WxMan
Adventurer
Until this past summer I spent the last 12 years living in Edmonton, Alberta working as a meteorologist forecasting the weather primarily for the Canadian Arctic. The north has always held a fascination for me and while I've been privileged enough to get to see a few parts of it over the years, I've always had a desire to see more. Several years ago I hatched a plan with another meteorologist friend of mine to drive to end of the Mackenzie Valley winter only road.
For those unfamiliar with the Northwest Territories of Canada, many communities are not connected by all season roads. For a few months each year temporary, winter only, roads are built to allow vehicle access to these communities. Ferries are replaced by ice bridges and frozen tundra becomes a road bed. Typically these winter access roads are open January through March or early April. See this map for more details: http://www.dot.gov.nt.ca/_live/documents/content/Highway Distances.pdf
Each of the last four years something has come up preventing us from making this trip and this year we decided we had to make it happen. A few months ago we had lined up five people and two trucks for this adventure but when push came to shove, only two of us in a single truck made the trip. As fortune would have it, this past summer I moved from Edmonton to Victoria, BC so this adventure became a much longer drive that originally planned. The return trip for me was almost 7500km in twelve days. I would love to say it went smoothly but that was not the case.
My friend and I kept up a blog for the majority of the trip. Feel free to have a look, there are some great photos: http://nwticeroad.blogspot.ca/ The posts are listed most recent first. I recommend finding the beginning and starting from there. There is no mention of the real drama in the blog, however.
On our return south between Norman Wells and Wrigley a light dusting of snow on an otherwise flat and straight section of road obscured a severely ice rutted section. By the time I could see the ruts it was too late and the front set of tires chose on set to ride in and the rears went to another. We weren't going very fast at the time but the truck started to slide, the front clipped a snow bank and we rolled over completely coming to rest on our wheels, nose in a snowbank on the opposite side of the road. No one was hurt but there was some moments of tension while we assessed the damage and held our breath checking to see if the truck was still drivable. At this point we were 90km from the closest settlement. We were not unprepared, having rented a satellite phone and brought along a SPOT should the worst happen but the thoughts of having to get the truck recovered and towed to civilization had me feeling queezy. To my amazement and relief the truck body was damaged but mechanically it was fine. The main impact during the roll was along the driver's side edge of the roof. The driver's door window frame was also buckled slightly but miraculously the window did not break. The windshield certainly did though, as did the rear tail light, tail gate, side mirror, etc., etc.
We made a conscious decision not to mention the incident on the blog. Our families would only worry more that they were already and that would have served no useful purpose. I also needed to buy myself some time to figure out how best to break it to my wife that I rolled her truck. Yes, 'my' adventure vehicle is my wife's daily driver.
Sunrise over the Mackenzie River near Fort Simpson, NWT.
Crossing the Mackenzie River on the Tulita Ice Bridge.
Yup, definitely driving on a river.
A local.
Spectacular NWT.
Snow and Dust.
Silly doggy.
Early Morning.
Sunrise Northeast of Fort Good Hope.
I'm wondering if that is as low as this gauge will read...
Staring at a frozen lake.
The end of the road.
We've arrived... okay, it's cold. Let's go back.
Another early morning. Another sunrise.
Ice ruts are bad.
Where the accident happened.
Still looking pretty good... from a distance.
Another shot of the ice ruts and the truck.
For those unfamiliar with the Northwest Territories of Canada, many communities are not connected by all season roads. For a few months each year temporary, winter only, roads are built to allow vehicle access to these communities. Ferries are replaced by ice bridges and frozen tundra becomes a road bed. Typically these winter access roads are open January through March or early April. See this map for more details: http://www.dot.gov.nt.ca/_live/documents/content/Highway Distances.pdf
Each of the last four years something has come up preventing us from making this trip and this year we decided we had to make it happen. A few months ago we had lined up five people and two trucks for this adventure but when push came to shove, only two of us in a single truck made the trip. As fortune would have it, this past summer I moved from Edmonton to Victoria, BC so this adventure became a much longer drive that originally planned. The return trip for me was almost 7500km in twelve days. I would love to say it went smoothly but that was not the case.
My friend and I kept up a blog for the majority of the trip. Feel free to have a look, there are some great photos: http://nwticeroad.blogspot.ca/ The posts are listed most recent first. I recommend finding the beginning and starting from there. There is no mention of the real drama in the blog, however.
On our return south between Norman Wells and Wrigley a light dusting of snow on an otherwise flat and straight section of road obscured a severely ice rutted section. By the time I could see the ruts it was too late and the front set of tires chose on set to ride in and the rears went to another. We weren't going very fast at the time but the truck started to slide, the front clipped a snow bank and we rolled over completely coming to rest on our wheels, nose in a snowbank on the opposite side of the road. No one was hurt but there was some moments of tension while we assessed the damage and held our breath checking to see if the truck was still drivable. At this point we were 90km from the closest settlement. We were not unprepared, having rented a satellite phone and brought along a SPOT should the worst happen but the thoughts of having to get the truck recovered and towed to civilization had me feeling queezy. To my amazement and relief the truck body was damaged but mechanically it was fine. The main impact during the roll was along the driver's side edge of the roof. The driver's door window frame was also buckled slightly but miraculously the window did not break. The windshield certainly did though, as did the rear tail light, tail gate, side mirror, etc., etc.
We made a conscious decision not to mention the incident on the blog. Our families would only worry more that they were already and that would have served no useful purpose. I also needed to buy myself some time to figure out how best to break it to my wife that I rolled her truck. Yes, 'my' adventure vehicle is my wife's daily driver.
Sunrise over the Mackenzie River near Fort Simpson, NWT.
Crossing the Mackenzie River on the Tulita Ice Bridge.
Yup, definitely driving on a river.
A local.
Spectacular NWT.
Snow and Dust.
Silly doggy.
Early Morning.
Sunrise Northeast of Fort Good Hope.
I'm wondering if that is as low as this gauge will read...
Staring at a frozen lake.
The end of the road.
We've arrived... okay, it's cold. Let's go back.
Another early morning. Another sunrise.
Ice ruts are bad.
Where the accident happened.
Still looking pretty good... from a distance.
Another shot of the ice ruts and the truck.
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