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Author Topic: Ice roads
'lance
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Babbler # 1064

posted 11 August 2001 02:46 PM      Profile for 'lance     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
This topic is not very political, at least not explicitly so.

But from truck drivers in Edmonton I heard (to me) amazing stories of driving winter roads in NWT, which I was only vaguely aware of before. Imagine hauling fuel 650 km to a mine site, all but about 100 of it over ice, on which you can only drive 15-20 km/hr. Speed limits are strictly enforced. If you drive faster, you "crest your wave," and perhaps break through the ice.

It's a strange way of making a living, and perhaps unique in all the world. I can't think of another northern region which has both so many lakes and so much development.

But then, being told that on some lakes the ice no longer forms thick enough for perfect safety inspires a kind of horrified sadness. And, of course, driving these hundreds or thousands of diesel-burning vehicles contributes at least fractionally to the process by which the roads won't be driveable any more.

Have any babblers driven truck up north, or otherwise experienced the ice roads?


From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
360north
recent-rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1210

posted 12 August 2001 10:55 PM      Profile for 360north     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I have driven many ice roads. The 20 kph speed limit is to minimize the wave effect caused by heavy vehicles travelling quickly. This can create dangerous conditions for the speeding vehicle as well as destabalizing the ice for others.
The ice road system is impressive in the NWT. Very elaborate and the only way supplies come into many isolated communities in the winter. So between ferry schedules ending and the ice becoming thick enough, some communiites are completely cut off.
The ice bridge builders hose the section vehicles will be travelling to build up the ice, very backyard rink-like.
No two communities in Nunavut are connected by a permanent road.

From: Calgary, Alberta | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
jabber
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 144

posted 14 August 2001 02:08 AM      Profile for jabber     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Although the region of North Western Ontario is not part of this location, ice roads are also a way of life here. Just check out a map. There are lots of First Nation communities unserviced by roads in that big "empty" space south of Hudsons Bay/James Bay. Each winter an elaborate system of ice roads is built to haul in a years supply of fuel and building materials. The two key communities from which they start are Red Lake and Pickle Lake.

Some communities here also create ice roads for commuting to work. In the Red Lake Area the folks in Balmertown commute to Red Lake or vice-versa in the winter rather than go around the lake. Also in Dryden the folks who live on the southwest side of the lake take the 1 km ice road rather than 15 km paved road back and forth to Dryden.


From: Dryden | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
'lance
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posted 14 August 2001 01:24 PM      Profile for 'lance     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
In the foreseeable future, these roads will no longer be usable. I wonder what will happen to these isolated communities then.
From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
jabber
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posted 14 August 2001 05:44 PM      Profile for jabber     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
'lance,
The small freight charter planes will love it. They already believe the government cost of maintaining the ice roads each winter would off-set the extra cost of air freight.

One such service in NWO is Wasaya Air, owned by the First Nations.

I'm not sure I would want to fly a fully loaded plan with fuel though.

Right now Bob Nault (NIAD minister)wants to build permanent roads into remote communities to open up development and provide a more sustainable economic base for isolated communities. He needs provincial cooperation, something not easy to come by.

Also if you look carefully at the map north of Pickle Lake there is a gravel road to basically nowhere. It was built by John Diefenbaker when he was in power. He had a grand plan to do what Nault is now talking about.


From: Dryden | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
'lance
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Babbler # 1064

posted 14 August 2001 08:48 PM      Profile for 'lance     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Yeah, Dief had a lot of schemes that went nowhere.

The truckers I was talking to were hauling fuel up to diamond mines and such in the NWT. I can't see that going by air.


From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
oldgoat
Moderator
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posted 28 August 2001 05:49 PM      Profile for oldgoat     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
If anyone is going to pick up this thread 14 days later, I'd like to mention that I've driven the ice road from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk a number of times, and nobody was observing any speed limits. In the wider parts of the eastern channel, and when you turn along the north coast, it's really wide, and you can go flat out and do spins. (unless you hit a pressure ridge, and then your toast). I should add, I was definitly NOT driving a truck! Some of the trucks that supply the oil rigs out in the Beaufort Sea were just huge, but they weren't exactly going slow either.

Higher speeds aren't really recommended going across the delta to Aklavik, because it's quite windey, and there's a bit more traffic. It is, however, one of the most pretty and scenic drives in Canada.

[ August 28, 2001: Message edited by: oldgoat ]


From: The 10th circle | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
jabber
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posted 29 August 2001 12:30 AM      Profile for jabber     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
oldgoat, sounds like fun. Even down here in NWO they can be really wide and verrry tempting to do silly things.

'lance I was in Pickle Lake and checked on the issue of transporting fuel. Evidently two years age the roads lasted all of about a week and the fuel was delivered by plane. It is off loaded from the trucks at the end of the highway (Pickle Lake), put into barrels, put on board and flown north to the remote communities. You can imagine the price. I understand one of the schools was closed for a week; there simply was not sufficient fuel to keep it warm.


