Ice Roads, Ravens & Northern Lights
Clayton's 2-month adventure working near Yellowknife in Canada's far north.
Part 1: Nothing Made Sense
During February and March of 2023, Clayton did ice road trucking near Yellowknife, in Canada's far north. "And boy, is that an experience," he says.
It's 350 kilometers (220 miles) to the closest mine. 85% of the journey is over frozen lake water, which is only possible for a few weeks each year - once the ice has frozen thick enough and so long as temperatures remain cold enough.
A one-way trip takes 16 to 17 hours, with a maximum speed of 25 to 30 kilometers per hour, depending on the location. The trucks are kept running 24/7, because those turned off for even a minute will freeze up and won't restart. Â
Clayton says he was pulling
two trailers, a set of a Super-Bs. You see 'em going down the road all the time. I was hauling monstrous bags of cement to the mine. Between the two trailers, you could only fit 22 bags. They're about 5,000 pounds a piece.
They have to cement the mine walls so the tunnels don't collapse. They needed 12,000 of these bags. I think my first load up there, I was only able to take eight bags, and then I was able to take 10 as the ice got thicker.
Clayton estimates there were 500 truck drivers when he was working, and that about 20 of them were female. That far north, normal limits on hours behind the wheel don't apply. This is a seven-days-a-week job. Payment is by the load. It's definitely not for everyone. Some drivers hear popping noises out there on the four-feet-thick ice, get spooked, and aren't able to continue. They throw in the towel and head home.
Four trucks depart every 20 minutes, and Clayton says road maintenance crews are close at hand:
Because, as you drive, the ice splits. I can remember looking down and there being a two-foot deep split in the ice, 150 feet long. Well, if you get a tire stuck in there, it's done. But there's always a road crew, and they bring loader buckets and fill the holes and then spray it with a water truck. It's almost like ice welding.
The amount of work that goes into that project is phenomenal. My business gets slow in the wintertime. People aren't doing so much cleaning out. So why not go up for two months? I miss driving truck, but I don't want to do it full time again. So I get my truckin' fix in, and then I can come back and do my own thing here.
One of the best parts of working so far north, he says, was the wildlife. Ravens "would fly right beside your window. For miles, they'd just coast."
On one occasion, as he turned down a mine road, "about 200 caribou were running right parallel with me. That was really cool. Northern Lights every single night. It was absolutely amazing to see. Cold though. Instant freeze."
Near the halfway point of the journey, there's a mandatory, 20-minute pit stop. Clayton says "there's an island out there and they built a truck stop. You can go in, get your food, use the toilet. They have a TV in there, and there's Internet access."
Someone told him that, during the time he was in Ottawa with the Freedom Convoy the year before, the ice road truckers would "all be watching the TV. Everybody was cheering you guys on."
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Wow! That's a job few would do!
Cool. Pun semi-intended.