Wilderness Traverse Prepares to Host the Adventure Racing World Series North American Championship

Teams will be headed for Sudbury, Ontario on Friday 25th July to prepare for the 15th edition of the classic Canadian adventure race, Wilderness Traverse.

This year the race will host the North American Championship of the Adventure Racing World Series, and the stakes are high as the winners will claim the regional title, a free place in next year’s World Championship, and the famous ‘Bob the Beaver’ trophy!

The race is the creation of Bob Miller, an adventure racer with an impressive racing record over the past two decades, who was on the winning team at last year’s ARWS North America championships, and will be racing this year’s World Championship at Expedition Canada in September.

So it’s not surprising that Wilderness Traverse has the reputation as a ‘racer’s race’ with old-school courses which test navigation and route choice in the wilderness. Here’s what Miller has to say about the race;

“My goal in the creation of the Wilderness Traverse is to place a challenge before your team that captures your collective imagination and no matter what the outcome, gives you an indelible memory of a very special place in Canada.

“You will love it. You will hate it. You will feel powerful. You will want it to end. Then, when it’s all over and you’re back to your regular day-to-day life, you will crave to do it again.

“I will do whatever I can to get your team to the finish line. All I ask is that you come to the start line, face the racecourse with an open mind, and push like hell until the time is up. You’ll be glad you did, I promise you!”

Regular racers will know what to expect from Wilderness Traverse, and it’s a race with a strong community which many Canadian teams return to year after year. That’s a testament to the quality of the race, and to the vast areas of beautiful wilderness Ontario has available for great adventure racing courses.

This year the race is in new territory, with the HQ in Sudbury, which is surrounded by classic Canadian Shield country with its characteristic rocky landscape, boreal forests and thousands of lakes, many of them linear. It’s an area seeking UNESCO Global Geopark status and there is a dark sky reserve nearby.

Teams will face a 160km/30 hour course and know it will be a linear course with a remote start, as it often is at Wilderness Traverse. They can expect fewer checkpoints than some races and lots of route choice. Navigators will be tested and have to make smart choices. They will need to stay connected with the map on and off trail, and for 8 hours of darkness through the night.

For teams doing the full expedition course it will be a simple race as all checkpoints are mandatory, so they need to try and get them all!

Teams are travelling from all over Canada and several US states, with some looking to take the win and the title, others trying to complete a full Wilderness Traverse course, and some testing themselves on their first big overnight adventure race.

This is the case with Team Full Steam Ahead, a high school team from Maryland which was invited to the race with the backing of Wilderness Traverse and several groups in the adventure racing community keen to encourage youth adventure racing. The four students in the team have been training hard, preparing for their first overnight race, and jumping in at the deep end to be on the start line with many of the best teams in North America!

These include the defending ARWS North America champions, Team Canada Adventure, who won the title last year at the Two Rivers race in the USA, led by Bob Miller. For this year he steps out and his wife, Shannon, is in the team. They will have plenty of competition, including last year’s Wilderness Traverse winners Bend Racing/4 Hour Fuel, fielding the same, all-Canadian, team.

There are plenty of other very experienced squads in the mix, including Team Expedition Canada, Salomon Canada, and last year’s second and third placed teams Adrenaline Rush and GRIT Racing.

Teams will begin arriving at Laurentian University in Sudbury on Friday and the race starts at 10.00am on Saturday July 26th. You can follow all of the race coverage and live tracking from https://www.wildernesstraverse.com/2025wtcoverage once the race starts, and also on @arwsnorthamerica.

For more information on Wilderness Traverse visit www.wildernesstraverse.com