Transportation and telecommunications

by roads built by logging, pulp and paper, and mining

companies, although these are not always available for public travel. When the Trans-Canada Highway was opened officially in 1962, it became possible to drive the 4,860-mile (7,821-km) route from St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, to Victoria, British Columbia.

among the world’s highest. Although the railways connect the Atlantic

and Pacific coasts, the major networks are confined to the southern part of the country. Even in the west, where they extend farthest north, the transcontinental routes do not go north of Edmonton, Alberta, and Prince Rupert, British Columbia. North-south regional lines, however, reach Hudson Bay at Churchill, Manitoba; James Bay at Moosonee, Ontario; and central Labrador at Schefferville, Quebec.

domestic and international trade, uses water facilities for some part

of its journey. The inland shipping routes are dominated by the 2,342-mile (3,769-km) St. Lawrence–Great Lakes waterway, which provides navigation for vessels of 26-foot (8-metre) draft to the head of Lake Superior. It includes the major canals of Canada.

Great Lakes Landscape

busiest in the country, handling annually some one-third of Canada’s

passenger traffic and more than two-fifths of its air cargo. Montreal has two major airports: Pierre Elliot Trudeau, the chief business airport, and Mirabel, some 20 miles (32 km) north of the city, which specializes in charters and cargo.

Growth has been rapid since 1950, when pipelines were a

negligible factor in intercity freight traffic. Some of the world’s longest petroleum and natural gas pipelines link the oil and gas fields of Alberta, the Northwest Territories, and Saskatchewan to major cities as far east as Montreal, and two major pipelines several hundred miles in length cross the Rocky Mountains and supply the lower mainland of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest of the United States. From the late 1980s to the late 1990s, Canadian crude production using pipelines increased fourfold.

population has one of the world’s highest proportions of Internet

users. The country is also a global leader in the use of fibre-optics technology.