Hwy 800 Quick Facts:
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 Tertiary Highway 800 Sign Image courtesy of Jamie Malecki |
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This long highway ran from Port Arthur (later Thunder Bay) northerly towards Armstrong. The
road began as a forest access road in the 1950s, which was later upgraded to provincial
highway standards. The DHO designated the southernmost 71 km of this road as Hwy 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 Hwy 800. On May 6, 1965, another
15 km was designated as well. By 1967, the length of Hwy 800 had grown to 119 km. In 1969,
the forestry road leading north from the end of Hwy 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 Hwy 800 in 1971. By 1972, paving had been completed from
Hwy 11 &
Hwy 17 to Hicks Lake. The balance of
the highway remained as a gravel-surfaced road until 1976, when the entire route of Hwy 800
was redesignated as Hwy 527. Click
here
to see a route map of Hwy 800, showing historical re-routings and realignments.
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