: In a 2016 interview, Clark discussed his lifelong struggle with drug abuse, although stating he maintained total sobriety while filmmaking. He confessed that the only exception made to his practice of abstinence while filming was "Marfa Girl". Clark explained that while filming that movie he used opiates for pain due to double knee replacement surgery.


title: Larry Clark

text: Directors such as Gus Van Sant and Martin Scorsese have stated that they were influenced by Clark's early photography, according to Peter Biskind's book "Down and Dirty Pictures".


title: Larry Clark

text: Roger Ebert was a fan of his work, giving positive reviews to "Kids", "Another Day in Paradise", "Bully", and "Wassup Rockers".


title: Larry Clark

text: In "Kids" (1995), his most widely known film, boys portrayed as being as young as 12 are shown to be casually drinking alcohol and using other drugs. The film received an NC-17 rating, and was later released without a rating when Disney bought Miramax.


title: Larry Clark

text: "Ken Park" is a more sexually and violently graphic film than "Kids", including a scene of auto-erotic asphyxiation and ejaculation by an emotionally rattled high-school boy (portrayed by James Ransone, then in his early 20s). , it has not been widely released or distributed in the United States.


title: Larry Clark

text: In Australia, "Ken Park" was banned for its graphic sexual content and a protest screening held in response was immediately shut down by the police. Australian film critic Margaret Pomeranz, co-host of "At the Movies", was almost arrested for screening the film at a hall. The film was not released in the United States, but Clark says that it was because of the producer's failure to get releases for the music used.


title: Larry Clark

text: In 2015, Clark collaborated alongside notable skateboard and clothing brand, Supreme, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of "Kids" with a collection of decks, T-shirts, and sweatshirts that feature stills from the iconic film. The collection was released on May 21, 2015, in Supreme's New York, Los Angeles, and London locations and on May 23 in its Japan location.


title: Larry Clark

text: Clark has won the top prizes at the Cognac Festival du Film Policier (for "Another Day in Paradise"), the Stockholm Film Festival (for "Bully") and the Rome Film Festival (for "Marfa Girl"). He has also competed for the Golden Palm ("Kids") and Golden Lion ("Bully").


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: Velvet Goldmine is a 1998 musical drama film written and directed by Todd Haynes from a story by Haynes and James Lyons. It is set in Britain during the glam rock days of the early 1970s, and tells the story of fictional bisexual pop star Brian Slade, who faked his own death. The film was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival and won the award for the Best Artistic Contribution. Sandy Powell received a BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design. The film utilizes non-linear storytelling to achieve exposition while interweaving the vignettes of its various characters.


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: In 1984, British journalist Arthur Stuart is writing an article about the withdrawal from public life of 1970s glam rock star Brian Slade following a death hoax ten years earlier, and is interviewing those who had a part in the entertainer's career. As each person recalls their thoughts, it becomes the introduction of the vignette for that particular segment in Slade's personal and professional life.


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: Part of the story involves Stuart's family's reaction to his homosexuality, and how the gay and bisexual glam rock stars and music scene gave him the strength to come out. Rock shows, fashion, and rock journalism all play a role in showing the youth culture of 1970s Britain, as well as the gay culture of the time. At the beginning of his career, Slade is married to Mandy. But when he comes to the United States, he seeks out American rock star Curt Wild, and they become involved in each other's lives.


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: The vignettes show Wild and Slade becoming increasingly difficult to work with as they become more famous. They suffer breakdowns in their personal and professional relationships. Eventually, Slade's career ends following the critical and fan backlash from his on-stage publicity stunt where he faked his own murder.


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: As he gets closer to the truth of where Slade is now, Stuart is suddenly told by his editor that the story is no longer of public interest and Stuart has been assigned to the Tommy Stone tour, which coincidentally is Brian Slade's new identity. We discover Stuart was also at the concert where Slade faked his own death, and that after seeing Wild perform on another night, Wild and Stuart had a sexual encounter.


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: Eventually, Stuart confronts Tommy Stone and once again encounters Wild, who casually passes on a piece of jewellry from Oscar Wilde.


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: The film centers on Brian Slade, a bisexual and androgynous glam rock icon who was patterned after David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Jobriath and Marc Bolan. The Director, Todd Haynes, requested access to Bowie's song catalogue along with a personal blessing to make the film but Bowie refused, saying that he intended to make a similar film about the time. Ewan McGregor co-stars in the role of Curt Wild, a genre-defying performer who doesn't back down from sex, nudity or drugs on or off stage and whose biographical details are based on Iggy Pop (who grew up in a trailer park) and Lou Reed (whose parents sent him to electroshock therapy to 'cure' his homosexual feelings). Also featured are Christian Bale as the young glam rock fan and reporter, Arthur Stuart and Toni Collette as Slade's wife, Mandy, who is based on Bowie's first wife, Angela. Eddie Izzard stars as Slade's manager, Jerry Devine.


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: The tale strongly parallels Bowie's relationships with Reed and Pop in the 1970s and 1980s. Brian Slade's gradually overwhelming stage persona of "Maxwell Demon" and his backing band, "Venus in Furs", resemble Bowie's persona and backing band. The album "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" tells a similar story of a rock star gone over the edge and culminates in his assassination. As with Slade and Wild, Bowie produced records for and with, Pop and Reed. The band name "Venus in Furs" is taken from a song by Lou Reed's early band, The Velvet Underground, which was taken from Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's eponymous novel, which appeared on their first album. Maxwell Demon was the name of an early band of Brian Eno, a long-time Bowie associate, whose music is heard at various points in the film.


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: Haynes has said that the story is also about the love affair between America and Britain, New York City and London, in the way each music scene feeds off and influences each other. Little Richard is shown as an early influence on Brian Slade. Little Richard inspired the Beatles and Bowie, who in turn inspired many other bands. Little Richard has also been cited by Haynes as the inspiration for Jack Fairy.


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: The film is strongly influenced by the ideas and life of Oscar Wilde (seen in the film as a progenitor of glam rock), and refers to events in his life and quotes his work on dozens of occasions. Jean Genet (the subject of Haynes' previous film, "Poison", and the putative inspiration for the title of Bowie's song "The Jean Genie") is referred to in imagery and also quoted in dialogue.


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: The film's narrative structure is modelled on that of Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane", in that the reporter Stuart tries to solve a mystery about Slade, travelling to interview Slade's lovers and colleagues, whose recollections are shown in 1950s, 1960s and 1970s flashbacks.


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: David Bowie was ambivalent about "Velvet Goldmine" upon release. According to Bowie, “When I saw the film I thought the best thing about it was the gay scenes. They were the only successful part of the film, frankly."


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: Although the character of Brian Slade is heavily based on David Bowie, Bowie vetoed the proposal that his songs appear in the film. However, as producer of Lou Reed's 1972 "Transformer" album, his backing vocals (mainly consisting of "bum-bum-bum"s and "ooh-ooh"s) can be heard on "Satellite of Love".


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: The English musicians who played under the name The Venus in Furs on the soundtrack were Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, David Gray Band's Clune, Suede's Bernard Butler, and Roxy Music's Andy Mackay. The American musicians who played as Curt Wild's Wylde Ratttz on the soundtrack were The Stooges' Ron Asheton, Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley, Minutemen's Mike Watt, Gumball's Don Fleming, and Mark Arm of Mudhoney.


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: The soundtrack features new songs written for the film by Pulp, Shudder to Think and Grant Lee Buffalo, as well as many early glam rock compositions, both covers and original versions. The Venus in Furs covers several Roxy Music songs with Thom Yorke channeling Bryan Ferry on vocals, Placebo covers T. Rex's "20th Century Boy," Wylde Ratttz and Ewan McGregor cover The Stooges' "T.V. Eye" and "Gimme Danger", and Teenage Fanclub and Donna Matthews cover the New York Dolls' "Personality Crisis". Lou Reed, Brian Eno, T. Rex, and Steve Harley songs from the period are also included. The album is rounded out by a piece of Carter Burwell's score.


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: All three members of the band Placebo also appeared in the film, with Brian Molko and Steve Hewitt playing members of the Flaming Creatures (Malcolm and Billy respectively) and Stefan Olsdal playing Polly Small's bassist. Another member of the Flaming Creatures, Pearl, was played by Xavior (Paul Wilkinson), former lead singer of Romo band DexDexTer and later a keyboard player for Placebo and Rachel Stamp.


