The ice road between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk on the Beaufort Sea N.W.T. has wound up its final season. An all-weather road is expected to connect the two communities next fall. The melting of the road for the final time has begun.
Photo Credit: David Thurton/CBC

It’s over, the end…gone.

It’s been coming for decades, but now this is it, the end of an era. The Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk ice road is melting away, forever.

The ice road consisted of roughly 180 kilometres of track over frozen patches of land, muskeg, ponds, and rivers. It was for many years the winter lifeline of Tuk.  It enabled heavy loads of food, supplies and equipment to be brought in, things that were just not practical to be sent by air.

The ice road is the cleared section over thick ice which covers many sections on the 180km route from Inuvik up to Tuktoyaktuk. A critical seasonal link for decades, this was its last season. © Ian Mackenzie, via Wikimedia Commons

There had long been talk of a year-round road as the community was cut off to road traffic during summers, but it remained talk until climate change began to force the issue.

The ice-road season was becoming shorter, and also more unpredictable and dangerous, as is the case for all ice roads in Canada’s far north.

Twitter announcement from the Government of the Northwest Territories. The ice road was closed for the last time ever, in April. © twitter-GNWT

The new all-weather highway, which winds around the many ponds, and muskeg along a route built in many areas over permafrost, should be open sometime this fall.

RCI-April 19/17- new road

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