From: Dryden | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
'lance
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posted 29 August 2001 01:12 AM      Profile for 'lance     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Yes, that doesn't surprise me. I imagine many of these towns will simply be relocated, as Joey Smallwood did in Newfoundland.

As for speed limits, I got the feeling they were really more important for big trucks, or truck convoys, because they weigh [bignum] kilos.

Even back in my Ottawa Valley "home" some people would take old beaters out on the lake ice occasionally to do doughnuts. I wonder if they still do.


From: that enchanted place on the top of the Forest | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
machiavellian
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posted 12 October 2001 04:13 AM      Profile for machiavellian   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Here in Peace River business booms in winter cuz of the ice roads - summer is comparatively slow. The one I'm most familiar with is when the river actually freezes and you can cross - in summer there's a ferry instead. It greatly reduces travel time to many nearby areas.

But last year, the ice on the Peace never actually froze enough to be used as a bridge. So a lot of people had to go one or two hours further out of their way to get into town.

I've lived here over a year and I now equate spring with the radio announcements about which ice roads are now being closed off because they're becoming too dangerous to cross.


From: Peace River (no, not actually in the river, silly) | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
oldgoat
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Babbler # 1130

posted 15 January 2007 07:39 AM      Profile for oldgoat     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Just thought I'd bump this old thread. With the spectre of global warming, some day these ice roads could become a thing of the past. Communities in the far north greatly rely on this as a means of transport for social reasons as well as commercial. Any comments on how the loss of ice roads would affect northern communities?
From: The 10th circle | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
Québécois in the North
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posted 15 January 2007 08:24 AM      Profile for Québécois in the North     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Last years ice road season was astonishgly short. Last winter, indeed, was the NWT'S wharmest winter on record.

In wekweeti the town was only accessible for three weeks. That means, the community ran out of things like flour and heating oil... kinda shitty. But the one thing that freaked the government out was that several hauls did not make it to the diamond mines and the exploitation cost soared. The mines had to rent a giant-sized russian helicopter to ship the material and oil. It soon became the talk of town.

Since then, the NWT premier, Joe Handley, is talking about building an all-weather rooad to the mines. The remote communities representatives are flabbergasted and ask for roads to their town first. Nahendeh's MLA dubbed the all-wheater road project 'The Joe Highway'.

That being said, this years ice road season is loooking much better than last year. As I write, most NWT ice roads are frozen and open to traffic.


From: Yellowknife | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
jester
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Babbler # 11798

posted 15 January 2007 08:59 AM      Profile for jester        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
In the good old days,industry built and maintained ice roads without much concern for safety or standards. Now, the NWT government regulates ice roads and the reason the roads are open for shorter durations is to meet the redundancy requirements of the safety standards.

One of the best rides is across the outlet of Great Bear Lake to Ft. Franklin. The Bear River flows too fast to freeze and the ice road crosses fast flowing water on one side.


From: Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged
Québécois in the North
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Babbler # 10727

posted 15 January 2007 12:42 PM      Profile for Québécois in the North     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
As a non-driver, I think, the best way to enjoy them is to go biking on the ice roads. When it's open, I bike the Yellowknife-Dettah road, at least once a week.

In spring, when it closes to motorized traffic, the snow melts and for a brief period the road surface becomes thick and absolutely flat. That's when we can go skating on the ice road. Who said the Rideau Channel was the world's longest skating rink?


From: Yellowknife | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
TemporalHominid
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Babbler # 6535

posted 15 January 2007 09:32 PM      Profile for TemporalHominid   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by 'lance:
In the foreseeable future, these roads will no longer be usable. I wonder what will happen to these isolated communities then.

fXcXeX comes to mind.


From: Under a bridge, in Foot Muck | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
oldgoat
Moderator
Babbler # 1130

posted 17 January 2007 01:48 PM      Profile for oldgoat     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Ain't just the roads either. A lot of northern communities are built on pylons which run down to the permafrost. Climactic warming will make the MacKenzie Delta, among other areas a big expensive soupy mess.
From: The 10th circle | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
whereareyanow22
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posted 21 January 2007 07:11 PM      Profile for whereareyanow22     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
So not really along the environmental line of conversation, but does anyone have any information on statistics related to ice roads, such as the number of trucks that go through in a season? Also, any websites that have up to date information on the conditions and state of the roads running North from Yellowknife would be very helpful and interesting to me.
From: Saskatchewan | Registered: Jan 2007  |  IP: Logged
Québécois in the North
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 10727

posted 22 January 2007 02:44 PM      Profile for Québécois in the North     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Here you will find the stats for the NWT ice roads. Clic the "road history button" for the stats.
From: Yellowknife | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged

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