SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Traffic on one of the territory's coldest transportation routes is about to pick up this year.

Director of winter operations Ron Near said this year more than 9,000 loads are expected on the Tibbitt to Contwoyto Ice Road to the Gahcho Kue joint venture between De Beers Canada and Mountain Province Diamonds, as well as the Diavik and Ekati mines. - NNSL file photo

More than 9,000 truckloads are expected to travel on the Tibbitt to Contwoyto Ice Road this year during the two month season said Ron Near, the director of winter operations.

"The last two years have been extremely busy," he said, recounting the busiest year was in 2007 when almost 11,000 loads went on the road. "This year we're probably going to be closer to 10,000 than 9,000 on the road this year. Probably getting up to 9,500 or 9,600 loads."

Near said one reason for this amount is because of the construction of the Gahcho Kue diamond mine being built in a joint venture between De Beers Canada and Mountain Province Diamonds.

"They have additional freight going into that we've never had in the past," he said. "And the other partners in Ekati and Diavik also have projects that are ongoing at their mine sites that are resulting in more loads and more tonnage up the road."

Watching for El Nino

As for the concern this year's road conditions will be affected by warm weather from El Nino, Near said his organization definitely has a contingency plan in place for the periodic warming of the Pacific Ocean which occurs every few years.

"But it's still too early to tell how it's going to affect the winter road project. So we are monitoring it closely right now."

Near said he will have a better sense of El NiCo's possible effects on the winter road in the first week of January.

As for what those contingency plans, Near said work in the last few years has included an early-works project.

"We send teams early into the southern camps on the winter road, Dome Lake and Lockhart Lake," he said. "So we move them in mid-December to start clearing snow from lakes."

The rationale is the southern area is where more of the problems can occur. Near said by clearing the insulating snow off of the lakes there, they can encourage ice growth.

"Normally in the past we'd start construction of the road on the first of January in that area," he said. "And then teams go in right after Christmas to start the construction and then we monitor the ice growth closely."

Near and his team also use flooding and snowpacking techniques to help build the ice.

"I'm not worried at the road at this time," he said. "I have my ice engineering contractor monitoring the El Nino effect this year and how it may or may not affect the winter road. But until we get a little bit closer, the first of January is a kind of trigger point and we'll assess it then to see what additional things we have to do to ensure we have success on the road."

This year's season is expected to run until March 31.

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