Guy Boutin's Motorcycle Touring and Travel Pages

Adventures in Sport Touring with the Honda ST 1100, 1300 and the BMW 1200RT

Exploring North America...One Road at a Time

Canada- Over the years I've had the good fortune of touring our neighbors to the north extensively.  I've spent quality time in 8 of the 13 Provinces.  A goal of mine is to visit all the provinces but not sure when it will happen.  My quest to ride the lower 48 was much easier to do.  The problem with Canada is vastness, and not all areas are easily reached.  Add to the fact I have a long ride just to reach the border.  Pocketing all the provinces may not happen till I come across a dual purpose bike.  Western Canada is beautiful country, but to sample the full potential you have to leave the pavement.  I can't afford to trash either of my Hondas on a all out assault on the Northwest Territories.  

You can only go there in summer, and that means road construction, long stretches of it.  In the meantime, I'll focus on the reaching what I can, and along the way I'm sure I'll add more roads to the list.

Provincial Route 132- This route is located on the Gaspe Peninsula, in Quebec.  A scenic, inspiring highway.  The road brings you up close and personal to the water.  It has challenge but nothing drastic.  Famous for its many fishing villages and pastoral farmland, it is true treat for the senses.  The surface is not good in many places, so use caution.  I rode it on a beautiful day, with farms on my right and gentle white caps on my left.  

The Cabot Trail-  Getting here takes lots of work, but you are rewarded.  The road surface ranges from good to terrible, but the scenery is consistently outstanding.  The Cabot is the nearest thing on the east coast to the Pacific Coast Highway.  Lots of good twists in the highlands.  Don't ask me to compare the PCH and the Cabot, they are very different.  The Cabot is more personal, and the water is prettier then the Pacific, but it does not have the smoothness of the PCH or the varied elevation and challenge.  

Icefields Parkway- Located in Alberta, this is the ultimate highway for glacier viewing.  The road itself is not especially challenging, but the landscape so gorgeous it has to be on the list.  The land is very rugged and dense.  I visited on a cloudy, rainy, cool, mid June morning.  I would love to see this land under a clear blue sky.  Most of the mountain peaks were over 10,000 feet and close to the road.  The highway has a intimate relationship with the Rocky Mountains.  Like most great highways in Canada, it is not easy to reach.