Building Our Roads

In the north, natural "roads" become available when lakes or rivers freeze, usually starting in mid-November. The Dene used these ‘roads’ travelling with dog teams or on snowshoe. As settlements began to grow in the 1950s, a network of winter roads was constructed to link communities and remote mining sites.

Building ice roads is both difficult and dangerous. It requires extensive knowledge not only of engineering technology, but local weather and geography. More about Ice roads.

The CANOL Road

In May 1942, construction began on a pipeline and service road to carry crude oil from Norman Wells to a refinery in Whitehorse, Yukon. The refined oil was destined for Alaskan defence during the Second World War. The road and pipeline took almost two years to complete through the Mackenzie Mountains, at an estimated cost of $300 million. The pipeline was shut down at war's end, barely a year after it became operational. To this day, rusting equipment can still be found along the route that has been designated a National Historic Site and renamed the CANOL Heritage Trail.

The Dempster Highway

In the late 1950s, potentially rich mineral and petroleum deposits were discovered in the Beaufort Sea. Construction began in 1958 on a highway from Dawson City to Eagle Plains in the Yukon, to be extended to Inuvik in the Mackenzie Delta. Later named the Dempster, the highway wasn't completed until 1979. More about Dempster Highway.

Cat Trains and Highway History

The first long distance motorized travel in winter was a "cat train" (16 sleighs pulled by tractors) that crossed Great Slave Lake ice to Yellowknife in the winter of 1939. The whole trip took 39 days from Grimshaw, Alberta. An all-season road to Yellowknife was completed in 1961. That road was finally paved in 2006.

In 1942, the US army built a road between Fort Smith and Hay River. A road link from northern Alberta to Hay River was completed in 1948. A road to Pine Point was completed in 1964, and later extended to Fort Resolution. The Mackenzie Highway link to Fort Simpson was completed in 1971. The newest highway, the Liard Trail from Fort Simpson to Fort Nelson, BC, was completed in 1983.