Manitoba truckers stuck when winter ice roads melt

[Newsjock]

Source: Canadian Press

A convoy of about 30 heavy trucks was slowly making its way south Saturday along badly rutted winter roads in northern Manitoba after being stuck for days in a muddy morass.

RCMP Sergeant Line Karpish said everyone who had been stranded on thawing ice roads has been accounted for.

... An early spring shut down the ice roads after less than a month this year, cutting more than 30,000 people off from the south.

It means remote communities are left without building supplies and dwindling stockpiles of fuel and food and must fly in supplies at great expense.

Ron Evans, head of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, said Friday they've warned for years about ice-road season getting shorter and shorter – and this year's problem is a good argument for building permanent roads to the communities.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/as-mucky-manitoba-ice-roads-begin-to-freeze-marooned-convoy-inches-south/article1507059/

[sharp_stick]

1. Ice roads are scary

at the best of times, this is damned early to be seeing them break up in northern Manitoba though isn't it?

[madrchsod]

2. i helped build special asphalt spreading trucks for alaska

the road bed is so soft that any surface that is put on it does`t last. there is no practical way to build roads in northern areas of alaska and canada that will stand the elements

[applegrove]

3. The people up north rely on those ice roads to get a good portion of the goods

they consume. They stock up all winte long. Now they will have to fly it all in come summer. Terrible.