page_title: Ontario Highway 17
section_title: Manitoba to Nipigon
hierarchical_section_title: Ontario Highway 17 / Route description / Manitoba to Nipigon
caption_attribution_description: Highway 17 divides mountains as it hugs the coastline of Lake Superior between Thunder Bay and Wawa Camera: Nikon D50 License on Flickr (2011-03-06): CC-BY-SA-2.0
context_page_description: King's Highway 17, more commonly known as Highway 17, is a provincially maintained highway and the primary route of the Trans-Canada Highway through the Canadian province of Ontario. It begins at the Manitoba boundary, 50 km west of Kenora, and the main section ends where Highway 417 begins just west of Arnprior. A small disconnected signed section of the highway still remains within the Ottawa Region between County Road 29 and Grants Side Rd. This makes it Ontario's longest highway.
  The highway once extended even farther to the Quebec boundary in East Hawkesbury with a peak length of about 2,180 km. However, a section of Highway 17 "disappeared" when the Ottawa section of it was upgraded to the freeway Highway 417 in 1971. Highway 17 was not re-routed through Ottawa, nor did it share numbering with Highway 417 to rectify the discontinuity, even though Highway 417 formed a direct link between the western and eastern sections of Highway 17. However, from East Hawkesbury to Ottawa, Highway 17 retained the Trans-Canada Highway routing and signs until it met up again and merged with Highway 417 until 1997 when Highway 17 through Ottawa was downgraded.
context_section_description: Highway 17 begins at the boundary between Ontario and Manitoba, where a large installation greets drivers in both directions. The highway is two lanes wide and travels over and between the surface features of the Canadian Shield; further west into Manitoba the highway widens into a four-lane divided expressway. To the east, the highway travels through thick boreal forest towards Keewatin, where the Kenora Bypass, Highway 17A, splits to the north. Through the town of Kenora, Highway 17 is signed but maintained under a connecting link agreement between the town and the province. Full provincial maintenance resumes at the eastern town limits. Further east, the highway merges with the Kenora Bypass. It meets the northern terminus of Highway 71, then makes a gradual eastward journey through the lake-dotted Kenora District to the town of Dryden. Here the highway encounters one of the few agriculturally-sustainable areas of northern Ontario. The highway begins to zig-zag southeasterly, passing through several minor settlements before entering the mining town of Ignace. Shortly thereafter, it begins to curve to the south. It meets Highway 11 475 km (295 mi) east of the Manitoba boundary.
  The two highways travel concurrently towards Thunder Bay at the western Lakehead of Lake Superior. Though it originally travelled through what was then the twin-cities, the highway bypasses to the northwest on the at-grade Thunder Bay Expressway.
caption: Highway 17 divides mountains on its journey along the north shore of Lake Superior
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