Road Maintenance

The Northern Territories & Provinces of Canada have a winter trucking program that is unique in the world. The winter road has been a model for industries in other areas too, but it has been considered as one of Canada’s unique infrastructures. Each year, the many lakes of this region completely frozen and engineers build an ice road over them that can withstand the weight of tractor trailers.

How can you know if the ice is lake is frozen solid enough to drive on or if the tires of trucks will not slip when they drive across ice? This industry has its benefits, but also its great risks and dangers. Unfortunately, a lot of trucks have fallen through the ice and this represents a real problem because even where the ice can freeze several feet thick the ice roads can only support so much weight. For the road builders it is engineering challenge because this means working with a phenomenon for which there is limited scientific understanding.

In order to avoid this kind of accidents, Nuna Logistics was created. This is the company responsible for the annual construction, maintenance, dispatching, and camp catering for the winter road. It is about an ongoing process of ensuring the route’s efficiency and safety. The success of the winter road takes a great deal of planning, experience, unique manpower and also meteorological favorable conditions, given that 87% of the road comprises ice sustained cold weather is required.

The construction and maintenance of ice roads is based on a variety of specialized equipment: plows, graders, water trucks, dozers, snow blowers, specialized low ground pressure equipment. Also, there are some rules of dispatching and traffic control that truck drivers must respect. They are not allowed to travel the winter road alone, therefore, three trucks are dispatched from Yellowknife, NWT on an average of every 20 minutes. Heavy and wide loads are dispatched between midnight to 6:00 a.m. to avoid daily commuter traffic. Ice trucking demands average speeds no greater than about 20 mph.

Nuna Logistics has a program that provides high standards of quality performance and service. For example, the project managers are experienced and knowledgeable, the management team focuses on working closely with clients and it is committed to satisfactory project completion on time and within budget. The people hired have knowledge and operational skills to achieve superior performance under Arctic conditions. Also, the equipment is designed for Arctic operation, maintaining equipment in safe working order and operation of equipment by qualified personnel.

To increase the efficiency of its work, the company has two ice profiling teams: one team north end and one team south end. The equipment includes ice profiler, amphibious Hagglund, snow cats, plows, and helicopter support. The ice profiling crews work with helicopters and maps, they test and clear the initial winter road route meeting in mid-route.