The Ice Road

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

For a Valentine's treat, Greg and I decided it was high time we shook the dust off us, grabbed the kids, hopped in the van and took a drive down to Inuvik for the day yesterday.  What fun! We had been going to go two weeks ago, but then there was the blizzard. One would do well to stay inside and completely off the road during a blizzard and that is exactly what we did.  Last weekend we were supposed to go on Sunday for my birthday because James and Patrick had entered a project in the area Education Authority's Heritage Fair about video games, and the judging was on Sunday, but the weather did not cooperate again.  Strike two.

It would seem that the third time's a charm, and yesterday morning we were off.  From May to December, Tuktoyaktuk is considered a remote community of 1,000 people accessible by plane, barge, and boat - provided it's big enough and you have plenty of fuel.  It is expensive to travel here and even more expensive to ship goods up here, thus the shipping charges are reflected in the prices. From December to April, however, we have the luxury of the ice road, which is an annual plowing of a wide path down the Arctic Ocean to the McKenzie River across the thickest parts of ice from Tuk to Inuvik, as well as Aklavik and other smaller communities up here.  This means that more goods and important, heavy items can be shipped from all over and it costs significantly less than it would to fly them in.  Currently, there is major construction underway to create a permanent road between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk, and so right now on the ice road there are loads of transport trucks coming up with giant parts for equipment and for the road itself.  It is amazing!  Groceries are also coming up via truck as well, which means grocery prices are less right now too and there is more selection.  The Fruit Man is making his appearances, too.  He comes with loads of fresh(er) produce and other discounted grocery items and sets up for the day before moving on to another community.

Inuvik Regional Health Centre - Your PRIMARY
Health facility.....get it?

The enormous Northern Store in Inuvik.  Can you see the
Catholic Church the right?  It's dome shaped.

Since all the ice roads from the various outpost communities meet up in Inuvik, this small town becomes the central meeting place for all of these people, and the hotels, restaurants and shops do a booming business.  Prices are much cheaper and it sure is fun to sit at the one traffic light in town, drive on paved roads, and visit a variety of stores.  There is no Walmart, clothing stores, bowling alley, or movie theatre, but there is an indoor swimming pool/hockey arena complex, a Home Hardware and enough food stores to give you a variety of items that you can't find in Tuk.  This past weekend there was a hockey tournament in Inuvik, so the whole town was booming, and it seems like every time we turned around there were people we knew, which was actually kind of neat.  Honestly, I thought half of Tuk was in Inuvik on Saturday!

The Ice Road - Inuvik bound

For those of you who have never traveled on an ice road, I will describe how this works.  When the  Arctic Ocean and the McKenzie River freeze over enough to have a layer of ice several feet thick/deep, a wide pathway is plowed and there it is.  Actually, there is more involved to it than that, such as figuring out how thick the ice is and therefore how the road should wind around the ocean to make it safe and sound.  There are people who work on the ice road for both maintenance and constant monitoring, which is important.

When you first turn on to the ice road in Tuk it is like driving down a snowy, bumpy road.  For those of you who have ever driven a gravel road in the early spring when the frost is coming out of the ground, you know that the road heaves.  I know for myself that driving to my in-laws' house in Orrville, Ontario (rural Parry Sound) has had its harrowing moments over the years around Easter time!  You really have to watch the road to avoid giving your shocks as well as other parts of the undercarriage of your vehicle a run for their money.  Well, the first part of the ice road is like this.  Why?  This is because you are driving on top of the Arctic Ocean, which has tides and is always active underneath the ice.  The ice shifts and cracks a little so you get heaves and bumps, and since this part of the road is snow covered, mainly from the winds blowing in off the ocean, it is very difficult to see them as you approach until sometimes you are going over them before you realize it.  This means that speeds of less than 60 km/hr are necessary....40 km/hr would be preferable.  The snow is plowed along the side of the road, and while you are traveling along the Arctic O
cean part of the road, it is piled up high.  If you look to the right or the left, all you see is a vast expanse of white, snow-covered ocean. It sure looks peaceful and dormant, but you never know when the ever vigilant water underneath is going to do!  Again, we are lucky that the thickness of the ice and all elements of its maintenance are monitored so carefully.

See the snow piled up along the side of the road and the
vast expanse of snow beyond that?
That is the Arctic Ocean!

Once you are further down the ice road Inuvik bound, you will eventually begin to see trees!!  Yay!!  We have passed the tree line and are back into tree country again.  It's funny because I don't notice the lack of trees up here per say, but I sure do notice when they start appearing along the ice road.  The other thing you see from time to time dotted along what would be the shores of the ocean and along the river are hunting cabins.  The Inuvaluit keep their 'hunt camps' out on the land so that they have a place to stay while hunting and fishing.  They are small, simple buildings kept warm by wood stove.  We saw several along our journey, their chimneys churning out wood smoke that goes straight up into the air it is so cold outside!  You can also see the pick-up trucks parked along what would be the shore....and of course the snowmobiles too.  Some of the hunt camps are bundled together like little parcels along the shore, and others are solitary.  Most cabins are in good shape, while others look more ramshackle.  It is amazing to hear how the Inuvaluit live while out on the land, but those who go out in the winter to hunt speak of how simple, peaceful and spiritual it is to be out there, away from the busy-ness of town.