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: The film opened in the United Kingdom on 23 October 1998 and grossed over $700,000. It was released in the United States on 6 November 1998 in 85 venues, grossing $301,787 in its opening weekend and ranking sixteenth at the box office, and fifth among the week's new releases. It would ultimately gross $1,053,788 in the United States and Canada and $4,313,644 worldwide.


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: "Velvet Goldmine" received mixed to positive reviews from critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 60% rating based on 47 reviews, with an average of 6.5/10. The critical consensus reads: ""Velvet Goldmine" takes a visual and narrative approach befitting its larger-than-life subject, although it's still disappointingly less than the sum of its parts". Metacritic reports a 65 out of 100 score based on 25 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: Janet Maslin, having seen the film at the New York Film Festival, made it a "NYT Critics' Pick," calling it a "dazzlingly surreal" rock version of ""Citizen Kane" with an extraterrestrial Rosebud" and saying it "brilliantly reimagines the glam rock ‘70s as a brave new world of electrifying theatricality and sexual possibility, to the point where identifying precise figures in this neo-psychedelic landscape is almost beside the point. "Velvet Goldmine" tells a story the way operas do: blazing with exquisite yet abstract passions, and with quite a lot to look at on the side." According to Peter Travers, "Haynes creates "Velvet Goldmine"...with a masturbatory fervor that demands dead-on details" and "fashions a structure out of "Citizen Kane""; it's a film that "works best as a feast of sight and sound...re-creating an era as a gorgeous carnal dream...celebrat[ing] the art of the possible." In a less enthusiastic review, Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film two out of four stars and found its plot too discursive and confusingly assorted because of how it "bogs down in the apparatus of the search for Slade" by clumsily using scenes from "Citizen Kane". David Sterritt from "The Christian Science Monitor" wrote "The music and camera work are dazzling, and the story has solid sociological insights into a fascinating pop-culture period."


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: In a retrospective review, "Slant Magazine"'s Jeremiah Kipp gave "Velvet Goldmine" four out of four stars and said that, although unsupportive critics may be "terrified of a movie with so many ideas", the film successfully shows a "melancholic ode to freedom, and those who fight for it through art", because of Haynes' detailed imagery and the cast's "expressive, soulful performances". Scott Tobias of "The A.V. Club" felt that Haynes' appropriation of structural elements from "Citizen Kane" is the film's "masterstroke", as it helps "evoke the glam rock movement without destroying the all-important mystique that sustains it." Tobias argued that, like Haynes' Bob Dylan-inspired 2007 film "I'm Not There", "Velvet Goldmine" deals with a famously enigmatic figure indirectly through allusion and imagery, and consequently succeeds more than a simpler biopic could.


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: Since its 1999 DVD release, the film has become a cult classic and has been described as having "an obsessive following among younger audiences."


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: Haynes said in a 2007 interview, "A film that had the hardest time, at least initially, was "Velvet Goldmine", and it's the film that seems to mean the most to a lot of teenagers and young people, who are just obsessed with that movie. They're exactly who I was thinking about when I made "Velvet Goldmine", but it just didn't get to them the first time around."


title: Velvet Goldmine

text: A Blu-ray was released in Region A on 13 December 2011, and includes a newly recorded commentary track by Haynes and Vachon. In it, Haynes thanks the fansites for helping him compile the notes for the commentary.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The Trans-Canada Highway (French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast. The main route spans across the country, one of the longest routes of its type in the world. The highway system is recognizable by its distinctive white-on-green maple leaf route markers, although there are small variations in the markers in some provinces.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: While by definition the Trans-Canada Highway is a highway "system" that has several parallel routes throughout most of the country, the term "Trans-Canada Highway" often refers to the main route that consists of Highway 1 (British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba), Highways 17 and 417 (Ontario), Autoroutes 40, 20 and 85 (Quebec), Highway 2 (New Brunswick), Highways 104 and 105 (Nova Scotia) and Highway 1 (Newfoundland). This main route starts in Victoria and ends in St. John's, passes through nine of the ten provinces and connects most of the country's major cities, including Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City and Fredericton. One of the main route's eight other parallel routes connects to the tenth province, Prince Edward Island.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: While the other parallel routes in the system are also technically part of the Trans-Canada Highway, they are usually considered either secondary routes or different highways all together. For example, Highway 16 throughout Western Canada is part of the Trans-Canada Highway system, but is almost exclusively referred to as the Yellowhead Highway and is often recognized as its own highway under that name. In comparison, Highway 1 in Western Canada is always referred to as the Trans-Canada Highway, and has a significantly higher traffic volume with a route passing through more major cities than the less important Highway 16 (Yellowhead) TCH route. Therefore Highway 1 is usually considered to be part of the main Trans-Canada Highway route, while Highway 16 is not, although it may be considered a second mainline corridor as it serves a more northerly belt of major cities.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Although the TCH network is strictly a transcontinental system, and does not enter any of Canada's three northern territories or run to the United States' border, it does form part of Canada's overall National Highway System (NHS), which does provide connections to the Northwest Territories, Yukon and the border, although the NHS (apart from the TCH sections) is unsigned.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Canada's National Highway System is not under federal jurisdiction or coordination, as highway construction and maintenance are entirely under the jurisdiction of the individual provinces, who also handle route numbering on the Trans-Canada Highway. The Western provinces have voluntarily coordinated their highway numbers so that the main Trans-Canada route is designated Highway 1 and the Yellowhead route is designated Highway 16 throughout. Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador also designate Highway 1 as their section of the TCH, while New Brunswick utilizes Highway 2 (a separate important highway—albeit non-TCH—is Highway 1 in that province). East of Manitoba, the highway numbers change at each provincial boundary, or within a province (especially in Ontario and Quebec) as the TCH piggybacks along separate provincial highways (which often continue as non-TCH routes outside the designated sections) en route. In addition, Ontario and Quebec use standard provincial highway shields to number the highway within their boundaries, but post numberless Trans-Canada Highway shields alongside them to identify it. As the Trans-Canada route was composed of sections from pre-existing provincial highways, it is unlikely that the Trans-Canada Highway will ever have a uniform designation across the whole country.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Unlike the Interstate Highway System in the United States, the Trans-Canada Highway system has no national construction standard, and was originally built mostly as a two-lane highway with few multi-lane freeway or expressway sections, similar to the older United States Numbered Highway System. As a result, highway construction standards vary considerably among provinces and cities. In much of British Columbia, Ontario, and throughout Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador, the Trans-Canada Highway system is still in its original two-lane state. On the other hand, New Brunswick is the only province to have its whole length of the main Trans-Canada Highway route upgraded to a four-lane freeway standard. In Quebec, most sections of the TCH network overlap with the province's Autoroute freeway system, resulting in the Trans-Canada Highway following freeways throughout most of Quebec as well. Alberta and Saskatchewan also have upgraded large portions of their Trans-Canada Highway network, with their entire length of Highway 1 and even most of Highway 16 upgraded to a four-lane divided highway, albeit with at-grade intersections in most areas. British Columbia is actively working on converting its section of Highway 1 east of Kamloops to a four-lane, non-freeway route. Currently, over half of the mainline Trans-Canada Highway is still in its original two-lane state, with no bypasses, interchanges and few passing opportunities. Only about 15 per cent of the mainline route is upgraded to freeway standards similar to those of the Interstate Highway system.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Like former U.S. Route 66, the many non-expressway sections of the Trans-Canada Highway often form the Main streets of communities, with a wide variety of small businesses and traveller services having signage and buildings directly adjacent to the Trans-Canada Highway, and in some cases even driveways directly off the highway. These tourist- and traveller-oriented business districts tend to generate significant revenue and employment for their respective communities, especially in the summer. However, the heavy commercial development on many sections of the highway can also cause traffic problems, due to the lower speed limits, signal lights and crosswalks required to service them.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Freeway portions are rare compared to the length of the Trans-Canada Highway network. They exist over significant distances in British Columbia's Lower Mainland, Between Calgary and Banff, in Ontario and Quebec where the network overlaps portions of those provinces' 400-series highways and Autoroutes, across all of New Brunswick, and in the western part of Nova Scotia. Outside of these freeway areas, the highway ranges from being a high-speed four-lane rural expressway to a narrow, winding, substandard two-lane route, subject to dangerous driving conditions and frequent closures. In many cities, the main highway routes are forced onto busy arterial streets with many traffic lights. Examples of this are where the route passes through Victoria, Nanaimo, Kamloops, and Salmon Arm, Calgary and Winnipeg. A TCH-designated expressway bypass exists around Winnipeg, although Highway 1 proper still passes through the city on surface streets. In Calgary, the Stoney Trail provides a freeway bypass around its heavily congested urban arterial section of Trans-Canada Highway, although Stoney Trail itself is not considered part of the TCH system.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The Trans-Canada Highway is not always the preferred route between two cities, or even across the country. For example, the vast majority of traffic travelling between Hope, British Columbia, and Kamloops takes the Coquihalla Highway via Merritt, a freeway, rather than the semi-parallel, but longer, Trans-Canada Highway route via Cache Creek, which remains a windy two-lane road. Another example is that much long-distance traffic between Western and Eastern Canada will drive south into the United States and use the Interstate Highway System, rather than the long, windy, two-lane Trans-Canada Highway through Northern Ontario, which is slow and subject to frequent closures.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The main Trans-Canada Highway is uniformly designated as Highway 1 across the four western provinces. The British Columbia section of Highway 1 is long, beginning in Victoria at the intersection of Douglas Street and Dallas Road (where the "Mile 0" plaque stands), and ending on the Alberta border at Kicking Horse Pass. The highway starts by passing northward along the east coast of Vancouver Island for to Nanaimo along a mostly four-lane, heavily-signalized highway. After passing through downtown Nanaimo on a small arterial road it enters the Departure Bay Terminal and crosses the Strait of Georgia to Horseshoe Bay via BC Ferries. From there, it travels through Metro Vancouver on a four- to eight-lane freeway before leaving the city and continuing as a four-lane freeway eastward up the Fraser Valley to Hope. There the Trans-Canada Highway exits the freeway and turns north for through Fraser Canyon and Thompson Canyon toward Cache Creek, mostly as a two-lane rural highway with only occasional traffic lights. Highway 5 provides a more direct freeway route between Hope and Kamloops, leaving the Fraser Canyon route (the official TCH route) as more of a scenic option or for local traffic. Approaching Kamloops, Highway 1 re-enters a short freeway alignment (briefly concurrent with Highways 5 and 97), before passing through Kamloops itself as a four-lane signalized highway. From Kamloops, the highway continues east as a mostly two-lane rural highway through the Interior of British Columbia, with occasional passing lanes. It widens to a signalized four-lane arterial road for short stretches in Salmon Arm, Revelstoke and Golden, but has no signal lights on it for most of its length. The highway crosses two high passes along its route: Rogers Pass in Glacier National Park, and Kicking Horse Pass in Yoho National Park. At Kicking Horse Pass, the highest point on the whole Trans-Canada Highway system is reached, at .


