McSnowWriter's Pamphlet: 7.0 - Silhouettes in the Snow

Silhouettes in the Snow - Prologue - Ice Road Making

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:45:02 GMT

SILHOUETTES IN THE SNOW

Prologue

“ Ice Road Making”

“Isn’t there anything else for supper”, I mumbled while looking back and forth from my plate to the cook and his stove. It was the fifth straight day of being presented with a steaming hot “TV Dinner” upon sitting down at the supper table.

“You can have the Salisbury Steak instead of what you have. By the way, what is it? Turkey?” the tall lanky “cook” replied preempting my protests. The four other men sitting around the makeshift table snickered at his response. They knew from last year’s experience what the menu looked like. Obviously I didn’t. I had been pampered while working in Mining camps and assumed the food here would be freshly cooked.

In retrospect, I should have known better since I had been into the storeroom, at the Robinson Trucking office in Yellowknife, to pick out my selection of “lunches” and “snacks” from the shelves stacked with non-perishable food and drink. We would take the cookies, crackers, cheeses, Spam, milk and juices with us in our vehicles. The stash of “dry” goods was now in the grader’s cab where it was kept warm. The milk and juice was lashed in a small container on the outside of the grader and was brought into the warmth of the cab when needed.

“How about the Salisbury after this Turkey”, I retorted.

“OK”, said John Denison with a smile knowing that I had come to the realization that this was the best it was going to get.

“The best it was going to get” included a eight foot by twenty foot “hut”. It was mounted on a sled equipped with four skis to glide it across ice and snow while being pulled behind a motorized vehicle. This was “Home Sweet Home” for the next month as we wound our way northward from Fort Byers. We were “opening” a winter “ice road” over frozen lakes and portages to our ultimate destinations of Echo Bay Mines on the east shore of Great Bear Lake, and Terra Mines on the Camsell River, just south of North America’s third largest inland lake. The hut contained three sets of bunk beds strapped to the walls and numerous storage bins. Two elongated bins became our seats when a makeshift table was set up between them. Our source of heat was a brown oil furnace bolted to the floor between our sleeping and living room. Additional storage bins were built on the outside of the hut. These bins held an over abundance of John’s infamous frozen TV Dinners. They didn’t thaw out as the average outside air temperature in January was minus thirty degrees. Our milk and juices were also stored outside. These had to be brought inside and thawed out at least four hours before supper.

Our “cook”, John Denison, was also the main “Push” on the Ice Road to Echo Bay. Dick Robinson, owner of Robinson Trucking, was using him as the expert to get the road built. The road extended from Fort Byers, situated at Ray/Edzo on the MacKenzie Highway west of Yellowknife, to the silver mines on Great Bear Lake. John had pioneered the road with Byers Transport in the years prior to Robinson taking over.

“Coffee”, John asked, poised to pour the hot liquid into my mug.

“Please”, I said knowing that to get the water for the coffee John had to drill a hole through twenty to thirty inches of ice with a hand auger. The easy part of it was he didn’t have to transport the water far as we were sitting on a lake one hundred yards off-shore and all he had to do was step outside and drill.

After supper we would sit and discuss the day’s events. We were still sorting out minor problems with our equipment and trying different things to best utilize what we had to work with. Nick Jones was explaining to John that the Skidder was useless pulling a “drag” in the deep snow. It just sat there “chattering” in the snow as its big tires dug themselves down to ground and jerked the machine forward.

It was the same Skidder that I was following two days earlier on the Rayrock Road portage. I was operating the orange coloured Champion Grader with a big V-plough mounted on front. As I was not ploughing snow off the road I had the plough in the “up” position, thus restricting my close-in view of the road. The ice on a small creek that we were crossing could not support the pounding of our equipment and as a consequence the Skidder, with its big tires, dropped one wheel through the ice creating a deep pothole. “Bang” down went my front left wheel into the pothole. The grader lurched upwards out of the pothole propelled by it’s forward momentum, then all the weight of the front end of the grader and the V-plough came crashing down. All I could do was look on as I saw the left wheel flop over at a weird angle. The downward force of the plough, the grader’s forward speed, and the bitterly cold temperature that causes metal to go brittle, all contributed to the solid frame of the grader’s axle mount being snapped completely through. There I sat completely immobile with no garage for a hundred miles.

After discussing the situation with John, Gord Weatherby and I headed back down the road in John’s red Ford four by four. We turned east at the junction to Strutt Lake where Northern Canada Power Corp had a construction camp. We were hoping to borrow a welding machine. As it turned out, we could borrow the machine but there was no “Welder” available. Gordie had to phone Dick Robinson in Yellowknife to arrange for a Welder to be flown out to a nearby lake the next day.

Everything gelled the next day. We used the Ford to transport the necessary equipment back to the disabled grader. We had the grader propped up with jacks by the time Gordie returned from the lake with our Welder. Dick must have dragged him out of the “Strange Range” a.k.a. the Gold Range Hotel bar because he was still half drunk and without any winter parka or mitts. I don’t know how he did it but he was lying on the snowy road for two hours in minus forty degree temperature welding and chipping away at the broken axle mount. He had ripped a cardboard box apart and was using it to lie on. The rest of us were sitting in the warm cab of the Ford truck watching him. To this day, I can only say, “it must have been the alcohol in his blood that kept him from freezing solid”. I have yet to test the theory that a layer of cardboard could insulate me from a frozen road covered with ice and snow.

The day’s events discussed and resolved, the crew settled into their nightly routine. There was no TV or radio, therefore, we sat around the hut playing cards, reading or just plain talking. Later on in our journey, realizing there was nothing to do, we just kept on working after supper (or had a late supper).