See the hunt camps?  Some of these are quite swanky, actually.
Also....TREES!

As a native Southern Ontarian, the idea that the hamlet of Tuk is busy is completely foreign to me.  One drive down the 401 during rush hour, or a trip to a Walmart on a Saturday morning will show you the busy-ness of town!  However, to the Inuvaluit, the land is a place of peace and self-reflection, and it affords you the opportunity to feed your family.  The silence is necessary to hunt, so the sound of the water truck making its daily deliveries, or the plane landing at t
he airport, or people on skidoos making a mad dash to Stantons' or the Northern Stores before they close can make the difference between whether or not the people at the hunt camp eat that night.  I guess it just comes down to perspective.

Anyway, I digress. The ice road.

Once you reach the McKenzie River, the road straightens out and you can see the shore line on either side of you, all sleepy and covered in several feet of snow.  The road here can be a bit of a wind tunnel, but it is more protected than the ocean, so the ice is not so covered.  This means that when you look out the windows of your vehicle you see a dark, murky green colour beneath you, which is the ice....and if you are brave enough like Greg and Charlotte, you can see the water moving beneath the ice!  That does not impress me at all, so I stay in the van and try to think of other things, like unicorns and rainbows and anything that does not remind me that there is ultra deep, murky, frigid water beneath me that would stop my heart and give me hypothermia in a matter of seconds.  I try to comfort myself by thinking of the molecular structure of ice and its durability....and also the fact that if transport trucks are running up and down the ice road at speeds that will astound you, then our little van will be fine, right?  Right.  Right?  Right.

You can see patches of bare ice up ahead, which don't show
the green colour very well, but do show a nice curve!

The road does a right angle turn to the right just on the
outside left of the picture.

The next thing I want to mention about the ice road are the fissures.  From time to time, you will come across a warning sign to slow down, or a bump sign, or a keep left/right sign, and that is because there is a fissure in the ice.  Oh yeah.  They happen!  They are not wide enough that your vehicle will fall through, but cracks in the sea ice happen and you just have to be careful going over them.  If they become something of a concern, they are looked after by the Powers That Be who monitor the road, so I am told it is nothing to freak out about.  Again...more unicorns and fuzzy, adorable kittens are going through my mind!!  (Keep posting cute stuff like this on my FB wall people...I need every one you've got! ).  Of course, again, Greg and Charlotte think it's the coolest thing to stop at the side of the road, and to get out and....gulp....peer down the crack!!  Greg says you can actually see the water as it flows beneath all that ice.  Now is about the time when I call upon a higher power to safely deliver my family back to our van, and to implore my husband to continue driving so I can put my feet safely on land!

People have asked me what is it like to drive on the ice road.  All I can tell you is my perspective.... from the passenger seat!  I, for one, refuse to drive on the ice road unless it is a dire emergency.  This is an experience I will happily miss!  No thank you.  It is fine enough just to be on the ice road itself.  Greg, however, will tell you that it is just like driving on icy, snow-covered roads during a winter storm.  You don't over-brake or over-steer and you watch your speed.  The actual speed limit on the road is 80 km/hr, and there are parts where this is reasonable and sometimes abused.  The road itself from Tuk to Inuvik is full of curves and twists and turns that require some navigation considering the fact that ice IS slippery.  Greg took a few turns a wee bit too fast, and we found ourselves sliding, but again, keep clam, don't turn into it and you recover.  No worries!  Right?  Wrong!  (No accidents so far thanks to Greg's excellent driving skills.).  They also make the road incredibly wide, to allow for people to pull over without any fear of being hit by others and to allow for sliding.  Also, the snow piled up along the side of the road helps.

See the blizzard-like conditions caused by coming across a
slower moving vehicle on the road? 

Since there is some snow on the road, occasionally and quite suddenly you will come across white out conditions.  At first, even Greg was startled and baffled by this, until we realized that we were approaching another vehicle.  You kick up and disturb enough snow on the road to create dangerous conditions for a vehicle behind you, which is another reason the road is so wide.  This way you can pull over to allow others to pass, which happens often.

Once you start going through what almost feel like s-curves, it's not far to Inuvik, and believe me I always feel like it's a sight for sore eyes!  The first thing you see is the Esso gas station where gas is currently $1.58/litre which is a steal compared to whatever it is in Tuk, and from there on in it's paved roads, traffic signs and the aforementioned intersection!  Civilization! This past week we got the van an oil change for $180 ($80 for the oil), had lunch, picked up some groceries, socialized with all the people we knew, met a lot of students from school, and wound up having dinner in town too.  Just as the last rays of the sun were disappearing from the horizon, we began our journey back to Tuk.  Greg turned the heat up in the van, put on 80s music (which lulls the kids the sleep) and we had a peaceful 2 hour journey home.

Some of the more typical houses you see in Inuvik. 

All in all, a great day, and a super fun adventure for us during our time in the North. We got some different groceries and some fruit and veggies that aren't normally for sale in Tuk, at fairly decent prices, too. We spent some time in the Northern Store, which is more or less considered a department store by southern standards.  We will definitely be going back and forth to Inuvik over the next few months while we can.  The thing is, you have to hit the road while it's open because once April-ish comes around, our access to civilization becomes limited to air again.

Bummer.