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Highway 1 in British Columbia has four freeway segments. These are in Victoria, through the Lower Mainland, and west and east of Kamloops (the second and third of those sections are connected by the Coquihalla Highway, which is a freeway route that is the preferred route for through traffic). The rest of the highway is either a heavily-signalized four-lane route or a winding two-lane route with passing lanes and occasional four-lane sections. The freeway section of Highway 1 through Vancouver is notorious for its traffic, and is one of the most congested roads in Canada. The Highway 1 approach from North Vancouver to the Ironworkers Crossing is known to regularly form traffic jams that are an hour long during rush hour. Further east, another section of Highway 1 freeway between Langley and Abbotsford is locally known for being congested all day long. Both of these bottlenecks are caused by a lack of effective alternative routes, since Highway 1 is the only major east–west route through the city and the outdated four-lane freeway is used beyond its design capacity. Smaller traffic delays are known to exist on the highway during rush hour in Kamloops and Victoria, and during long weekends at the Revelstoke and Kicking Horse Canyon bottlenecks. In addition to the traffic problems, Highway 1 over Rogers Pass is considered Canada's most dangerous road due to frequent accidents, substandard highway construction, avalanche closures and terrible winter driving conditions.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Traffic moving eastbound or westbound between Vancouver Island and the Interior of the province can bypass the Departure Bay–Horseshoe Bay Ferry and the busiest sections of Highway 1 in Metro Vancouver using British Columbia Highway 17 (South Fraser Perimeter Road on the Mainland). This route runs from Victoria to Delta and Surrey by way of the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal, and provides a shortcut that avoids the entire circuitous Vancouver Island route of the Trans-Canada Highway, with its numerous traffic lights and bottlenecks.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Speed limits on the Mainland segment of the Trans-Canada Highway in British Columbia range from , although in town it can be as low as . A combination of difficult terrain and growing urbanization limits posted speeds on the Vancouver Island section to in urban areas, over the Malahat and through suburban areas, and a maximum of in rural areas.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The Government of British Columbia is attempting to fix the bottleneck at the Ironworkers approach, and widening the highway to six lanes in Abbotsford, to reduce traffic delays. It also is planning on upgrading the entire length of the highway between Kamloops and Alberta to four lanes by 2050 to improve safety and traffic operation. The later plan has several upgrade projects under way, amounting to of new four-lane highway under construction. Particularly important is current work to upgrade the remaining of winding two-lane highway in the Kicking Horse Canyon outside Yoho National Park, which had long been a traffic bottleneck and prone to frequent closure (travel speeds on this section of TCH are often as low as 30 km/h). The construction of no fewer than five bridges and extensive blasting is underway to upgrade the Trans-Canada to a 100 km/h four-lane highway though the area, with completion scheduled for 2023. To avoid delay to traffic, the construction is largely done at night or during the shoulder season, with a 90-minute-long detour route in effect during those times. A complete closure of the road went into effect from April 19 to May 20, 2022, with additional partial closures from May 24 until fall.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The Trans-Canada Highway through the three prairie provinces is long. It starts at the border with British Columbia at Kicking Horse Pass, and runs all the way to the Ontario border at Whiteshell. The highway continues through Alberta, running east for as Alberta Highway 1 to Lake Louise, Banff, Canmore and Calgary. This section of the highway passes through Banff National Park, and has significant tourism. The section of Highway 1 through Banff National Park was also one of the first highways in North America to have wildlife crossing structures and fencing installed on it. After leaving the mountains it enters Calgary, where it becomes known as 16 Avenue N, a busy six-lane street with many signalized intersections. The northwest and northeast segments of Stoney Trail (Highway 201) were completed in 2009, serving as an east–west limited-access highway (freeway) that bypasses the Calgary segment of Highway 1 (although Stoney Trail itself is not part of the Trans-Canada Highway network). For the next after Calgary, the Trans-Canada Highway continues as a four-lane expressway, with few stops along its route. Medicine Hat is served by a series of six interchanges, after which the Trans-Canada crosses into Saskatchewan on the way to Moose Jaw. The highway mainly travels straight as a four-lane route for most of these sections. The expressway continues east to the city of Regina, and skirts around the city on the Regina Bypass, the most expensive infrastructure project in Saskatchewan to date. Beyond Regina, it continues east for , across the border with Manitoba, to the cities of Brandon and Portage la Prairie, and finally east to Winnipeg. The southern portion of Winnipeg's Perimeter Highway (Highway 100) is part of the Trans-Canada Highway system, and bypasses the city with a mix of traffic lights and interchanges, while Highway 1 continues through central Winnipeg as a signalized arterial road.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: With the exception of a 15 km-long stretch of two-lane highway just west of the Ontario border, the entire length of Highway 1 through the Prairie Provinces is a four-lane highway. While the only true freeway sections of the route are along the Regina Bypass, in Medicine Hat and between Calgary and Banff, the whole highway is largely stoplight-free, with "split" at-grade intersections forming the vast majority of the junctions. Because the highway has bypasses around all of the major cities traffic congestion is virtually non-existent anywhere on Highway 1 through the Prairies. These sections of divided highway are also generally reliable and safe to travel on, unlike sections of Highway 1 in British Columbia and Ontario.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The speed limit is restricted to through national parks in Canada, including Banff National Park. East of Banff, traffic on most of Highway 1 through Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba is limited to , but is east of Winnipeg.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Alberta Transportation has plans to upgrade its whole length of Highway 1 to a four-to-eight-lane freeway by replacing all at-grade intersections with overpasses. However, it has not set a timeline for this project. There has also been talk of re-aligning over of Highway 1 from its existing route to an upgraded Highway 22X when the west sections of Calgary Ring Road are complete, resulting in a designated Trans-Canada Highway bypass route south of the city, but no official announcements have been made.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: East of Winnipeg, the highway continues for over to Kenora, Ontario. At the provincial border, the expressway downgrades to an arterial highway and the numeric designation of the highway changes from 1 to 17. It is signed with a provincial shield along with a numberless Trans-Canada Highway sign, and continues as an arterial highway along the main route across Northern and Eastern Ontario, until widening out to a freeway at Arnprior, near Ottawa. In Kenora, the Trans-Canada designation includes both the main route through the city's urban core, and the Highway 17A bypass route to the north. The existing branch from Kenora continues east for to Dryden.This section of highway passes through the Canadian Shield, a rugged forested area with thousands of lakes. There are many cottage communities along this section of the Trans-Canada Highway, some of which have their driveways directly onto the highway.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Highway 11/Highway 17 proceeds southeast for to Thunder Bay, then northeast for to Nipigon. An segment of the Trans-Canada Highway between Thunder Bay and Nipigon is commemorated as the "Terry Fox Courage Highway". Fox was forced to abandon his cross-country Marathon of Hope run here, and a bronze statue of him was later erected in his honour. The highway is the only road that connects eastern and western Canada. On January 10, 2016, the Nipigon River Bridge suffered a mechanical failure, closing the Trans-Canada Highway for 17 hours; the only alternative was to go through the United States, around the south side of Lake Superior.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Highway 17 proceeds east from Nipigon for along the northern and eastern coast of Lake Superior. Between Wawa and Sault Ste. Marie, the highway crosses the Montreal River Hill, which sometimes becomes a bottleneck on the system in the winter when inclement weather can make the steep grade virtually impassable. At Sault Ste. Marie, the main route turns eastward for to Sudbury.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The mainline route then continues east from Sudbury for to North Bay. The northern route rejoins the mainline here, which continues to Arnprior where it widens to a freeway and becomes Highway 417. The freeway continues to Ottawa passing through the city on Highway 417, which is between six and eight lanes wide at this point. In Southern Ontario, the speed limit is generally on the Trans-Canada, while in Northern Ontario it is . Sections routed along Highway 417 outside urban Ottawa feature a higher limit of .


