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It’s almost December, and work in the cold north is moving. This post is more of a card to all the Canadians, Americans and others who work the ice roads. They make a lot of money for their families, and deliver necessary supplies to people up there, as well as the supplies the keep industry active, but there are risks. Be safe up there guys!
For those who don’t know, oil and gas, gold mining, diamond mining, and all other industries in Canada’s north are serviced by big rigs. They work in the winter and often the summer, but not the spring and fall, because the roads are too wet for these heavy trucks. In some places, they only work in the winter because they rely on “ice roads.” The trucks travel across the ice to reach their destination. These ice roads have top notch security and precautions are taken, but still accidents can happen. It is the natural world, and we live in it. The risks are to the lives of the drivers, the well-being of their families, and environmental concerns (imagine 60,000 liters of fuel or chemical product dumped into a Canadian waterway and what would happen to life around it next Spring).
The ice has to be 1.8 meters thick to use as an ice road. Teams of workers trace the roads and maintain and measure the ice. They also have trucks and tools to service the inevitable mechanical and other problems associated — breakdowns and such. And medical experts such as first aiders are always on job sites in the area.
Some of these roads are very long and are used almost year round, up in the far north — the Arctic Circle and beyond, where -50 degrees is a common temperature. That’s what they live in in the NWT, Yukon, Nunavut and Alaska in the winters.