We joked about the first lake we crossed – shallow Marian Lake, where we ploughed our road passed Dave Lorenzen and his crew who were trying to extricate a front-end loader from the ice using his A-frame truck. The loader sank up to the base of its cab as the operator attempted to plough an ice road into the local NCPC camp at Snare River. We suspected that the operator was traveling too fast and the loader, being unstable at higher speeds, began to bounce putting undo pressure on the bad ice of Marian Lake. We also joked about other parts of Marian Lake, where my pounding heart would be in my throat when the grader would suddenly break through “overflow” ice and drop 12 to 18 inches down onto more solid ice underneath. Nick, who was scouting ahead of me in the Bombardier, would help get the build-up of ice and snow off the big V-plough in front of the grader after these little “breakthrough” episodes. We figure that the lake froze over quicker than the creeks and rivers, thus water flowed on top of this ice before itself freezing subsequently forming two layers.

We had lots to talk about when the topic switched to the old Rayrock Mine road. Everyone seemed to have stories about this stretch of portage. It went from the abandoned Uranium mine, past the Strutt Lake turn-off for the Snare River dam, and on down to the north end of Marian Lake. The road was built using crushed waste rock from the mine. It was narrow and had a roadbed raised ten feet above the surrounding muskeg. When we came along, we made a “hardtop” of ice and snow on top of it, therefore, “Equipment” of all sorts would slide off its surface if the operators were not careful, or traveled too fast around its corners. One driver, traveling too fast with a full trailer load, missed a turn and made his own road into the “Tullies”. He was so far in, you had to pack a lunch to go visit him. The funny thing was - he drove taxicab in Yellowknife. He never got me as a passenger after that.

We speculated about the current at the Snare River where the concrete abutments of an old bridge sat in testimony to an earlier time of the road. I would tense up every time I had to cross the river at this spot since our ice road ran parallel to the foundations and I figured that whenever the banks of any river narrowed, the current ran quicker, thus “undermining” the ice.

We conjoured up tales about the “old” Rayrock Mine. We could still see the old bunkhouses, the mill and other buildings perched on the hillside in the distance from where we camped for a night. Numerous company houses were transported from Rayrock after it shut down and used to house people in Yellowknife and elsewhere. “What did they do for entertainment?” I wondered, “Did they glow in the dark?”.

“I’m heading outside to the four by four”, I said at the end of our discussions. I slipped my parka over my shoulders and headed for the privacy of our constantly running equipment. I spent “many a night” lying on the front bench seat of the Ford 4 by 4 truck with my head out the window. My typical evening entertainment was looking skyward at the stars and shimmering northern lights while listening to music fade in and out on the truck’s radio. It was tuned into Edmonton’s CHED radio station, although I could clearly hear an Oklahoma City station on many nights.

Winter ice road, in January, in the sub-Arctic of the North West Territories was cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey………so having said that, “Home Sweet Home” did not have any modern toilet facilities. One had to be sure when you needed to “go”. More specifically, the facilities were open aired, minus forty degrees, twinkling stars for a light, an “optional” snow-bank for a seat and “no” place to hang the roll of toilet paper. No contemplating life, reading a magazine or sitting around out there. Disposal was normally “out of sight, out of mind”, which meant a powdering of snow pushed over the “business” by a couple of sideway kicks of your boot. Needless to say, baths and showers were non-existent. This was all part of the job and one got used to it.

John Denison was having difficulty with his stomach by the time we got to Faber Lake. He was consuming Pepto Bismol by the gallon while chewing constantly on Rolaids and Tums. He could not stand it any longer and finally headed back to Yellowknife in the red Ford four by four to get medical help and recuperate. Gord took over as the main “Push”. I’m glad he went back for medical attention but it “pissed me off” that he took my nightly entertainment

We motored on. The long Rayrock Mine road portage was behind us, we wound our way over Tumi, Rabbit, Hislop Lakes with their flat portages.

Squirrel Lake portage was different; it was gaining a reputation of putting many so called “hot shot” drivers in their place. The mile long portage, traversing a hill, was narrow and somewhat steep. Numerous tractor-trailers would “spin out” on the snow and ice of the hill after the operators, realizing they didn’t have enough RPM/speed to reach the top, shifted down into a lower gear. They would lose traction and spin out. They would then “jack-knife” or back the trailer into the ditch when trying to back down the hill, consequently blocking the road for all other trucks in the convoy. Nothing moved until the narrow road was cleared.

On one trip I had to unhook my loaded trailer and take my tractor up the hill to hook onto a jack-knifed tractor-trailer and pull it around onto the road again. Another time, we had to off-load a D-8 Cat, that we were transporting on a lowboy trailer to Echo Bay Mine, and “walk” it up the hill to pull another truck from the ditch and on up to the top.

To fully understand ice road portages, they depended on “lots” of snow being compacted onto their surface. The snow, when frozen, acted like concrete, but more importantly, it insulated the muskeg from the sun when the weather got warmer. Therefore, more snow and/or ice on the portage, the longer they lasted in the Spring for more trips.

“Why didn’t you use chains?” you ask. Robinson Trucking didn’t have any on their trucks. They would “chew up” the road and shorten its useful life. Again the sun would melt off the cap quicker when dark ground was showing through.

Mazenod, Sarah and Faber Lakes were nice sized lakes to plough. I could quickly make three passes on them before moving up the road. I would have all the blades down. The V-plough doing the widening, the belly blade skimming the snow close to the ice and the wing blade shearing the top of the newly created bank and throwing the snow away from the edge. I would try to give the road a profile that looked like a saucer. The idea was to not to give the drifting snow any nook or cranny to “fill in”. The Skidder, Beaver and FUD would be working away on the portages packing down the snow with the steel “drags” they pulled behind them.

We camped out on Rae Lakes just a mile from the Dene village. “We have to pack down the air-strip here. NWT Health want the strip available for Medi-Vac flights”, Gord said.

