KING IN THE NORTH: CHEVROLET COLORADO ZR2 VS. FORD F-150 RAPTOR VS. RAM 2500 POWER WAGON

Editor's Note: In honor of Canada Day, we're re-posting one of our favorite adventures in the Great White North - our journey across the rugged Trans-Labrador Highway in three of the toughest pickup trucks on the planet. This story originally ran in August 2017.

It's never been a better time to be an off-road truck enthusiast. There are more choices than ever before, and American automakers produce three of the most capable trucks: the 2017 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2, 2017 Ford F-150 Raptor, and 2017 Ram 2500 Power Wagon. But which one of these factory off-roaders is best? We took 'em to eastern Canada to find out.

I lay on the ground, defenseless. Blood dripped down my forehead. I knew the next assault was coming. I could hear the bastards coming before I could see them.

Minutes earlier, five words had just changed our—my—entire morning: "The Ram has a flat." It was a Tuesday somewhere along a rutted two-lane gravel road in the remote Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. We were 75 miles from our origin that day in Port Hope Simpson and 75 miles (and an hour and a half of driving) from the can't-miss ferry from the Labrador mainland to the island of Newfoundland.

The timing of the flat was, to use polite language, really inconvenient. We pulled our Ram Power Wagon onto the shoulder, parked our companion vehicles next to it, and rushed our tire change. But we were not quick enough to avoid the merciless cloud of mosquitos, horse flies, and black flies that emerged from the undergrowth. To them, DEET was not repellant but perfume. And I was their lunch date.