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: While Highway 17 and 417 are largely free from traffic congestion except from minor rush hour delays on Ottawa's stretch of Highway 417, the non-freeway sections are subject to frequent closures due to accidents, especially in winter. It is considered a dangerous route due to its extensive outdated sections of winding two-lane highway. Because this section of the highway passes through a largely undeveloped and forested area, collisions with animals are a common cause of accidents.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Ontario plans to eventually extend the 417 freeway to Sudbury, which will upgrade the section of the mainline TCH between Ottawa and Sudbury to four-lane freeway standards. However, there is no funding secured for such a project, as Ontario is currently focusing on extending Highway 400 to Sudbury along the Highway 69 corridor (which is part of the Georgian Bay TCH route).


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: It is notable that the Trans-Canada largely bypasses Canada's most heavily populated region, the Golden Horseshoe area of Southern Ontario, which includes Canada's largest city; Toronto. However, a short section of the Central Ontario branch does pass through the rural northeastern edge of Durham Region at both Sunderland and Beaverton, which is officially part of the Greater Toronto Area. Access to Toronto itself from the mainline from Northern Ontario is via the non-TCH southern section of Highway 400, while access from Toronto to Quebec and points east is via Highway 401 (North America's busiest highway and a major national highway in itself), a short non-TCH section of Autoroute 20, and A-30, where the Trans-Canada is joined at A-40 just west of Montreal.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: From Ottawa, the Trans-Canada Highway continues as a freeway and proceeds east to Montreal, as Highway 417 in Ontario (and the Queensway in Ottawa) and in Quebec. The Trans-Canada assumes the name (also known as "The Met" or "Metropolitan Boulevard") as it traverses Montreal as an elevated freeway. At the Laurentian interchange, in Montreal, the Abitibi route (Highway 66, Route 117, A-15) rejoins the main TCH line. The TCH then follows Autoroute 25 southbound, crossing the St. Lawrence River through the 6-lane Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine Bridge–Tunnel, and proceeds northeast on Autoroute 20 for to (across from Quebec City).


