On your left, fir- and cedar-carpeted islands rise like skyscrapers from Canada’s southern-most fjord; on your right, peregrine falcons patrol 700-m-high (1,312 ft) granite cliffs. The water’s green, the sky is blue—and you’re not even halfway to where you’re headed.

We’re talking, of course, about British Columbia’s Highway 99, AKA the Sea-to-Sky Highway—which visitors to February’s 2010 Winter Games will transit as they travel back and forth between the competition venues of Vancouver and Whistler.

Vancouverites have long had a love/hate relationship with this particular stretch of road. They love it because it reveals the sheer epic scale of nature—of rock faces and islands glazed with morning mist and smeared with the fingerprints of the last ice age. And they hate it because—until very recently—they could only steal a few quick glances at all this True Canadian Drama to avoid driving straight over a True Canadian Cliff.

At least things will be easier for our guests come January, now that BC has invested more than $600 million to rebuild much of this vital connector: the long and winding road has been straightened; its narrow shoulders widened; its curves smoothed; and new passing lanes added.

Britain’s estimable Guardian newspaper once called the “99” one of the world’s top five drives. With the improvements now almost complete, the Sea-to-Sky stands to move even higher up the global charts.

If you’re planning a trip to Canada this year and have a penchant for blacktop adventure, be sure to strike the 99 from your bucket list—before penciling in one of these other scenic excursions alongside:

• The Dempster Highway: bring spare gas, food, tires and guts for this 736-km (457-mi), mostly gravel highway that crosses through the Yukon and the Northwest Territories on a foundation of permafrost, and in winter time, ice bridges.
• The Cabot Trail, a 298-km (185-mi) loop around Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Island offers spectacular ocean views and quaint fishing villages.
• Alberta’s 230-km (143-mi) Icefields Parkway, connecting Jasper and Lake Louise, parallel to the Continental Divide, is Rocky Mountain-massive.
• The Route des navigateurs (Navigator's Route)—a 190-km (118-mi) ramble along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River and up to the famous Gaspésie Peninsula—winds through authentic villages and towns of rural, French-speaking Quebec.