So off we went, rumbling our way through the village’s “main” street, past the wide eyed little children who came running when they heard us. We used four vehicles, each pulling a “drag”, to complete the job in one morning. Nick Jones in the Skidder, Dave Thompson in the box shaped “Beaver”, Ben Hunter in the FUD and myself in the Grader. We were closely supervised by a small group of on-lookers sitting on a snow bank at the edge of the strip.

Having decided to stay camped there for another night, I took some time to go scouting with an old Dene hunter. We scooted up and down the road in the Bombardier looking for caribou. I was hoping to spot some since the hunter was going to give me a “hind quarter”. I had the perfect freezer. We saw a few tracks crossing the road that afternoon but no “live ones”.

However I did see the front end of a snow shovel and learned a lesson about bombardiers. They act the same way as Ski-Doo in deep snow; they ”can” and “do” get stuck. It took me slightly less than an hour to dig myself out after trying to get through a small gully separating a couple of sloughs. The snow was deep. I was glad it was sunny and only minus thirty.

We worked our way northward, over Taka, Sequin, Hardisty, Malfait Lakes where we began to intersect hard packed snow trails created by “thousands” of Caribou migrating to their feeding grounds north-east of Great Slave Lake. They were everywhere. The Dene from Rae Lakes and the farther away Fort Franklin (Deline), on the west shore of Great Bear Lake, depended on this herd for their yearly meat supply. It would not be long before we would be seeing heaps and heaps of skinned and quartered caribou carcasses, stacked beside the ice road, waiting to be picked up by passing trucks and transported to Rae Lakes.

Across Beaver Lodge Lake where you could still see the remains of a Bristol Freighter aircraft operated by Pacific Western Airlines. The left-hand undercarriage broke through the ice on landing and the aircraft fell onto the left wing bending its spars and damaging the fuselage. The plane was later hauled onto shore to retrieve the engines and strip out the instruments; then abandoned as it had been written off the books by the company.

Onto Stairs Bay and then Hottah Lake. Hottah is a forty mile long lake that widens out to twenty miles in places. It was tedious when I had to make long “back and forth” passes with the grader. We parked “Home” on the north end of the lake after I made my first pass. I turned around after lunch and ploughed back down to the south end in the diminishing daylight. I knew that it was going to be a “long” day with lots of ploughing in the dark. There was three to four hours of daylight between sunrise and sunset at this “arctic circle” latitude in January, however the twilight periods extended the light a little longer.

Hottah, being a larger lake, could develop cracks and small pressure ridges along its length. I had to be on the “look-out” for these anomalies as I made my widening passes down and back the lake. On the run up the lake, the bombardier was ahead of me scouting out the route and avoiding “bad” ice; I followed along ploughing the initial road while pulling an 800 gallon fuel tanker. Cracks might not be seen at this time but on subsequent runs, when I was operating alone, the cracks “could” show up when the ice was exposed from my ploughing. I ran with the grader door open and the heater on “high” during the times the wind blew the snow away from the door. I guess I believed that I could jump out and “save” myself if the grader went through the ice. “Better to slowly freeze on top of the ice than freeze instantly underneath” I thought.

The return trip took me over six hours to complete, mostly in the dark and cold. The lights on the grader shone on the road ahead while illuminating the fine mist of snow crystals blowing over the top of the big V-plough. I could see flying snow disappear into the darkness behind me as it was shaved from the bank with the wing blade. Passing Bell Island I could see the lights of “home” twinkling in the dark a mere thirty miles away. It seemed like hours before I rolled to a stop beside the other equipment scattered around the sleeping quarters called home.

I had to refuel the grader before retiring. While doing so, I noticed that the copper antenna of the HF Radio was strung out. I looked at the sky and saw that the Northern Lights were absent so I mumbled, “Should be a good night for radio contact with Robinson’s base in Yellowknife”. We had been without radio contact for three days because of the “lights”; they caused major interference with the radio signals.

“McAvoy is flying in tomorrow with Mercredi and Soldat”, said Gord, “You and I have been here for three weeks so we can get “out for a break” but, I need you to come back here three days from now. Hopefully the crew will get to Echo Bay by then and I will fly you in there”.

Gord had obviously got through on the radio. Jim McAvoy and his Cessna 185 had been chartered to bring us the personnel, equipment “parts” and supplies we had requested earlier. It was going to be nice to get back to Yellowknife and get a hot bath and a shave having been without for a long time.

I think Gord was happy to get out and be flying again. “Overseeing” the road from the air, as the tractor-trailers began their trips hauling supplies into the mines, was refreshing after twenty plus days crammed in a shack.

The plane landed on Fishtrap Lake where we were working on the portage. We had put our personal stuff in the bombardier first thing in the morning, so all we had to do was to collect everyone involved and go to the plane. Everything transferred and instructions given, McAvoy took off with Gord in the front seat beside him and me in the back. The bombardier was leaving the scene as we took off. Gord noticed something on the ground and leaned over and said something to Jim. The next five minutes were akin to the wildest roller coaster ride I have ever been on. Jim literally dive-bombed the bombardier four times trying to get the occupants attention. We would pull up at the end of the dive into a steep climb then nose over while we were almost weightless into another dive which ended with our stomachs in our feet. Attention gained, Jim opened his side window and made motions to the ground then watched as the bombardier turned around and went back to pick up the package.

I had an enjoyable rest in Yellowknife as the rest of the crew continued to plough and pack the ice road. They got past Fishtrap Lake onto Yen Lake before they managed to burn “home” to the ground. Not being there, I leave it to others to explain what happened. Nothing was left of the structure except for the charred deck of the sled with its four big skis. I lost a sleeping bag and pair of cover-alls while the others lost the same plus their personal kit. I have yet to talk to anyone who was sorry to see that shack burn. It belonged to another era when cat-trains were pulled across Great Slave Lake to Yellowknife from Hay River.

