Going where no Toyota Tacoma Trailhunter has ever been before | Reviews

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Not far from the northwest shore of Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence lies an island bigger than P.E.I. — with almost no humans. Here, amid crystal clear rivers speckled with trout and salmon, valleys rife with aspen, fir, spruce and birch, an oceanfront haunted by more than 400 shipwrecks, is a land that time forgot. 

No cell service. No police. No hospital. Only a few kilometres of paved roads, tons of fossils, and only two fuel stations, one of which charges $2.60/litre for gasoline. The only way to get here is by boat or plane to the small airport. A passenger and cargo ship operated by Relais Nordik, a commercial shipping company, docks at the island’s only hamlet of Port Menier twice a week, but the $80M Bella Desgagnes supply ship does not have drive-on service, hence the need for every vehicle to be put into a seacan for an expensive, six-hour ferry ride from Havré St. Pierre on the north shore.

Few accommodations and fewer places to eat seem to be just fine for the 200 or so actual residents on Anticosti. Stepping onto Canada’s 20th largest island ushers in feelings of what Jacques Cartier must have felt when he first saw the island in 1535, or Samuel de Champlain in 1625, when the surrounding wilderness — rich in plants and trees, the wind off the Gulf, the squawking shorebirds arcing above the shoreline — make it immediately apparent this little-known island is a gem unto itself.

Out here, quite literally in the middle of nowhere, is a place few Canadians have ever visited or heard about — and where no Trailhunter Tacoma has ever been before. Truly, there could be no better location to explore the truck’s durability, given that the nearest form of help could be 222 kilometres away at the other end of the island. And what better a truck to explore the island given the Tacoma’s formidable character, and its long history of reliability and toughness?

Introduced last year, the 2025 Trailhunter Tacoma retails at $87,848 with freight, sitting at the apex of the Tacoma lineup. That’s just a little less than what all of Anticosti sold for in 1895 when French chocolate maker Henri Menier bought the whole island for $125,000. 

Menier was a bit of trailblazer himself: he built a cannery for packing fish and lobster, attempted to develop its lumber and minerals, even turned the island into a personal game preserve when he introduced a herd of 220 white-tailed deer that, to this day, thrive without predators and now number more than 160,000. That’s 800 deer per resident, or 20 per square kilometre, which means they wander absolutely everywhere, requiring attention at all times to avoid hitting one on the many gravel roads. 

Driving the Trailhunter across Anticosti

Keeping alert for deer while bounding across Anticosti to Vaureal Falls or one of the other 24 rivers and streams, the Trailhunter feels utterly competent. Part-time 4WD, or one of the drive modes, is easy to activate. We never needed the standard sway bar disconnect or locking rear differential as most off-road trails out here are not all that rocky, and the long vacant beaches were dense enough to avoid getting stuck; 11.5” of ground clearance was appreciated. But the long wheelbase makes it extremely hard to turn the truck around; there were probably more points in our turns than on the island’s biggest bucks. Steering felt heavier than I remember but the brakes are pleasingly quick to activate with a soft touch of the pedal. Visibility is OK but not superior.

Available only with a six-foot box — and the only electrified Tacoma with a longbox — the Trailhunter stands apart with forged monotube Old Man Emu shocks, a high mount intake, skid plates, steel rear bumper with ARB recovery points, an angled sport rack in the box, rock rails and 2.4-kW power inverter. The way this suspension soaks up potholes, rocks and road undulations is truly genius, the ride ultra accommodating at all times. A roof rack and sunroof are also standard, but the rack is so noisy that the sunroof shade was never opened. Same with the silly snorkel-like intake that produces so much turbo noise that the passenger window was rarely opened. The intake is cute for about 30 seconds when the novelty wears off. 

Inside, the 14-inch screen is brilliant, the instrument cluster first class, and it is satisfying to have real switches and knobs for controls such as climate and audio. Seats are good. The only thing that rattled was the removable JBL bluetooth speaker in the dash. That JBL sound system will disappoint audiophiles.

The most expensive Tacoma ever is also one of its most powerful, feeling very much like a small diesel (and sounding a bit like one at idle, too). Instead of diesel, though, this hybrid engine uses a 1.87-kWh nickel-metal hydride battery to feed a 48 horsepower motor between the engine and transmission. Net output is 326 horsepower and 465 lb-ft of torque. Yes, the battery consumes precious cargo space under the already ridiculously small back seat, but the hybrid motor transitions between electric and gas so seamlessly, it’s often not noticeable while driving. It’s fun to use electric-only mode when creeping along trails. Paired with the eight-speed transmission, the 2.4-litre 4-cylinder gasoline engine is decently refined, turbocharged with a single, twin-scroll turbo. It pulls strongly through the first five gears, never hunting too much for the right cog.

Unfortunately, the fuel tank is just 69 litres when a 90-litre tank is required in a place like Anticosti. Averaging 13.2 L/100 km, the truck’s range is, at best, 450 km from full. Toyota likes to say the Trailhunter is not about going fast, but about going far, but this truck won’t go the distance with a fuel tank suited for a Corolla. While hunting for trails on the island, fuel was always a concern.

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Wide 33” Goodyear Wrangler Territory RT tires, however, never let us down, despite hundreds of miles on gravel roads. Two Toyo Open Country tires on our companion 2025 4Runner, however, suffered failures, either by bad luck or happenstance. Each flat was repaired with a $10 patch kit — then inflated with the standard onboard compressor in the Trailhunter. Toyota should really offer the compressor as a standalone option on all its trucks as it truly saved our day.

The Quebec government, in a way, has also saved this precious place. Bought from a forestry company in 1974 for almost $24M, Anticosti is now mostly managed by Sépaq, the Quebec government agency that promotes hunting and recreation. Another 572 square kilometres has been designated as a national conservation park, and in 2023 the island was named to UNESCO’s World Heritage List. 

As it should. Driving a Toyota Tacoma Trailhunter across the Island for three days certainly reveals the precious and captivating allure of such a rugged and remote land. Both the truck and the island seem perfectly suited for each other. Leaving them both behind felt sad.

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