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: East of , the Trans-Canada Highway continues on Autoroute 20 following the south bank of the St. Lawrence River to a junction just south of , northeast of . At that junction, the highway turns southeast and changes designation to Autoroute 85 for , and then downgrades from a freeway to Route 185, a non-Autoroute (not limited-access) standard highway until Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! where Autoroute 85 resumes once again. The portion from Autoroute 20 to Edmundston, New Brunswick is approximately long.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Since the Trans-Canada Highway for the most part follows Quebec's Autoroute System, which is always composed of a minimum four-lane freeway, travel through Quebec is generally, safe, fast and congestion free. The exception is the route through Montreal, which can be prone to traffic congestion. However, drivers can bypass the city on the tolled Autoroute 30, which is not part of the Trans-Canada.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The maximum speed limit on the Quebec Autoroute System (including the TCH) is a strictly enforced . However, the speed limit may be lower in select spots, such as through tunnels or major interchanges.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Quebec is currently working on upgrading the last remaining 36 km-long two-lane section of Trans-Canada Highway along 185 to an Autoroute, with of new freeway opened in 2021, and another of freeway currently under construction. Once this project is complete, the two sections of Autoroute 85 will be joined, and all of Quebec's Mainline Trans-Canada Highway route will be minimum four-lane freeway standards. This will also result in the TCH becoming a continuous freeway from Arnprior, Ontario, to Sutherland's River, Nova Scotia.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The Trans-Canada Highway crosses into New Brunswick and becomes Route 2 just northwest of Edmundston. From Edmundston, the highway (again signed exclusively with the TCH shield) follows the Saint John River Valley, running south for to Woodstock (parallelling the Canada–US border) and then east for another to pass through Fredericton. east of Fredericton, the Saint John River turns south, whereby the highway crosses the river at Jemseg and continues heading east to Moncton another later. On November 1, 2007, New Brunswick completed a 20-year effort to convert its entire section of the Trans-Canada Highway into a four-lane limited-access divided highway. The highway has a speed limit of on most of its sections in New Brunswick.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: New Brunswick was the first province where the main route of the Trans-Canada Highway was made entirely into a four-lane limited-access divided highway.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: From Moncton, the highway continues southeast for to a junction at Aulac close to the New Brunswick–Nova Scotia border (near Sackville). Here, Trans-Canada Highway again splits into two routes, with the main route continuing to the nearby border with Nova Scotia as Route 2, and a route designated as Route 16 which runs east to the Confederation Bridge at Cape Jourimain.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: From the New Brunswick border, the main Trans-Canada Highway route continues east into Nova Scotia at Amherst, where it settles onto Nova Scotia Highway 104. Southeast of Amherst, near Thomson Station, the highway traverses the Cobequid Pass, a tolled section ending at Masstown, before passing by Truro, where it links with Highway 102 to Halifax, east of the New Brunswick border. Halifax, like Toronto, is a provincial capital that the Trans-Canada Highway does not pass through. Beyond Truro, the highway continues east for to New Glasgow where it meets Highway 106, before continuing to the Canso Causeway which crosses the Strait of Canso onto Cape Breton Island near Port Hawkesbury. From the Canso Causeway, the highway continues east, now designated as Highway 105 on Cape Breton Island, until reaching the Marine Atlantic ferry terminal at North Sydney.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: From North Sydney, a ferry route, operated by the Crown corporation Marine Atlantic, continues the highway to Newfoundland, arriving at Channel-Port aux Basques, whereby the Trans-Canada Highway assumes the designation of Highway 1 and runs northeast for through Corner Brook, east for another through Gander and finally ends at St. John's, another southeast, for a total of crossing the island. The majority of the Trans-Canada Highway in Newfoundland is undivided, though sections in Corner Brook, Grand Falls-Windsor, Glovertown and a section from Whitbourne to St. John's are divided.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Although there does not appear to be any nationally sanctioned "starting point" for the entire Trans-Canada Highway system, St. John's has adopted this designation for the section of highway running in the city. The foot of East White Hills Road in St. John's, near Logy Bay Road, would be a more precise starting point of the highway, where the road meets and transfers into the start of the Trans-Canada Highway. The terminus of the Trans-Canada Highway in Victoria, located at the foot of Douglas Street and Dallas Road at Beacon Hill Park, is also marked by a "mile zero" monument. St. John's downtown arena, Mary Brown's Centre, was originally branded under naming rights as "Mile One Centre" in reference to the geography of the region.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The usage of miles instead of kilometres at both designations dates back to when the Trans-Canada Highway was completed in 1962, prior to metrication in Canada.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The Yellowhead Highway is a highway in Western Canada, running from Masset, British Columbia, to where it intersects Highway 1 (Trans-Canada Highway) just west of Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. It is designated as Highway 16 in all four provinces that it passes through (British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba). It follows a more northerly east–west route across Western Canada than the main TCH and passes through fewer cities, with Edmonton being the largest on the route. Other major municipalities on the route include Prince Rupert, Prince George, Lloydminster and Saskatoon. The Yellowhead Highway is most well known for passing through Jasper National Park in Alberta, where it crosses the Continental Divide through its namesake Yellowhead Pass. Since it carries significantly less traffic than its more southerly counterpart, the Yellowhead is almost exclusively a two-lane highway in British Columbia and Manitoba, and is only partially upgraded to four-lane expressway standards in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Until recently, the Yellowhead Highway had its own unique highway number signs, but they have now mostly been replaced with standard maple-leaf Trans-Canada Highway signs, with numberless Yellowhead shields posted adjacent to them.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The section of Highway 71 and Highway 11 between Kenora, Ontario and North Bay, Ontario is considered part of the Trans-Canada Highway. This highway first runs south of the Main TCH route between Kenora and Thunder Bay, passing through the town of Fort Frances on the U.S. border. Then, after running concurrently with the main Trans-Canada Highway route (Highway 17) it splits off to the north, running through a vast and sparsely-populated area of northern Ontario. This highway sees very little long-distance traffic compared to the main route, and is mainly used for local traffic, the area also being not well known as a tourist destination. A much shorter section of Highway 66 connects another northern Trans-Canada Highway route to Quebec's Highway 117, which itself continues the TCH route to Montreal after connecting with Autoroute 15. The main Highway 11 continues south until it intersects the main Trans-Canada Highway route (Highway 17) in North Bay. Except for the southernmost stretches south of Labelle these highways are two-lane undivided routes.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The southern Ontario Trans-Canada Highway route is even more abstract than the northern ones, as it uses four different provincial highways, and is largely non-functional as a major long distance corridor due to its roundabout route and the complete avoidance of the Toronto area. It is a 671 km-long alternate route to Highway 17 (the mainline TCH) between Sudbury and Ottawa. It passes through several major communities, including Orillia and Peterborough. Because it passes closer to major population centres, this section of the TCH sees higher traffic volumes. It is made up of various sections of freeways, expressways and two-lane routes.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Another spur route of the Trans-Canada Highway splits off the mainline in eastern New Brunswick. This route connects to Prince Edward Island across the 13 km-long Confederation Bridge, crosses the central part of Prince Edward Island, including through the provincial capital of Charlottetown, before crossing back to the mainland on a ferry. This length of the route is 234 km, and consists of New Brunswick Highway 16, Prince Edward Island Highway 1 and Nova Scotia Highway 106. This leg of the Trans-Canada Highway sees moderately high traffic volumes and is an important tourist route. The Confederation Bridge is often viewed as an attraction in itself. Although the highway is mostly a two-lane route, portions of the route are built as two-lane expressways.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Two short bypasses are also considered part of the Trans-Canada Highway system. These include the Perimeter Highway 100 bypass around Winnipeg, which provides an expressway standard alternative to the crowded Highway 1 in the city centre; and the two-lane Kenora Bypass (Highway 17A) which is a two-lane route that bypasses the entire town to the north.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Early on, much of the route of the Trans-Canada Highway was first explored in order to construct the Canadian Pacific Railway in the late 19th century, a route which much of the mainline TCH route later ended up following.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The Trans-Canada Highway was not the first road across Canada. In British Columbia, the highway was predated by the Crowsnest Highway, the Big Bend Highway and the Cariboo Highway, all of which were constructed during the Great Depression era. Many of the earlier highways in British Columbia were largely gravel, and had many frequent inland ferry crossings at wide rivers and lakes. In Alberta. the section between Calgary and Banff was predated by the Morley Trail (now Highway 1A). which was drivable starting in the 1910s and paved in the 1930s. The first route over the Central Canadian Rockies to connect Calgary to British Columbia was the Banff–Windermere Parkway, which was opened in 1922 and is now numbered as Highway 93. Sections of road across the Prairies have also existed since the 1920s. A gravel road connection across northern Ontario (Highway 17) was constructed starting in 1931. While this section was largely open by the late 1930s, it was not fully completed until 1951 (in large part due to World War II interrupting construction). However, despite the gap, vehicles could still cross the county by getting ferried around the relatively short section of incomplete highway by either rail or water.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The system was approved by the Trans-Canada Highway Act of 1949, with construction commencing in 1950. The highway officially opened in 1962, with the completion of the Rogers Pass section of highway between Golden and Revelstoke. This section of highway bypassed the original Big Bend Highway, the last remaining section of gravel highway on the route. Upon its original completion, the Trans-Canada Highway was the longest uninterrupted highway in the world. Construction on other legs continued until 1971 when the last gap on Highway 16 was completed in the Upper Fraser Valley east of Prince George, at which point the highway network was considered complete.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: When the Trans-Canada Highway first opened, it was almost exclusively a two-lane route for its whole length across the country. While at the time it was considered a major improvement to the gravel roads and ferries it replaced, it was soon found insufficient to handle the growing traffic volumes. In response, several provinces began to construct realignments, freeway upgrades and twin sections of highway in order to improve traffic flow and safety.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: In British Columbia's Lower Mainland, the Upper Levels Freeway alignment was opened in 1960 with the completion of the Second Narrows Crossing, which allowed the Trans-Canada Highway to bypass downtown Vancouver's streets and the narrow Lions Gate Bridge. The four-lane Upper Levels Freeway was relatively-crudely constructed, with narrow lanes, low overpasses and no proper merge ramps. It remains in this state in the present day. Between 1962 and 1964, Highway 1 was rerouted onto a new four-lane freeway bypass between Vancouver and Chilliwack. This section of highway was originally part of British Columbia's own "400" series of highways, until the designation was replaced by Highway 1. A freeway alignment on the Trans-Canada Highway between Chilliwack and Hope opened in 1986. The opening of the Cassiar Tunnel in 1990 bypassed the last sets of signal lights in Vancouver rendering the whole alignment of the Trans-Canada Highway through the Lower Mainland a freeway. All bypassed sections of the highway were absorbed into various urban and rural road networks. The older freeways in the Lower Mainland were largely built as a parkway design, with wide forested medians and low overpasses (a road configuration that was common across North America at the time). The opening of the Coquihalla Highway in 1986 left much of the Trans-Canada Highway through the Fraser Canyon functionally obsolete, with the freeway bypass shortening the drive between Hope and Kamloops by 90 minutes. However, the route was retained as part of the Trans-Canada Highway system, despite being considered nothing more than a scenic route in the present. The opening of the Coquihalla was also an economic disaster for many of the towns along the Fraser Canyon section of the Trans-Canada Highway, since most of the travel and tourism business along the route quickly dried up when most of the traffic took the new highway. The towns continue to be largely deprived of wealth, and some are close to being abandoned. On the other hand. Merritt, located midway up the new Coquihalla highway, ended up booming, and continues to grow as a tourism and travel centre into the present. The Coquihalla project also realigned Highway 1 (TCH) to a new freeway bypass around Kamloops. Plans for a freeway to bypass or eliminate traffic congestion and road hazards along the heavily travelled route from Victoria to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island were cancelled during the recession that followed the 1987 stock market crash.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: In Alberta, between 1964 and 1972, the Trans-Canada Highway was completely rerouted from its former two-lane alignment along the Bow River to a new, more direct, four-lane freeway between Banff and Calgary, resulting in the bypassing of several towns, such as Canmore. Prior to this upgrade, one of the first traffic circles in Canada existed on Highway 1 at the "gateway" junction for Banff from at least as early as the 1950s. the current interchange on Highway 1 for Banff Avenue now occupies the site. In the rest of Banff National Park, much of the predecessor Highway 1 parkway was bypassed by a new two-lane route in the 1960s. The original route between Banff and Lake Louise remains as the Bow Valley Parkway and Lake Louise Drive, while a section over Kicking Horse Pass was abandoned and is now part of the Great Divide Trail. Between 1973 and 1990 the highway was twinned from Calgary to the Saskatchewan Border. In 1970 plans were made for a six-to-eight-lane freeway to carry the Trans-Canada Highway though the heart of North Calgary, but the plan was soon dropped due to citizen outcry.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Between Ottawa and the Ontario–Quebec border, the Trans-Canada Highway designation was taken from the two-lane Highway 17 and applied to the existing Highway 417 freeway in 1997–98. On April 1, 1997, the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) transferred the responsibility of maintenance and upkeep along of Highway 17 east of "the split" with Highway 417 to Trim Road (Regional Road 57) to the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton, a process commonly referred to as "downloading". The Regional Municipality then designated the road as Regional Road 174. Despite the protests of the region that the route served a provincial purpose, a second round of transfers saw Highway 17 within Ottawa downloaded entirely on January 1, 1998, adding an additional to the length of Regional Road 174. The highway was also downloaded within the United Counties of Prescott and Russell, where it was redesignated as County Road 17. The result of these transfers was the truncation of Highway 17 at the western end of Highway 417. 1990 saw the opening of the two-lane Kenora Bypass, providing through traffic with a way to avoid the congested town.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Starting in the 1960s, Quebec began to build its Autoroute network. Many sections of Trans-Canada Highway were upgraded to freeway standards during that era of highway construction.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Starting in 1987, New Brunswick began to upgrade its section of TCH to 4 lanes. Work to make the route a full freeway began in the late 1990s and was completed in 2007.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The 13 km-long Confederation Bridge connecting PEI to New Brunswick opened in 1997. Replacing the ferry that previously serviced that route, it was hailed as a major accomplishment.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: In 2000 and 2001, Transport Canada considered funding an infrastructure project to have the full Trans-Canada system converted to limited-access divided highways. Although construction funding was made available to some provinces for portions of the system, the federal government ultimately decided not to pursue a comprehensive limited-access highway conversion. Opposition to funding the limited-access upgrade was due to low traffic levels on parts of the Trans-Canada Highway.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Prior to the start of the Great Recession in 2008, the highway underwent some upgrades through the Rocky Mountains from Banff National Park to Golden, British Columbia. A major piece of this project was completed on August 30, 2007, with the new Park Bridge and Ten Mile Hill sections opening up of new four-lane highway. Other smaller four-lane upgrade projects on the Trans-Canada Highway in the interior of British Columbia were also built around the same time. As part of the Gateway Program, of congested four-lane Highway 1 freeway in Metro Vancouver were upgraded to a more modern eight-lane build out starting in 2012. This project continues into the present, with the current goal of rebuilding the freeway to a modern, minimum six-lane layout from Langley to Abbotsford by 2025.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The twinning of the highway in Alberta's Banff National Park continued with four-lane highway opening as far as the Highway 93 junction north of Lake Louise by the winter of 2010. Parks Canada completed twinning the final of Highway 1 between Lake Louise and the British Columbia border, with the new alignment opened to traffic on June 12, 2014 making the whole length of Alberta's main Trans-Canada Highway route a minimum four lanes. Stoney Trail began construction in 2005, and was usable as a bypass around Calgary when its northeastern section opened in 2010. Although not officially part of the Trans-Canada Highway system, Stoney Trail plays a critical role in providing through traffic on the Trans-Canada Highway with a way around the city.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: During the 2000s much of the Trans-Canada Highway through Saskatchewan and Manitoba was twinned. In 2019 the Regina Bypass opened, resulting in the Trans-Canada Highway being realigned around the city, and bypassing a section of heavily-signalized arterial road on Victoria Avenue.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The 2010s saw the improvement of other routes in the Trans-Canada Highway system as well. Ontario Highway 400 began to be extended towards Sudbury, replacing Highway 69 and resulting in a freeway alignment for part of the Southern Ontario Trans-Canada Highway Route. Work on this project is continuing, with almost of freeway currently under construction.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Edmonton is currently attempting to upgrade its urban section of Highway 16 to a six-lane freeway. Large amounts of Highway 16 in Alberta were twinned during the 2000s.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Despite these many upgrades, over half of the mainline Trans-Canada highway still remains in its original two-lane state, and only about 15 per cent of the mainline's length is composed of freeway comparable to that of the Interstate Highway System.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: In 2012, a series of free public electric vehicle charging stations were installed along the main route of the highway by a private company, Sun Country Highway, permitting electric vehicle travel across the entire length, as demonstrated by the company's president, Kent Rathwell, in a publicity trip from St John's, NL to Victoria, BC in a Tesla Roadster. , this made the TCH the longest electric-vehicle-ready highway in the world.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: No national plan for upgrading the Trans-Canada Highway exists, and all planning is currently done by the individual provinces. However, as with other routes in Canada's National Highway System, the federal government is required to cost-share for upgrades funded by the provinces. Currently, there are five large-scale highway improvement projects on the Trans-Canada Highway Network.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Quebec is working on completing Autoroute 85, bringing the last two-lane section of the mainline highway in Quebec up to four-lane freeway standards. , only of two-lane highway had not yet been addressed. The rest either had been completed or was currently under construction.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: , Ontario was attempting to extend Highway 400 to Sudbury, which will carry the Southern Ontario TCH designation once complete. Around of highway remained to be upgraded to freeway standard, with approximately of new freeway under construction. The project was originally expected to be complete in 2021 but had its date pushed back.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: , British Columbia was planning on upgrading the long section of TCH between Kamloops and Alberta to four lanes by 2050. The project goals do not include an eventual freeway upgrade, and it is likely that the signalized sections of highway in Kamloops, Salmon Arm, Revelstoke and Golden will remain. Around of four-lane highway were under construction, with more planned to start in 2022. Around a quarter of the length of highway between Kamloops and Alberta is now four lanes wide. At the current rate of construction, the project will likely not be completed until the 2070s. However, some of the most difficult sections have been completed, meaning that it may be easier to upgrade the remaining sections of highway to four lanes. Some of the highway in this section is under the jurisdiction of Parks Canada, specifically the sections through Mount Revelstoke, Glacier and Yoho National Parks, which means that Parks Canada will have to implement its own four-lane upgrade program in order for the provincial government to accomplish its goal.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: The City of Edmonton is upgrading its urban section of Highway 16 (TCH) to a six-lane freeway by replacing all signal lights with overpasses. The route is already largely a freeway, but seven signalized intersections remain. The project is expected to be finished by 2026.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: , British Columbia was planning on upgrading of Highway 1 in the Lower Mainland as part of its Fraser Valley Highway improvement program. The four-lane freeway is over-congested, and many of the overpasses are in poor shape. The project intends to rebuild most of the interchanges and overpasses and widen the highway to six lanes. The first of this project opened in 2020, with more expected to be complete in 2025.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Apart from the major programs, many smaller scale projects exist on the highway in order to either rehabilitate the aging infrastructure or make minor traffic improvements.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Alberta had long term plans to upgrade both of its Trans-Canada Highway routes to a minimum four-lane freeway standard, but has not set a timeline for doing so.