Being without a place to sleep and having only the food in the “snack boxes” carried in their cabs, the crew split into two groups. One headed for Echo Bay while the other branched off and made the push over to Terra Mines.

Nick Jones, Dave Thompson and two others with the Skidder, Beaver, D-6 and low-boy ploughed their way from Yen Lake over a series of small sloughs and lakes eastward to Terra Mines. They took the time to pack down the snow on the numerous new portages with their “drags” as they moved along.

Johnny, operating the grader, followed Louie in the bombardier as they headed down the newly made Yen Lake portage onto Conjour Bay. They made the long run snaking around the islands on Conjour Bay and then through the narrows at the north end of Richardson Island. After poking out onto Great Bear Lake, they made their final long run northward paralleling the shores of McTavish Arm into Labine Bay where Port Radium and Echo Bay Mines were located.

They reached the end of an ice road that covered a distance of more than 320 miles through Canada’s sub-arctic land of stubby trees, muskeg and Precambrian rock. It had taken us close to a month to complete the road in temperatures that consistently reached minus forty degrees. We had equipment breakdowns that delayed us; we had to improvise to make machines workable; we had to pull and tug equipment here and there; we left equipment behind; we overcame all problems presented to us and got the job done.

I flew back to the ice road at Echo Bay Mines with Gord the next day…………..

PICTURES (Clockwise from top left)

1) Home sweet home after fire

2) Home sweet home on sled - Dave Thompson (L), John Denison (R) and Louie MacKenzie

3) Brian McLeod

4) Bombardier, Grader and Brian McLeod

5) Dick Robinson, D-8 Cat at Squirrel Hill

Silhouettes in the Snow - Part 1

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 08:03:38 GMT

Silhouettes in the Snow

The message reached us at 12:30. A young clerk from the main office came rushing over to our table and handed me a folded note. He had tracked us down to the cafeteria where we had just finished lunch; and were sitting back in our chairs nursing our coffee and discussing what we had to do in the next few days. The message came from the mine’s manager. He received a phone call from his counterpart over at Terra Mines via the radio-telephone. He hurriedly scribbled the short message down on a notepad then instructed the clerk to find the “ice road” crew and give it to them.

I thanked the clerk as I looked down at the note and saw the words “Call Dick at Terra Mines” scrawled on the paper.

“Dick” was Dick Robinson, owner and manager of Robinson Trucking Ltd. based out of Yellowknife.

“What is he doing at Terra?” I wondered as I passed the note to the others to read.

I excused myself from the table, walked over to the frost-trimmed window where I stopped and took a sip of coffee from the mug that I had brought with me. Ice build-up on the window-panes was distorting my view so I used the palm of my hand to melt a clear opening. I then used my shirt-clad elbow to wipe the water away before it re-froze to obstruct my view again. Satisfied, I looked past my “achievement” to survey the sky to determine our present weather conditions; however it was the land that immediately caught my attention.

A large bay stretched out before me, gleaming brilliantly white in the sunlight. The bay was icebound from the foreshore to the far-shore, a mile away; deep snow covered the ice. This setting engulfed my entire field of vision. The northern sun, in it’s lower winter orbit, was using the minute air-borne ice crystals in the minus 40-degree temperature to taint the top of the snowdrifts with a golden hue while creating small dark shadows behind them.

I did not hesitate to relax there. I put my elbows on the windowsill and took it all in. My advantage point, perched high up on the bluffs, offered me a commanding view of the spectacular surroundings. I had to wipe the window again to clear away the mist formed by my breath.

I was standing in the cafeteria building at Echo Bay Mines. I studied the immediate buildings perched precariously on the bluffs overlooking the bay, then moved on to others tucked in the nooks and crannies of it’s slope and finally down to the remainder of the wooden structures sitting squat on the narrow beach below. A series of snow-crusted staircases and walkways connected the buildings together like the arms of an octopus. The buildings, clad white with asbestos shingles and green wood trim, were built in the 1930’s and sported that era’s box style for bunkhouses.

The residents would walk from the top of the bluff to the bottom using the stairs. All they needed was a strong set of legs and good threads on your boots. A worker was scraping and brushing the snow from one of the staircases half way down the slope. He was causing small avalanches of snow to slide out of sight below him. I could see from the rising white mist from his mouth that he was breathing heavy from the exertion of his work.

Content with my scrutiny of the immediate surroundings, I focused on the far shoreline and followed it along south-westerly until I saw it’s faint outline disappear into the vast expanse that was Great Bear Lake. I continued my search along the horizon until my gaze met the northwest shoreline at Cobalt Island. It’s far point of land defined the mouth of the bay.

The point also marked the finish line for an annual lottery held each Spring by the mine’s personnel. The winner had to guess the date and time of the arrival of the summer season’s first barge. A big powerful tug-boat with it’s barges would steam across the ice-choked Great Bear Lake from Fort Franklin, on its western shore, to deliver much needed supplies. These supplies were essential to maintain the operation of Echo Bay Mines, a high-grade silver producer, situated at Port Radium. An earlier mine, Eldorado, at Port Radium gained notoriety in the 1940’s by being the mine that supplied the pitchblende ore used in the making of uranium for the first atomic bomb. Eldorado was discovered by Gilbert Labine in 1930.

The bulk of the mine’s supplies of machinery and dry goods were consolidated and shipped via truck from Edmonton, Alberta to Hay River in the North West Territories. The supplies were then loaded on shallow draft barges and pushed by large powerful river going tugs across Great Slave Lake to the MacKenzie, Canada’s longest river. They steamed downstream past Fort Providence, Fort Simpson and Wrigley to Fort Norman. This village was situated at the confluence of the Great Bear River and the MacKenzie River. From there, they left the MacKenzie and continued on the Great Bear River upstream past the rapids to Fort Franklin and finally on to Port Radium.

