The Winter Road

Last night as my boss and I went to the warehouse to deliver some furniture, we saw the eerie sight of lights out on the Mackenzie ice. It was a clear night and the moon was out, so you could make out McKay Range mountains on the opposite shore. Three sets of headlights were crawling along the ice about a kilometer away. Earlier in the day, plumes of steam or fog were rising from open holes in the ice.

My boss said they go out at night to drill holes in the ice to allow water to come to the surface and freeze. The ice alone is not thick enough to safely support vehicles, so they repeatedly flood the surface to make it thicker. There is always the danger that too much water will come up and melt all the way through. This past week, a man in a town further south was killed when his bobcat broke through the surface of the Mackenzie. He was helping clear ice for construction of the road.

Tulita is a key junction on the winter road. Because of the pocket of dangerously thin ice created by the shallow and swift-moving Great Bear River, the road must reach out over the Mackenzie to detour the thin ice. The road from Tulita south is relatively easy to build. We’ve heard it will be open on December 15th. But to travel further north, the small detour over the Mackenzie must be deemed safe. It won’t be ready until January.

When we arrived in the spring, construction was supposed to begin on a bridge over the Great Bear River. But the twenty-five million dollars earmarked by the territorial government was not enough for any construction companies to make a profit. Now that money is being spent on upgrading the path that is the winter road. I suspect that in twenty years time, one will be able to drive in the summer through the territories all the way the Beaufort sea . One can already go overland through the Yukon.

The sun has just set behind the mountains across the river. It is only 3pm. This morning I slept in, and watched the sun rise as I ate my breakfast at eleven.

One note on the temperature. This past week, it dropped down to thirty five below. It was painfully cold. Today it is only twenty below, with no wind. Believe it or not, it is noticeably warmer. Think of the difference between five and twenty degrees. Now transpose that to the other end of the thermometer. I just took Mackey for a walk, and I worked up a sweat. Sure, I was wearing a parka and long underwear, but I passed locals with jackets and baseball caps. When I was in Yellowknife, it was only seven below on the first night. I didn’t even bother wearing gloves.A pic of mackey with the old Hudson's Bay Warehouse and the Mackenzie River in the background. Until this summer, the warehouse was used for dry goods such as sugar and flour. Now we use it for furniture.