title: Trans-Canada Highway

text: Ontario hopes to eventually extend the 417 freeway to Sudbury, which will carry the mainline TCH route, but it has not set a timeline for doing so.


title: North American river otter

text: The North American river otter (Lontra canadensis), also known as the northern river otter and river otter, is a semiaquatic mammal that only lives on the North American continent, along its waterways and coasts. An adult North American river otter can weigh between . The river otter is protected and insulated by a thick, water-repellent coat of fur.


title: North American river otter

text: The North American river otter, a member of the subfamily Lutrinae in the weasel family (Mustelidae), is equally versatile in the water and on land. It establishes a burrow close to the water's edge in river, lake, swamp, coastal shoreline, tidal flat, or estuary ecosystems. The den typically has many tunnel openings, one of which generally allows the otter to enter and exit the body of water. Female North American river otters give birth in these burrows, producing litters of one to six young.


title: North American river otter

text: North American river otters, like most predators, prey upon the most readily accessible species. Fish is a favored food among the otters, but they also consume various amphibians (such as salamanders and frogs), freshwater clams, mussels, snails, small turtles and crayfish. The most common fish consumed are perch, suckers, and catfish. Occasional reports also show the river otter eating other small animals, such as mice, squirrels, birds, and even dogs that they've attacked and drowned.