I cleared the fog from the window with my sleeve again and refocused on the center of the mouth of the bay. I could see a faint ribbon of snow meandering out onto the “Big Lake” and disappear into the distance. My eyes then followed the ribbon as it got closer to my advantage point. I began to make out the two windrows of snow defining the width of a roadway made by a plough. The plough had literally scooped up and tossed the snow thirty feet to the sides of its path as it drove across the ice.

This “roadway” became one of the three methods of getting supplies to the mine. I was looking at it’s most northerly terminus since my gaze along this ribbon of snow ended abruptly 200 feet below me. It disappeared into a long wide stretch of snow-cleared ice shining in the light. I observed a yellow grader and front-end loader, streaming 100-foot long rooster tails of exhaust steam, as they sped around the perimeter. They were busy ploughing snow to widen the boundaries of the cleared ice.

When completed, this strip of ice would become the third method of getting supplies to the mine. It was an ice landing strip for DC-3, Bristol Freighters and C-130 Hercules aircraft hauling freight and personnel for the mine. Smaller ski-equipped planes would also land there even though they could land anywhere on the snow covered ice. The strip was located two hundred yards offshore and stretched out in front of the mine buildings. It was always a “show” to watch the planes take-off and land on the ice once the strip became operational. The swirling snow and the roar of the engines being thrust into reverse announced their comings and goings at all hours during the short days and long nights of winter.

Satisfied with this private moment in time, my mind returned to the message - It was unusual that Dick would try to contact us at this time of day, normally he would talk to us each night on the short-wave radio at an appointed time while we were on the “constructing” the road.

I glanced outside one final time, registered the weather conditions in my mind, turned and walked back to the table I had vacated just a minute or two before. The others were just getting up from the table having finished their coffee. We decided that all four of us should go to the office where the radio-telephone was located and hear what Dick had to say. Besides, tall, lanky John and the small-framed pilot wanted to talk to Dick about the route.

The office was one building away. We left our parkas and snowsuits hanging in the vestibule of the cafeteria and hurried across the thirty yards of ice-crusted walkway clad only in our “in-door” clothes.

“It’s a bit nippy out there” was the only explanation needed for the ruckus we created as we burst into the Mine’s general office and slammed the door shut. Only two of the five people in the office had looked up from their work to see who had entered. They were obviously used to these types of interruptions.

We pressed up to the counter rubbing our cold hands together, enquired about the phone and were herded over to the semi private area where the radiotelephone was located. A crackly voiced radiotelephone operator, working out of Fort St John, B.C., came on line. I gave her my request. She sounded liked a sweetheart through all the atmospheric static so I chatted pleasantly with her for a minute while she made the connection to the mine office at Terra. I asked for Dick. He came on the phone momentarily as he was waiting for the return call.

“We need you guys with the grader and Bombardier over at Terra right away,” Dick instructed. “Billy has gone through the ice and we need to get the truck out and plow a new road,” he continued. After a few minutes of radio- telephone conversation we hung up the phone.

Billy was all right. He was traveling in convoy with two other tractor-trailers when the ice on a small lake gave way under his truck. His tanker-trailer broke through and sank down to the top walkway on the tank. It was the only part still visible. The tractor was pulled down until it was sitting half in and half out of the ice at a 60-degree angle. Black water and broken ice swirled up to the back of the cab. Billy had managed to jump from the cab onto the solid ice. The other two drivers were traveling behind him and witnessed his big adventure. They had stopped quickly with nowhere to go and came to his aid and comfort. He was obviously shaken up but in good spirits.

“Going through the ice” was a very sober topic of conversation around the people who built and drove on winter ice roads. I heard all the stories of cats, trucks, etc going through the ice and the operators having to swim up to the surface and scramble onto solid ice. I never really discussed the consequences with the other operators. We all silently prepared for it and hoped it would never happen. However the threat was always there whenever we got on the ice. We constantly had to be prepared for instant action. I knew drivers who quit after making one trip saying it’s not worth risking your life for the money; we all had our reasons for doing what we did.

Dick’s request for getting the equipment over to Terra was paramount now. The bombardier and grader were an important part of winter ice road making. The bombardier was light and traveled quickly over the snow-covered ice and portages. It was used to scout the best possible route across the ice. Its cab and body looked similar to an oversized Volkswagen Beetle but could comfortably carry more people and equipment. University students who have stuffed themselves into the “Bug” may contest this fact. Propulsion came from a set of tracks on either side and under the body. A steering wheel was connected to a set of big skis mounted under the front of the cab.

Once a route was scouted by the bombardier, the grader would come along and make a pass with its big V-plough to clear a path thus opening the road across the lakes. The grader was quite desirable to have on the ice roads because of its speed and ability to move large amounts of snow from the ice quickly with it’s plough, belly blade and wing blade.

Besides being constant companions as they opened up roads across the virgin ice of the lakes each winter, the bombardier and grader were also there to support each other for safety reasons. The peril of breaking through the ice was constantly on the minds of the men who operated these machines and you always wanted a traveling companion. Trap doors were installed in the roof of the cabs of the heavy equipment for emergency exit. The bombardier sported two – one above the driver and another above the passenger area. The grader had two large doors on either side of the cab thus offering the operator quick exit if he left one open. If you went through the ice you wanted to have a warm refuge nearby to thaw out if necessary – there was nothing else.

We discussed Billy’s mishap for a few more minutes then as we were just about to leave the mine office Louie stopped us with his arm.

“I’m not going to Terra,” he said.

“I’ve been on the road a sixteen days without a good meal, my sleeping bag and personal kit were destroyed in the fire and I need a break,” he continued, “I’m scheduled to go back with John on the plane and I’m going……besides it’s the only plane for a week or more”.

