While most Albertans pray for a brief, mild winter, the 900 or so residents of Fort Chipewyan yearn for interminable stretches of arctic air. The province’s most isolated northern settlement is only accessible to vehicles via an ice road. The more frigid the temperatures, the easier it is to reach. Minus 40C? Just a few more weeks, please. “The ice road is our lifeline, so people hope for cold weather,” says Stan Wigmore, a projects manager for the Mikisew Cree Group of Companies, which offers accommodations to construction workers and government employees at a rustic camp in Fort Chipewyan. “To understand, all you have to do is envision how people in a northern community get all of their needs met. “Essentials like food and building materials and fuel have to get there somehow. That’s where the reliance on the ice road comes in. There is only a short window for people to replenish their supplies for the whole year, so they are happy the quicker that winter begins. “If the weather stays mild, you have issues. It is economics for them.” Fort Chipewyan can be reached only by air, barge and boat in summer, and a 200-kilometre drive through wilderness in the heart of winter to its location on the banks of Lake Athabasca in northeastern Alberta. The ice road is as hilly and slippery as a hockey rink as it winds through dense forests, across frozen creeks and lake beds, and over sand dunes and muskeg bogs impossible to navigate at any other time of year. In some places, the corners are sharp, the hills are blind, and ice cracks beneath the weight as 45,000-kilogram transport-trailers crawl across rivers. “Some of the truckers drive with the window open and one hand on the door handle in case they have to bail out,” says Kevin Ellingson, a security guard at the hamlet’s nursing station. When he moved to Fort Chipewyan from Manitoba eight years ago, it took weeks for him to be reunited with his belongings because the ice on the road was too thin to support a moving van. “Overall, I think our ice road is in very good shape, but it is still drive-at-your-own risk.” Set up and maintained by the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo at $2.5 to $2.8 million per year, the road begins 84 km north of Fort McMurray. It is open to light vehicles by Dec. 15, weather permitting. Until it closes around the end of March, residents and truckers use it for everything from Christmas and grocery shopping to hauling nearly three million litres of fuel and heating oil, and a like amount of diesel to power Fort Chipewyan’s electricity-generating plant. “Without the ice road, the expense of everything here would be to a point where people in our community couldn’t afford it,” says Russell Kaskamin, general manager of Fort Petroleum, the community’s lone source of gasoline and furnace oil. “I use it for business, but also for groceries and just about anything else you can imagine. “It is a must-have for us.”

--- The south gate to the winter road to Fort Chipewyan is nearly an hour past Fort McMurray at the end of Highway 63, past Syncrude’s colossal mine, Imperial’s Kearl Oil Sands site, and a short distance beyond Suncor’s sprawling Fort Hills encampment. The entrance to the road is preceded by a sign that foretells any number of perils: there are no services for 200 km, the use of cellphones is mostly fruitless, it is wise to carry an emergency kit, and, by all means, stay put if you break down. “You don’t want to walk away from your vehicle,” says Ed Sullivan, a truck driver from New Brunswick who travels to Alberta to haul logs for a mill in fall and uses the ice road to deliver diesel from Edmonton to Atco’s power station in Fort Chipewyan in winter. “Something you might not want to meet may come along and eat you.” The road was first built by volunteers from the community in the 1980s. It is one of only three such roads in the province and by far the busiest, used by nearly 7,000 vehicles each winter. Weather-permitting, trucks weighing up to 27,500 kilograms are allowed access beginning on Jan. 15, with the heaviest 18 wheelers welcome by the end of January. The speed limit is 80 in some areas, but 50 unless otherwise posted, and slower on hills, around sharp curves and on river crossings. In some stretches, snow swirls above the road, in others the sun glistens off of narrow corridors of glare ice. “I think it is no different than travelling on any other road in winter,” says Rob Billard, the manager of road maintenance for the Wood Buffalo region. “You have to drive the speed it allows you to and not necessarily the number on the sign. “And you have to be prepared in case you break down. You could have a problem at 7 p.m. and be stranded all night.” After traversing down steep hills and through towering sand dunes, the road meets the Athabasca River Delta about 45 km from Fort Chipewyan, cuts a path through the marsh and skirts the edge of Wood Buffalo National Park. Cattails coated with ice and reeds line the road, which is flat but tricky to manage. “I didn’t realize I was going into a corner until the last second, and I took it too fast,” Isaias Morgan says as he stands beside his 1984 Buick Regal waiting for a passing truck to yank him out of the snow. “I hit the brakes, but I couldn’t stop myself. “I spun out for at least 300 yards.” Born in British Columbia but raised in Miami, Fla., LaMorgan is en route to his job as a youth co-ordinator in Fort Smith, and is in fine humour despite the minor mishap. It is the first time he has driven on an ice road. “It is fun, but you have to keep your head on what you are doing,” he says. ---

Josh Wells, foreman with Edmonton-based Fillmore Construction, has been overseeing building projects in Fort Chipewyan for two years. “There has been a steep learning curve in the time I have been up here,” Wells says, with a laugh. “Little things you take for granted, you can’t take for granted here. “Two summers ago, I had to fly in one piece of two-by-10. I couldn’t find one anywhere.” Now in the midst of a renovating the community hall, Wells says construction was on standby until only a few weeks ago when materials, including 364 bundles of shingles, made through. “We spend a couple of months putting together a list of everything we think we need,” Wells says, “We bring up twice as much lumber as the project calls for, and extra boxes of screws and nails. “It is quite the process.” Keith Kraaynbrink, an estimator for the Monteith Building Group in Edmonton, spent countless hours organizing the materials needed last summer to construct an aquatic centre with three swimming lanes in Fort Chipewyan. Starting at the beginning of February, the company sent three transport trailers to the hamlet each day, including 10 truckloads of structural steel and 250 1,800-kilogram bags of concrete. “It takes a lot more planning than a regular project,” Kraaynbrink says. “Basically, you have a month to get all of your critical supplies up there. “We do like working in the north, but it presents its challenges. Because of that, a lot of companies don’t want to do it.” The hamlet manager and a resident of Fort Chipewyan for 47 years, Bruce Inglis sits in his office and talks about the enormous volume of goods that is brought in on the ice road every year. He guesses it takes 400 to 500 truckloads, and that doesn’t include the supplies obtained by the Mikisew Cree and Athabasca Chipewyan bands. More than a kilometre of piping has to be brought in this winter for a new water-treatment plant, not to mention the structure itself. There is also sand and salt for the roads, chemicals for the water-treatment plant, furniture and non-perishable food. Commercial vehicles have to be driven to Fort McMurray to be inspected. “The road is extremely significant,” he says. “I am not sure what we would do without it.” Archie Waquan sits at a table at Chief’s Corner Gas Bar, strokes his white beard, and mulls the importance of the ice road. Before it existed in a rudimentary form in the mid-1980s, truckers had to take a circuitous route to get from Fort Chipewyan to Edmonton, a 22-hour trip that included passing through Fort Smith and Hay River in the Northwest Territories. “It is not only important to myself as a businessman, but to the whole community,” says Waquan, a former longtime Mikisew Cree chief. “I do all of my hauling and stock up for the whole year.” The night before, Jeff Hunter, a retiree who lends a hand at the gas bar, completed a run to Fort McMurray and back on the ice road. “It’s like a roller-coaster on steroids,” Hunter says. “Even at 50 kilometres an hour, it’s an adventure. But it’s the thing that makes the community go.”