Planning Canada Trip

I used my brand new 660 last summer for such a trip from TX to Fairbanks and back. It worked very well except in a few places where:
1- it showed that I was up to 300 yds off the road or
2- it tried to get me to go a shorter route that was actually not a paved road, but a snowmobile trail.

Both these happened in Alaska on back roads. There were a few other places where the road and map differed slightly. we traveled most of the roads in AK, both paved and unpaved while we were there, about 2 months.

There was only one spot in Canada that it had a real problem, that was at the intersection of the icefields parkway and Canada hwy 1, inside Banff NP. Going north, it did not connect the access ramp to the road, trying to route us a long way out of the way.

overall, it worked well.

have a good trip.

The stock file from Garmin doesn't have all of the Canadian towns and cities in it. So, I downloaded a file from POI factory which does have all the little munchkin towns, but it's accuracy was off a little. On one occasion I had a 30 minute drive between 2 towns and the nuvi routed me on a 23 hour trip by way of an Alaskan ferry.

But, that issue aside, the basic GPS functioning was fine. The Garmin POI file was sorely lacking in various details, such as hotels, gas stations, food stores and restaurants, especially as I got further into the boonies. I added a few to my file that I've uploaded to this site, but it doesn't have any relevance to your particular trip.

GC

I recently asked my nuvi to route me from Arizona to Whitehorse, YT and it did a fine routing job. I did check the intended route and smiled when I saw the route start the Alaska HWY. It's next instruction was to "turn right on Robert Service Way in 871 miles."

It would be fun to drive to the Far North, especially a trip through Dawson YT and maybe up the Dempster with a GPS. BUT I strongly suggest you buy and study now, then carry with you on the trip, a new or recent copy of The Milepost (under US$20 at Amazon if you can't find it locally).

If you're driving up and back, I strongly suggest you vary your route and experience the Cassiar Hwy in one direction. Similarly, if you take the Alaska Hwy through Haines Jct one way, then drive the other way along the Taylor, Top of the World and Klondike Hwys...

Miscellaneous thoughts from ex-Cheesehead Craig who has travelled the Far North several times.

Would you share what the name of those files are?

Thanks