The plane Louie referred to was the ski-equipped Cessna 185 owned by Robinson Trucking and was based in Yellowknife. Gord, the company’s pilot and road foreman, had just flown into Echo Bay with John Dennison after surveying the ice road from the air. The four of us were discussing the alternate routes that the ice road should take while we were eating lunch. John wanted me to plough a route to the east of a small island on our return to Terra - “ to avoid the large pressure ridge that had formed along our northerly route across the big Lake.”

After a minor heated discussion, it was decided that Louie would go back to Yellowknife with John and Gord while I would proceed to Terra Mines by myself, as soon as possible. I was to hook the bombardier to the trailer hitch welded on the back of the 800-gallon tank-trailer, and then both would be hooked to the grader. The grader would normally haul the tank-trailer around behind as it proceeded from lake to lake along the ice road.

It was getting on to 1:00 PM when we broke off our conversation. There was only one and a half hours before the sun would begin to set. The others needed to take-off shortly in the plane if they were to reach Yellowknife before dark; and I needed to get prepared and be on the road before it did set.

I shuffled along the walkway back to the cafeteria, picked up my snowsuit and obligatory baseball cap with the CAT logo embroidered onto the front, and proceeded along to the bunkhouse where I picked up my personal kit and sleeping bag.

“That’s everything,” I said to myself.

I returned to the cafeteria to pick over a few food supplies left on the serving counter after lunch. The freshly baked cookies and cake were a real treat considering the cheese and crackers and other non-perishable food we usually carried in the cabs of our vehicles. I thanked the cook on the way out.

I stopped in the vestibule to struggle into my snowsuit and tighten the cords on my duffle lined snow boots. I zipped up the front of my suit, pulled on my thick work mitts and gathered up my kit and sleeping bag in one hand. I used my other mitt-covered hand to guide and support myself as I started down the winding set of staircases to the shoreline far below.

Landings were situated at every turn of the stairs and offered a viewpoint of the shore below. Tucked close to the base of the bluffs, the various white and green trimmed buildings were dulled gray from years of dirt and grime associated with a working silver mine. In front of a building with large doors sat the brightly coloured grader. John, Gord and Louie were already there. Louie had just positioned the bombardier behind the tank-trailer and was getting ready for us to attach them together.

I saw the welder removing his welding cables from the big V-plough attached to the front of the grader – he was replacing the steel blade on the bottom front of the plough. It was prone to have pieces snap off when it came in contact with boulders near the shore. Echo Bay Mine mechanics had also just finished servicing the grader and it sat there with its exhaust stack pushing its white plume of exhaust 50 feet into the still afternoon air.

“All set and ready to go” was the answer when I looked inquisitively at the shop foreman. He had been shooting the breeze with the assembled group of Robinson and Echo Bay employees. I threw my gear into the cab and then did a slow inspection of the grader. The foreman, who I knew from my days at Giant Mines in Yellowknife, came with me to catch up on any stories that I may have heard about his buddies.

The grader was a big Champion 600 painted a bright international orange. Hydraulic levers strategically located on either side of the steering wheel controlled the belly blade directly below the cab. It could change into numerous configurations for grading different material. Another hydraulic lever controlled the side or wing blade hinged on a mount close to the ground on the right side, below and behind the cab. It operated a cable attached to the end of the blade and ran through a pulley attached to a large stanchion mounted at the rear of the grader. This raised and lowered the blade. The remaining lever controlled the up and down movement of the large V-plough mounted to the front frame of the grader. This plough was designed to curl and throw snow from both sides of the grader. The faster the speed, the farther the snow is thrown. All together, it was a very efficient snow mover for the ice road.

Hooking up the tanker and bombardier to the grader only took a minute with Louie’s help and then it was time to go. I leaned down and out the open door of the cab as John came close.

“Remember to plough the new route to the shore side of the small island,” he said.

“OK John,” I replied.

John Dennison was acting as a consultant on this year’s road. He was with us for the first two weeks of the “road making” until his stomach became so bad that he had to return to Yellowknife to mend himself. Now he was consulting from the air. He had spent years on the ice road with Byers Transport and had a book written about his adventures by Edith Iglauer. I had finished the New Yorker magazine’s shortened version of the story just the past week. It was called Dennison’s Ice Road.

“See you soon,” I said.

I straightened up and nodded goodbye to the assembled group. I released the clutch and felt two slight jerks as slack was taken up in the hitches that held everything together. I began moving past the Machine Shop, Warehouse, Electrical Shop and other mine buildings situated along the shore. I was heading towards the egress point onto the ice of the bay. This point was smooth and well groomed as it served as the entrance to the newly ploughed airstrip laid out on the bay.

Then onto the airstrip.

“ 1:30 “ I said out-loud, looking at my watch, “It’s going to take me five hours to get to Terra…… that should make it 6:30,” I calculated.

“I’ll miss a hot supper,” I said, this time under my breath. I didn’t want to be labeled as a “Singing Swede” by people hearing me talk to myself one too many times. The Singing Swede was a legendary figure around Yellowknife. He would wander around the bars and streets mumbling to himself in his heavily accented English whenever he had a drink or two. The locals just characterized him as “bushed”; a phenomem resulting from too much time spent alone out on the land or bush.

“I think that’s what happened to Deuce,” I said chuckling to myself as I slandered one member of the Avery family. For whose in the know, Deuce’s older brother Ron was nicknamed Ace.

Shadows were beginning to lengthen behind the snowdrifts on the bay leading me to glance at the sun.

“Maybe two hours of light if I’m lucky,” I thought. Then the arctic night would fall. Scanning the sky I saw only puffs of small clouds high in the sky. It was clear out so there would be a moon tonight. Luck was with me on this.

“Hope there is a lot of stars too,” I said aloud.

I didn’t have to wish for the other half of the night’s show. The Northern lights had been putting on a spectacular act for the past four nights and would be out again tonight as long as the sky remained clear.

