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Ice is now thick enough on road to riches
Vital winter route to North's diamond mines opens
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David Finlayson
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The Edmonton Journal |
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
EDMONTON - The vital ice road that runs between Yellowknife and the rich diamond areas opened on time Sunday, to the relief of the mines that depend on it.
Last year, the warmest winter in decades shrank the normal 75-day ice road window to just 42 days and forced the Ekati, Diavik and Jericho mines to airlift in the remaining fuel and equipment.
This year's opening of the world's longest private ice road is only two days later than the earliest-ever opening.
Light loads headed up the road Sunday to Diavik, Ekati and the under-construction Snap Lake mine.
The weight and number of loads will increase as ice continues to thicken, Diavik spokesman Tom Hoefer said.
It's expected a record 10,000 truckloads of fuel, explosives, equipment, and assorted freight will be transported to the mines, exploration projects and tourist camps along the route, which ends at the Jericho diamond mine in Nunavut.
Still, after last year's setback, they took a different approach this time, Hoefer said. "We had a really good November that gave us a good foundation of ice, so we were able to go in with light equipment before Christmas."
Then as soon as there was 41 centimetres of ice they took the heavier snow cats in.
The 600-kilometre road has been twinned in some sections for the first time to speed up traffic.
And work has started on a 150-kilometre secondary route that will carry southbound traffic only and take the pressure off the busiest southern section.
The secondary road will leave the existing highway on the west side of Gordon Lake, wind past the old Discovery gold mine and join Ingraham Trail at Prosperous Lake, 20 kilometres east of Yellowknife.
Crews from RTL Robinson Enterprises, contracted to build and maintain the secondary road, are grooming the portages between the lakes and building ice thickness with flooding in preparation for opening later in February, Hoefer said.
The cost of both roads has not been finalized but last year the main road alone cost more than $10 million, he added.
The consortium also used helicopters and ground-penetrating radar last summer to identify areas where shoals come close to the surface of lakes.
The shoals, which generate heat that keeps the ice thinner, were avoided this winter.
"We wanted to make sure we covered all the bases to maximize the road opening," Hoefer said. "If it was minus 40 every day, mother nature would give us more than enough ice, but that doesn't happen."
The mines each ship in about 70 million litres of fuel every ice road season. Flying it in costs $1 a litre -- five times more expensive than trucking it over the winter landscape.
Last year's short ice road season forced Diavik to bring in the world's largest helicopter to transport dismantled pieces of a huge excavator to the mine, where it was reassembled.
dfinlayson@thejournal.canwest.com
© The Edmonton Journal 2007 | 
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