History of Tertiary Highway 800:
Tertiary Highway 800 was a long resource access road serving the western side of Lake Nipigon in the Thunder Bay District. The highway began just outside of Port
Arthur (later Thunder Bay) and ran north towards Armstrong. The highway began as a forest access road in the 1950s, which was later upgraded to provincial highway
standards. The Department of Highways (DHO) designated the southernmost 71 km of this road as Highway 800 on July 25, 1963. The road was gradually extended northwards from
1963 to 1967. On January 9, 1964, the DHO designated another 16 km of the road as Highway 800. On May 6, 1965, another 15 km extension was designated as well. By
1967, the length of Highway 800 had grown to 119 km. In 1969, the forestry road leading north from the end of Highway 800 was finally linked with the Black Sturgeon
River Road. This road, which ran from Hurkett to Armstrong, had only opened to traffic a few years earlier. However, it was felt that the link from Armstrong to
Thunder Bay would prove to be the more greatly traveled of the two access roads. As a result, paving operations began on Highway 800 in 1971. By 1972, paving had
been completed from Highway 11 & Highway 17 to Hicks Lake. The balance of the highway remained as a gravel-surfaced road until 1976, when the entire route of
Highway 800 was renumbered as Highway 527. The new route number came into effect on April 21, 1976.
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