At the end of day one, we left the Fundy shoreline and headed inland towards Truro. This gave us a chance to evaluate the trucks on the

(Photo: Lesley Wimbush)

highway and in traffic. There was power enough from all the engine configurations offered and even those with off-road packages were quiet with minimum road noise. Visibility was good with large side mirrors.

There are five suspension packages available. The Z71 off-roading package returns, there's a Z60 Street Performance with 20 inch wheels and low profile tires, and the NHT model is the maximum towing package that can pull an astounding 10,500 lbs. It features heavy duty transmission with cooler, a larger axle and hardened gear sets.

Some twenty kilometers west of Truro, we stopped at Debert Airport where a couple of the runways had been converted to slalom courses. The company had cleverly provided one of each of the competitors trucks and a previous generation Silverado as well for comparison. The new GM trucks were easily the tightest handling, with the most accurate steering. Ford's F-150 and Nissan's Titan followed closely behind. By comparison the Dodge Ram 1500 equipped with the Hemi exhibited the most body roll,

(Photo: Lesley Wimbush)

plowing through the turns with pronounced understeer and was the most tail happy of the bunch.

For those who wanted to try their hand at towing, there was a Sierra with the NHT trailering package hooked up to 9,500 lbs of John Deere backhoe. Driving around the narrow streets of Debert, the truck scarcely broke a sweat, but it required modulated use of throttle and brake to tow smoothly without lurching.

The final leg of our trip consisted of driving ourselves to our departure destination of Halifax airport. Overall, the new trucks were consistently comfortable, quiet and capable and exhibited great handling in this most remote and rugged setting.