British Columbia Highway 23

Highway 23 is a north–south highway that straddles the Columbia River in the Columbia Country region of British Columbia, Canada. Its section north of Revelstoke is formerly known as the Big Bend Highway and was part of the original routing of Highway 1. The Big Bend area was well known as there was a gold rush there, beginning in 1864. Travelers used canoes or river steamers until a dirt-surfaced "highway" was built on the east bank around the Big Bend, from Revelstoke to Golden, from 1930 to 1937, opening officially in 1940, and it served as the trans-provincial highway until 1962 when the Rogers Pass portion of the Trans-Canada Highway was opened.

Highway 23 was initially opened in 1964, and it was re-aligned through the latter half of the 1960s. Realignment of the highway also occurred in the early 1980s, in anticipation of the creation of the reservoir for the Revelstoke Dam (Revelstoke Lake), which flooded lower parts of the highway.