title: North American river otter

text: The range of the North American river otter has been significantly reduced by habitat loss, beginning with the European colonization of the Americas. In some regions, though, their population is controlled to allow the trapping and harvesting of otters for their fur. North American river otters are very susceptible to the effects of environmental pollution, which is a likely factor in the continued decline of their numbers. A number of reintroduction projects have been initiated to help halt the reduction in the overall population.


title: North American river otter

text: The North American river otter was first described by German naturalist Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber in 1777. The mammal was identified as a species of otter and has a variety of common names, including North American river otter, northern river otter, common otter and, simply, river otter. Other documented common names are American otter, Canada otter, Canadian otter, fish otter, land otter, nearctic river otter, and Prince of Wales otter. The North American river otter was first classified in the genus "Lutra". "Lutra" was the early European name (from Latin), and the specific epithet "canadensis" means "of Canada".


title: North American river otter

text: In a new classification, the species is called "Lontra canadensis", where the genus "Lontra" includes all the New World river otters.


title: North American river otter

text: Molecular biological techniques have been used to determine when the river otter and the giant otter ("Pteronura brasiliensis") of South America diverged. These analyses suggest they diverged in the Miocene epoch 23.03 to 5.33 million years ago (Mya), which is "much earlier" than indicated in the fossil record. Fossils of a giant river otter dating back 3.5 Mya (during the Pliocene) have been found in the US Midwest; however, fossils of the modern river otter did not appear in North America until about 1.9 Mya. The New World river otters originated from the Old World river otters following a migration across the Bering Land Bridge, which existed off and on between 1.8 million and 10,000 years ago. This means they likely arrived in the Americas at a similar time as humans, meaning humans were an important part of their natural ecosystem from the moment otters arrived. The otters migrated to North America and southwards again across the Panamanian Land Bridge, which formed 3 Mya.


title: North American river otter

text: The North American river otter has long whiskers that are used to detect prey in dark waters. An average adult male weighs about against the female's average of . Its body length ranges from . About one-third of the animal's total length consists of a long, tapered tail. Tail lengths range from . Large male North American river otters can exceed a weight of . It differs from the European otter by its longer neck, narrower visage, the smaller space between the ears and its shorter tail.


title: North American river otter

text: Males and female river otters show different non-sexual physical characteristics, with males typically being larger.


title: North American river otter

text: North American river otters characteristically approach within a few feet of a boat or a person on shore because they're near-sighted, a consequence of vision adapted for underwater sight. North American river otters have transparent nictitating membranes to protect their eyes while swimming.


title: North American river otter

text: Most mustelids, including otters, have 36 specialized teeth, including sharp canines and carnassials that inflict lethal bites to prey. Also, North American river otters have large molars used for crushing hard objects, such as the shells of molluscs. Additional premolars may be present. The dental formula is .


title: North American river otter

text: North American river otters only settle in areas that consist of vegetation, rock piles, and sufficient coverage.


title: North American river otter

text: North American river otters are renowned for their sense of play. Otter play mostly consists of wrestling with conspecifics. Chasing is also a common game. North American river otters rely upon play to learn survival skills such as fighting and hunting.


title: North American river otter

text: A highly active predator, the North American river otter has adapted to hunting in water, and eats aquatic and semiaquatic animals. The vulnerability and seasonal availability of prey animals mainly governs its food habits and prey choices. This availability is influenced by the following factors: detectability and mobility of the prey, habitat availability for the various prey species, environmental factors, such as water depth and temperature, and seasonal changes in prey supply and distribution in correspondence with otter foraging habitat.


title: North American river otter

text: The diet of the North American river otter can be deduced by analyzing either stool obtained in the field, or gut contents removed from trapped otters. Fish are the primary component of the North American river otter's diet throughout the year. Every study done on the food habits of the North American river otter has identified varying fish species as being the primary component of its diet. For instance, an Alberta, Canada study involved the collection and analysis of 1,191 samples of North American river otter scat (feces) collected during each season. Fish remnants were found in 91.9% of the samples. Moreover, a western Oregon study revealed fish remains were present in 80% of the 103 digestive tracts examined. Crustaceans (crayfish), where regionally available, are the second-most important prey for otters. Crustaceans may even be consumed more than fish. For example, a study conducted in a central California marshland indicated crayfish formed nearly 100% of the river otter's diet at certain times of the year. However, North American river otters, as foragers, will immediately take advantage of other prey when readily obtainable. Other prey consumed by North American river otters includes fruits, reptiles, amphibians, birds (most especially moulting ducks which render the birds flightless and thus makes them easier to capture), aquatic insects, small mammals, and mollusks.


title: North American river otter

text: North American river otters are not scavengers; they avoid consuming carrion (dead animals). North American river otters do not generally handle prey of a large size relative to themselves but there are occasions where they've been observed ambushing and killing adult common snapping turtles while the large turtles (which are roughly equal in average body weight to a North American river otter) are hibernating. Remains of the much larger North American beaver have been found in North American river otter scat in some regions, although most otter dietary studies in areas where otters and beaver live near each other do not show them to be regular predators of beavers (despite the claims of fur-trappers that otters frequently hunt beavers) and perhaps only young beaver kits may be attacked.


title: North American river otter

text: When left unchecked, though, otters can be significant predators under certain circumstances (e.g. in hatcheries or other fish culture facilities). Likewise, the potential predatory impact of otters may be considerable whenever fish are physically confined (most commonly in smaller ponds offering sparse cover or other escape options). To protect fish in these cases, the otters may need to be removed or relocated. Even in larger bodies of water, river otters may take disproportional advantage of any seasonal concentrations of fish when and where only very limited areas of suitable spawning, low-flow, or over-wintering habitat may exist. Even fast-swimming fish like trout slow down in extremely cold water, leaving them vulnerable. As such, careful consideration of any threatened, endangered, or fish species of special interest is warranted prior to reintroduction of otters to a watershed.


title: North American river otter

text: Male North American river otters disperse from such family groups more often than females. When females leave, they tend to move much further away () than males (up to ), which tend to move shorter distances. Male North American river otters do not seem to be territorial, and newly dispersing males may join established male groups.


title: North American river otter

text: In early spring, expectant mothers begin to look for a den where they can give birth. The female otters do not dig their own dens; instead, they rely on other animals, such as beavers, to provide suitable environments to raise their offspring. When the mothers have established their domains, they give birth to several kits. Litter size can reach five, but usually ranges from one to three. Each otter pup weighs approximately five ounces.


title: North American river otter

text: The mothers raise their young without aid from adult males. When the pups are about two months old and their coats grow in, their mother introduces them to the water. North American river otters are natural swimmers and, with parental supervision, they acquire the skills necessary to swim.


title: North American river otter

text: The North American river otters may leave the den by eight weeks and are capable of sustaining themselves upon the arrival of fall, but they usually stay with their families, which sometimes include the father, until the following spring. Prior to the arrival of the next litter, the North American river otter yearlings venture out in search of their own home ranges.


title: North American river otter

text: The North American river otter is found throughout North America, inhabiting inland waterways and coastal areas in Canada, the Pacific Northwest, the Atlantic states, and the Gulf of Mexico. North American river otters also currently inhabit coastal regions throughout the United States and Canada. North American river otters also inhabit the forested regions of the Pacific coast in North America. The species is also present throughout Alaska, including the Aleutian Islands, and the north slope of the Brooks Range.


title: North American river otter

text: However, urbanization and pollution instigated reductions in range area. They are now absent or rare in Arizona, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Reintroduction projects have expanded their distribution in recent years, especially in the Midwestern United States. Since their reintroduction to Kentucky in the early 90s, they have recovered to the point that a trapping season was started in 2006, and the species is now found in all major waterways. In 2010, the Colorado Department of Wildlife reported the species, reintroduced in the 1980s, was "thriving" and recommended its protection status be reconsidered. In late 2012, a river otter nicknamed Sutro Sam took up residence around the former site of the Sutro Baths in San Francisco, the first river otter sighting in that city in more than half a century. In Canada, North American river otters occupy all provinces and territories, except until recently Prince Edward Island. Otters have recently re-established themselves on Prince Edward Island.


title: North American river otter

text: Historical records indicate North American river otters were once populous throughout most major drainages in the continental United States and Canada prior to European settlement. North America's largest North American river otter populations were found in areas with an abundance and diversity of aquatic habitats, such as coastal marshes, the Great Lakes region, and glaciated areas of New England. In addition, riverine habitats in interior regions supported smaller, but practical, otter populations. The North American river otter existed on all parts of the Pacific Coast, including the seashore and inland streams and lakes. However, large populations never occurred in areas of Southern California such as the chaparral and oak woodlands and Mojave Desert seasonal waterway regions, or in the xeric shrubland regions in New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, and Colorado. In Mexico, the North American river otters lived in the Rio Grande and Colorado River Deltas.


