Establishment of Ice Roads in the Northwest Territories

Backgrounder

Until the 1940s, communities in the Northwest Territories were accessible in winter only by air, dog sled or Cat trains (Caterpillar tractors) that hauled linked sleds at 6 kilometres per hour. For half the year, this made it difficult, expensive and time-consuming to transport heavy equipment or large quantities of supplies into remote communities.

Ice roads had been built for years and were integral to the secret American-led Second World War project to link oil reserves at Norman Wells to the Alaska Highway by pipeline. However, it was not until John Denison, a former RCMP officer, popularised the construction of engineered ice roads in the 1950s and 1960s, that they could be built annually and compete with Cat trains in supplying remote locations. By the second half of the twentieth century, hundreds of kilometres of ice roads were established all over the Northwest Territories.

Building and maintaining ice roads is a dangerous, never-ending job. They melt in summer and have to be rebuilt every winter. Ice roads are often built on the surfaces of frozen lakes and even rivers. After air scouts map a route, tractors clear a path for larger equipment that compresses two to three feet of snow down to two or three inches. Road ice frequently has to be repaired and cleared of snow. Truck drivers have to be careful not to travel faster than road conditions allow, or risk breaking through the ice.

The biggest impact of ice roads has been on the petroleum and mining industries in Canada’s North. Without these roads to bring in supplies and equipment, it would not have been cost effective to open many northern mines that have become important contributors to the Canadian economy. Ice roads have made life easier for many Canadians living in the North by lowering the cost of importing necessities.

Because ice roads are integral to the territorial north today, the governments have taken many of them over from the resource companies to maintain them for communities. 

 

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Hon. Catherine McKenna Parks Canada Information and Communications