A 1928 Royal Commission into the price of beef in Western Australia led to the repair of the wells and the re-opening of the stock route.

The Canning Stock Route is now a popular but challenging four-wheel drive trek typically taking 10 to 20 days to complete.

James Isdell, an east Kimberley pastoralist and member of the Western Australian Legislative Assembly, proposed the stock route arguing that ticks would not survive in the dry desert climate on the trip south.

[7] Canning's task was to find a route through 1850 kilometres of desert, from Wiluna in the mid west to the Kimberley in the north.

[10] In 1906, with a team of 23 camels, two horses, and eight men, Canning surveyed the route completing the difficult journey from Wiluna to Halls Creek in less than six months.

The survey party left Halls Creek in late January 1907 and arrived back in Wiluna in early July 1907.

Despite condemning the use of chains, the Royal Commission accepted the survey party's actions as "reasonable" and Canning and his men were exonerated of all charges, including "immorality with native women" and stealing property.

He arrived back in Wiluna in April 1910 having completed the last of 48 wells and bringing the total cost of the route to £22000 (2010: A$2.6 million).

Consequently, many Aboriginal people were injured or died while trying to access the water, either falling in and drowning or breaking bones on the windlass handle.

In September 1911, Sergeant R.H. Pilmer led a police "punitive expedition" to find the culprits and ensure the stock route remained open.

[21] On 7 September 1911 it was reported that the first mob of cattle to traverse the entire length of the stock route had successfully arrived in Wiluna.

[7][10] During the Second World War the track was upgraded at considerable expense in case it was needed for an evacuation of the north if Australia was invaded.

[29] In 1968 the entire length of the track was driven for the first time by surveyors Russell Wenholz and David Chudleigh, and Noel Kealley.

[citation needed] In 1972, before the route was regularly negotiated in four-wheel drives, ambitious attempts to complete it on foot took place.

A New Zealander, Murray Rankin, and two English brothers, John and Peter Waterfall, fashioned homemade trolleys from bicycle wheels and metal tubing, and began their attempt starting from Wiluna in early June 1972.

After driving the route in a Land Rover and establishing food depots along the way, he set out from Halls Creek on 12 July 1976 with three other bushwalkers, Ralph Barraclough, Kathy Burman and Rex Shaw.

[32] In 1991, a Citroën 2CV, driven by Rupert Backford and Mathew Rawlings, completed the CSR with a support crew towing the car over many of the dunes.

[36] In 2005 Jakub Postrzygacz became the first person to traverse the entire track without either support or the use of food drops, travelling alone by fatbike for 33 days.

While quite a few travellers successfully make the trip, it still requires substantial planning and a convoy of well-equipped four-wheel drives or equivalent vehicles, and is only practical during the cooler months.

The Kuju Wangka committee of the Yanunijarra Aboriginal Corporation closed the Canning Stock Route to tourists in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many found work with the drovers using the stock route and successful droves relied on the skill of these Aboriginal stockmen and women.

Others left looking for more reliable sources of food and water, especially in times of drought, while some were drawn to the changes taking place around the edges of the desert or motivated by a desire to join family already living elsewhere.

As more and more people visit the area each year, custodians of the Western Desert have become concerned about the protection and management of Aboriginal sites along the route.

In 2007, researchers from the Australian National University began a project to draw up the first comprehensive plan of management for the entire Canning Stock Route.

[46] The project aimed to develop a series of modules to inform detailed guides and signs for visitors, while also protecting sites that have special significance for Indigenous peoples.

[49] When droving along the stock route led to many family groups dispersing to the edges of the desert, communities were established in missions, towns, stations and settlements, and it was here that contemporary painting movements flourished.

The project involved several years of research by Form in collaboration with Aboriginal artists and their art centres and organisations.

[52] A major part of the project's program of bush work was a six-week, 1,850-kilometre (1,150 mi) desert journey from Wiluna to Billiluna.

[52] The Canning Stock Route collection includes over 100 works of art, 120 oral histories, historical research, social and cultural data, artists' biographies, 20,000 photographs and over 200 hours of film footage.

[63] When it closed in January 2011, Yiwarra Kuju – The Canning Stock Route had been the most successful exhibition in the history of the Museum, with over 120,000 visitors.