The front–end loader operator, still pushing snow off the strip, gave me a wave as I rolled past his machine. He stopped now and watched my procession. I shifted up one gear to gather momentum before I reached the end of the runway where the ice road and my real work started. Up-shifting again I glanced at the speedometer.

“Good speed,” I concluded.

Hands off the steering wheel and onto the hydraulic levers, I began to adjust the belly blade. I wanted it close to - but not on the ice; and raked back on the right side to quickly dispel the snow it gathered as I sped along. Also, I didn’t want it to slow me down.

“That’s good,” I mumbled.

I was twenty yards from the narrow road and it was time to lower the big V-plough to the ice. Two steel runners kept the blade an inch off the ice so it did not require any fine tunings when lowered.

The grader gave a shudder as the big V-plough caught the snow bank on its right side. Snow was being hurled out to the right of the grader with fine snow whisking over top of the plough partly blocking the view of the afternoon sun that was shining low in the western sky.

“Time to get to work and widen you,” I thought, as I entered the long winding ribbon stretching into the distance. I worked quickly with the steering wheel, to obtain a good ploughing line; and the levers, to ensure no reduction in speed caused by the blade. I glanced around to see the results of my actions. The road has been widened by 50%.

“And this is a good speed for ploughing,” I said satisfied.

“Time for you” I said glancing at the wing blade in it’s upright position. I set it down at an angle of 20 degrees from the horizontal. The blade began to slice the top cleanly off the newly created snow-bank and deposited the flying snow yards away.

The snow on this part of the bay averaged fourteen inches in depth so I could maintain a speed whereby the plough and wing blade were dispersing the plowed snow well out of the way. The deeper the bite into the snow-bank – the slower the speed. It was essential to maintain speed and throw the snow well away. The ideal ice road had a profile of a saucer. This gave the blowing snow no place to accumulate into drifts and eventually fill the road right in.

After making final adjustments I sat down on the seat and took stock of my situation. I ran through my mental checklist:

“Left side door open for safety.”

“Heater on full.”

“Cardboard box with snacks and juice beside me on the seat.”

“Kit and sleeping bag tucked away in the corner of the cab.”

“Axe resting on the floor with the handle wedged between the seat and the cab.”

“Hunting knife strapped to my belt.”

“Lighter and matches in all pockets.”

“Cigarettes, pack in my pocket and one in my mouth.”

“Inflatable doll, damn I left her with Cranna”

I took my arms out of the snowsuit and loosened my snow boots. The heater and the sun made it quite comfortable in the cab, even with the door open. I tied the sleeves around my waist so that the suit could not slip down to my knees when I stood up in the cab….something I did frequently.

I gazed to my right as I motored past the point on Cobalt Island that marked the entrance to Port Radium. Shifting my gaze to the rear I saw the buildings of the mine grow smaller and disappear.

“On the big lake now” I commented to myself. I proceeded south past the entrance to Echo Bay with the small fishing camp nestled on its shore. Past Mystery Island.

My gaze returned to the action in front of me. Fine snow crystals were constantly swirling over the top and edge of the plough and swept past the cab. This obstructed nearly half of my forward view but I did not adjust any controls. The sun was shining through this man-made miniature storm and caused a small rainbow all around me. It was a beautiful sight, and the neat thing about it, I could change it with a tug of the steering wheel or a reduction of speed. On an impulse, I fumbled for my kit stashed in the corner, opened it and retrieved my camera. With one hand on the wheel and the other with the camera I clicked a picture of what I had created.

“Oh, the things people do when they are bored or need to be amused,” I said.

I jerked up suddenly, startled by the loud roar from the engine of the plane as it screamed over me from behind. Flying at 50 feet, Mr. Gordon Weatherby, the company pilot, my foreman and family acquaintance had surprised me completely. There was nothing I could do in return so I just waved as he, John and Louie made a second pass waggling the wings of the Cessna. Then they were off to the south heading directly to Yellowknife leaving me alone again with my thoughts in my solitude.

As I watched the plane get smaller and smaller in the sky my mind wandered back to the time four days ago when Gordie and I were flying the ice-road. We came across a small group of a thirty or so caribou stretching out and traveling down the length of a lake. We could see a half dozen wolves following them at what seemed to be no more than a couple hundred yards……but keeping their distance. Circling back and swooping down low between the hills on either side of the lake, we buzzed over top of them from behind. The wolves, spooked, headed for the bush and trees along the shore at the run while the caribou trotted off down the lake.

I then cast an eye at the trees, level with our line of sight, realizing that they were not trees at all………..they were caribou, thousands of them. They were scattered all over the hills for miles. We were flying over a herd of 75,000 to 100,000 caribou whose annual migration took them on a route south of Great Bear Lake to their wintering grounds east of Great Slave Lake. It was hard to believe the scale and magnitude of the scene below. It was like the Serengeti in Northern Canada.

There was still some time before I had to veer off the existing road to plough between the shoreline and the small island John Denison had described to me. Things were running smoothly. I made the occasional minor adjustment to the blades with the control levers as I sat in the warmth of the sun-drenched cab of the grader. I lit a cigarette and let my thoughts replace the steady drone of the engine. These thoughts wandered back to the places and things we saw and the incidents that occurred during the past month…….

……Travelling to Rae-Edso on the MacKenzie Highway, located 60 plus miles west of Yellowknife N.W.T. - where operators with their equipment converged at the beginning of January. A storage area and parking lot, called Fort Byers, marked the start of the ice-road, which then wound northerly utilizing a series of lakes to minimize the number of long portages that would otherwise be necessary.

Over the shallow Marian Lake - where we passed Dave Lorenzen’s crew with his A-frame truck trying to extricate a front-end loader from the ice. It sank up to its cab when its operator attempted to plough an ice road into the local hydro providers camp at Snare River.