title: North American river otter

text: Although commonly called a "river otter", the North American river otter is found in a wide variety of aquatic habitats, both freshwater and coastal marine, including lakes, rivers, inland wetlands, coastal shorelines, marshes, and estuaries. It can tolerate a great range of temperature and elevations. A North American river otter's main requirements are a steady food supply and easy access to a body of water. However, it is sensitive to pollution, and will disappear from tainted areas.


title: North American river otter

text: Like other otters, the North American river otter lives in a holt, or den, constructed in the burrows of other animals, or in natural hollows, such as under a log or in river banks. An entrance, which may be under water or above ground, leads to a nest chamber lined with leaves, grass, moss, bark, and hair.


title: North American river otter

text: North American river otters consume an extensive assortment of fish species ranging in size from that impart sufficient caloric intake for a minute amount of energy expenditure. North American river otters generally feed on prey that is in larger supply and easier to catch. As a result, slow-swimming fish are consumed more often than game fishes when both are equally available. Slow-moving species include suckers (Catostomidae), catfish, sunfish and bass (Centrarchidae), daces, carp, and shiners (Cyprinidae). For instance, Catostomidae are the primary dietary component of North American river otters in Colorado's Upper Colorado River Basin. Likewise, the common carp ("Cyprinus carpio") is a preferred fish species for the North American river otter in other regions of Colorado. Fish species frequently found in the diets of the North American river otters include: Catostomidae, which consists of suckers ("Catostomus" spp.) and redhorses ("Moxostoma" spp.); Cyprinidae, made up of carp ("Cyprinus" spp.), chubs ("Semotilus" spp.), daces ("Rhinichthys" spp.), shiners ("Notropis" and "Richardsonius" spp.), and squawfishes ("Ptychocheilus" spp.); and Ictaluridae, which consists of bullheads and catfish ("Ictalurus" spp.). Other fish an integral part of the North American river otters' diets are those that are often plentiful and found in large schools: sunfish ("Lepomis" spp.); darters ("Etheostoma" spp.); and perches ("Perca" spp.). Bottom-dwelling species, which have the tendency to remain immobile until a predator is very close, are susceptible to North American river otters. These include mudminnows ("Umbra limi") and sculpins ("Cottus" spp.). Game fish, such as trout (Salmonidae) and pike (Esocidae), are not a significant component of their diets. They are less likely to be prey for the North American river otters since they are fast-swimming and can find good escape cover. However, river otters will prey on trout, pike, walleye ("Sander vitreus vitreus"), salmon ("Oncorhynchus" spp.), and other game fish during spawning. Otters have been found to consume invasive Asian carp.


title: North American river otter

text: Adult North American river otters are capable of consuming of fish per day. A study conducted on captive otters revealed they preferred larger fish, ranging from , more than smaller fish, ranging from , and they had difficulty catching fish species less than or larger than . Otters are known to take larger fish on land to eat, whereas smaller fish are consumed in the water.


title: North American river otter

text: North American river otters may prefer to feed on crustaceans, especially crayfish ("Cambarus", "Pacifasticus", and others) and crabs more than fish where they are locally and seasonally plentiful. In Georgia, crayfish accounted for two-thirds of the prey in the summer diet, and their remnants were present in 98% of the summer spraint. In the winter, crayfish made up one-third of the North American river otter's diet. A study conducted on North American river otters in a southwestern Arkansas swamp identified a correlation between crayfish consumption, fish consumption, and water levels.


title: North American river otter

text: During the winter and spring, when the water levels were higher, North American river otters had a greater tendency to prey upon crayfish (73% of scats had crayfish remains) rather than fish. However, when water levels are lower, crayfish will seek out shelter while fish become more highly concentrated and susceptible to predation. Therefore, fish are more vulnerable to being preyed upon by otters because the crayfish have become more difficult to obtain.


title: North American river otter

text: Amphibians, where regionally accessible, have been found in the North American river otter's diet during the spring and summer months, as indicated in many of the food habit studies. The most common amphibians recognized were frogs ("Rana" and "Hyla"). Specific species of reptiles and amphibians prey include: boreal chorus frogs ("Pseudacris maculata"); Canadian toads ("Bufo hemiophrys"); wood frogs ("Rana sylvatica"); bullfrogs ("Rana catesbeiana"); green frogs ("Rana clamitans"); northwestern salamanders ("Ambystoma gracile"); California giant salamander ("Dicamptodon ensatus"); rough-skinned newt ("Taricha granulosa"); and garter snakes ("Thamnophis").


title: North American river otter

text: Amphibians and reptiles are more obtainable by the North American river otter during the spring and summer as a result of breeding activity, appropriate temperatures, and water supply for the prey.


title: North American river otter

text: Waterfowl, rails, and some colonial nesting birds are preyed upon by North American river otters in various areas. Susceptibility of these species is greatest during the summer (when waterfowl broods are vulnerable) and autumn. The North American river otters have also been known to catch and consume moulting American wigeon ("Mareca americana") and green-winged teal ("Anas crecca"). Other species of birds found within their diets include: northern pintail ("Anas acuta"); mallard ("Anas platyrhynchos"); canvasback ("Aythya valisineria"); ruddy duck ("Oxyura jamaicensis"); and the American coot ("Fulica americana").


title: North American river otter

text: Aquatic invertebrates have been recognized as an integral part of the North American river otter's diet. Otters consume more aquatic insects in the summer as the populations increase and specific life stages heighten their susceptibility. Most aquatic invertebrates preyed upon by the otters are from the families Odonata (dragonfly nymphs), Plecoptera (stonefly nymphs), and Coleoptera (adult beetles). Invertebrates discovered within scats or digestive tracts could most likely be a secondary food item, first being consumed by the fish that are subsequently preyed upon by the North American river otters.


title: North American river otter

text: Mammals are rarely consumed by North American river otters, and are not a major dietary component. Mammals preyed upon by North American river otters are characteristically small or are a type species found in riparian zones. The few occurrences of mammals found in the North American river otter's diet include: muskrats ("Ondatra zibethicus"); meadow voles ("Microtus pennsylvanicus"); eastern cottontails ("Sylvilagus floridanus"); and snowshoe hares ("Lepus americanus").


title: North American river otter

text: Records of North American otters preying upon North American beavers ("Castor canadensis") vary; it has been reported in the southern boreal forest of Manitoba. Trappers in Alberta, Canada commonly assert North American river otters are major predators of North American beavers. A 1994 river otter study reported findings of beaver remains in 27 of 1,191 scats analyzed. However, many other studies did not report any findings of North American beaver remains in the scat sampled.


title: North American river otter

text: Cases where otters have been ambushed and consumed by grizzly bears ("Ursus arctos horribilis") and polar bears ("Ursus maritimus") have also been reportedly witnessed near the Arctic region.


title: North American river otter

text: Threats to North American river otter populations in North America vary regionally. North American river otter inhabitation is affected by type, distribution, and density of aquatic habitats and characteristics of human activities. Preceding the settlement of North America by Europeans, North American river otters were prevalent among aquatic habitats throughout most of the continent. Trapping, loss or degradation of aquatic habitats through filling of wetlands, and development of coal, oil, gas, tanning, timber, and other industries, resulted in local extinctions or population declines in North American river otter populations in many areas. In 1980, an examination conducted on U.S. river otter populations determined they were locally extinct in 11 states, and lost significant population in 9 other states. The most severe population declines occurred in interior regions where fewer aquatic habitats supported fewer otter populations. Although the distribution became reduced in some regions of southern Canada, the only province-wide extinction occurred on Prince Edward Island.


title: North American river otter

text: During the 1970s, improvements in natural resource management techniques emerged, along with increased concerns about North American river otter population declines in North America. Consequently, many wildlife management agencies developed strategies to restore or enhance otter populations, including the use of reintroduction projects. Since 1976, over 4,000 otters have been reintroduced in 21 U.S. states. All Canadian provinces except Prince Edward Island and 29 U.S. states have viable populations that sustain annual harvests. While current harvest strategies do not pose a threat to maintaining otter populations, harvest may limit expansion of otter populations in some areas.