Through other parts of Marian Lake - where the grader would break through overflow ice and end up on more solid ice underneath; and me with my heart in my throat.

Past the junction to Lac La Martre – where government road crews would push a winter road thirty miles to the village on the lake’s southern shore.

Across Snare River where the foundations of the old bridge sat in testimony to an earlier time and where the front wheel of the grader had snapped completely off after hitting a large pot-hole along the bank of a stream near the bridge. Metal is very brittle at minus 40 degrees.

Along the old Rayrock Mine road – where equipment would slide off it’s narrow and raised roadbed. The road was built using crushed waste rock from the mine. It went from the mine towards the Snare River dam. One driver, traveling too fast with a full trailer load, missed a turn and made his own road into the “Tullies”. He was so far in, you had to pack a lunch to go visit him. The funny thing was - he drove cab in Yellowknife. He never got me as a passenger after that.

Past Rayrock Mine - where you could still see the old bunkhouses, mill and other buildings perched on the hillside in the distance. Numerous company houses were transported from Rayrock after it shut down and used to house people in Yellowknife and elsewhere.

Through the Dene village of Rae Lakes - where we spent a half day packing the snow on the small airstrip under the watchful eyes of all the village’s children. Jonsie on the skidder, Thompson on the cat and myself on the grader. Up and down, back and forth along the runway.

Up the long narrow Squirrel Hill portage - where numerous tractor-trailers, throughout the course of the season, would spin out and then “jack-knife” when backing down the hill, thus blocking the road for all other trucks.

Across the hard packed snow trails – where thousands of Caribou would intersect the road on their migration southward.

Past heaps of skinned and quartered caribou carcasses waiting to be picked up by passing trucks and transported to Rae Lakes.

Across Hottah Lake – where you could still see the remains of a Twin Otter aircraft. It sank through the ice and had to be abandoned. They retrieved the engines and instruments at a later time.

Through a prospector’s camp – where an irate, swearing prospector, jumping up and down beside the road, watched us as we trespassed through his mineral claim. He was worried that his claim would be made public. He got even madder when he recognized me from Yellowknife.

Past the junction to Terra Mines on the Camsell River and where we began a new portage.

Down Yen Lake hill where we forged a new portage onto Conjuror Bay and then on to Echo Bay Mines at Port Radium on Great Bear Lake.

……….A distance of more than 320 miles through Canada’s sub-arctic land of stubby trees, muskeg and Precambrian rock.

The small island was getting large in the windscreen now. I decided to bring the big grader to a halt.

“This is a good place as any to start,” I said out-loud.

“Time to take a break, write my name in the snow and check out the equipment trailing behind me,” I said under my breath, as I walked around in the cold of the late afternoon under the failing daylight.

Equipment checked, I took in my surroundings. The vast expanse of the McTavish Arm of Great Bear Lake lay all around me except to the southwest where the island and shoreline stood highlighted in the setting sun. The sky was starting to turn orange and pink near the horizon.

“Eerie feeling” I said as I briefly shivered, realizing that no one was around for miles and miles.

I concentrated on the task at hand and picked a prominent hill on the distant shoreline as my direction to steer. I laid out a route in my mind that would intersect with the existing road again approximately 6 to 7 miles south.

The sky was turning full orange and pink.

“No problem – Hire North,” I said, mimicking the local expression that was frequently used lately around Yellowknife as I climbed back into the grader.

Hire North was an organization set up by the government of the N.W.T with the mandate to hire and train local people. Its purpose was to construct a winter route from Fort Liard up through the MacKenzie Valley to Inuvik. The Hire North workers would hit town on paydays and head for the bars. To assure service from the bar maids and bartenders they would say “No problem – Hire North” signifying they worked for Hire North and everything was OK because they had money in their pocket and they had no problem paying for their booze.

I got rolling again. I went through the gear changes to gain speed and then made plough and belly blade adjustments while leaving the wing blade up. I steered the big grader left through the snow bank, with a big puff of snow, onto the undisturbed snow covered ice. Snow was now flung from both sides of the V-plough and arched further through the air as I picked up speed.

”Looking good,” I said as I settled into a routine of minor adjustments to the speed and watched as the sun set around me.

Normally, when ploughing a new road, the operator would drop off the tanker-trailer at one end of a lake, or starting point, and return to it as he widened the road on successive runs across the lake. However, since I was not going to return to widen this route, I continued towing the tanker-trailer behind me with the bombardier carrying up the rear as caboose.

I glanced at the control panel and flipped three toggle switches to the “on” position. The grader and the surrounding area were immediately bathed in bright light. Headlights mounted on the high point of the cab lit up the growing darkness ahead of the plough. Floodlights, at the base of the cab, lit up the belly blade and the front of the grader and another lit the right side of the cab and illuminated the wing blade. This bubble of light was my warm comfortable universe as my little caravan cut through the pending night on the snow covered ice of Great Bear Lake.

I gazed past the perimeter of light to regain my reference point, the hill on the shoreline. I could still make it out in the twilight that preceded the rising moon. The stars were just beginning to shine as the pink, orange and blue of the evening sky slowly turned to black.

Suddenly, the grader’s engine began to lug causing me to tense up and refocus my attention on my immediate surroundings. I didn’t want any engine problems in the middle of nowhere. I downshifted the transmission but this did not cure the situation. I could see that the belly blade was pushing more snow than normal. Glancing at the plough did not tell me anything. The grader was rapidly slowing down and I was losing my ploughing momentum.“Shit,” I grumbled, with a little bit of concern thrown in for good measure...............

PHOTOS:

Ploughing the Ice road

Snow mist from V-Plough causing mini rainbow

Grader ploughing Ice road after storm

Grader, Bombardier, Brian on Marian Lake

Ploughing after storm near Conjour Bay on Great Bear Lake

Widening Ice road to Echo Bay Mines at Port Radium