World's Longest Ice Road

The rescue of 10 passengers and crew from a plane that crashed in the frozen wasteland of Canada's Northwest Territories last week serves as a powerful reminder of the lengths we go to recover diamonds.

From the warmth and safety of a jewelry store or diamond office it's often easy to forget the effort, hardship and risks that are involved at the farthest end of the pipeline.

The small Twin Otter small float plane that crash-landed close to Rio Tinto's Diavik mine was flying workers to an accommodation camp, where they were due to work on the world's longest ice road.

All those on board the Air Tindi plane survived when it crashed on Lac de Gras, a frozen lake 190 miles northeast of Yellowknife, although two suffered "moderate to serious" injuries and six others were slightly hurt.

They all spent a night in a heated tent - part of the plane's emergency equipment - before being rescued by helicopters.

The road they were supposed to be building, the 370-mile Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road (TCWR) is a vital supply line to the Diavik, Ekati and Gaucho Kue diamond mines, clustered together close to the Arctic Circle.

Canada's three diamond mines sold a record $1.58bn of diamonds during 2022. Diavik produced 4.65m carats, Ekati 4.20m carats and Gaucho Kue 5.52m carats.

For most of the year the only way in or out, for workers or for supplies, is by air. There is no "real" road.

But the depths of winter offer a cost-effective transport solution. The ice that forms on the region's lakes is thick enough (at least 39 inches) and strong enough to take the weight of a truck loaded with 46 tons of fuel.

So every year they take advantage of freezing conditions and build a temporary road that allows them to ship most of what they'll need in the coming year.

Ice Roads are the stuff of both real-life drama, and movie fiction. Liam Neeson starred in a 2021 Netflix film called The Ice Road, an action thriller in which he tries to rescue diamond workers trapped after a mine collapses in the remote reaches of northern Canada.

He leads an "impossible" rescue mission on a road built across a frozen ocean that is, worryingly, becoming less and less frozen.

The thing about ice roads is just that - they're made of ice and they only last as long as it's really, really cold.

The TCWR, which has been built mostly across frozen lakes every year since 1982, allows them to ship in the vast quantities of fuel, cement, construction materials, heavy mining equipment, tires and explosives that they'll need, during an eight-to-10-week window

The ice road is possible only during February and March, when the ice is at its thickest. Building the ice road every year is a long haul, as is driving along it.

Construction takes around six weeks and the road is only usable when temperatures hit their lowest, an average of -26C (-15F). After that, things warm up and the ice can begin to melt.

Teams of workers start the process in mid-December, removing the snow cover from the frozen lakes and using high-tech ground penetrating radar to make sure the ice is thick enough (42 inches for the heaviest trucks).

They also build a series of 64 ice-covered link sections, or portages, between the lakes to form one continuous road. The portages are lengths of tightly packed snow with thick ice as a road surface.

Storms, blizzards and melting ice are among the many hazards the truck drivers can encounter. And heading out to the diamond mines it is slow going. The maximum speed for fully-loaded trucks on most sections of the ice road is just 16mph (25 km/h), and that can drop to 6.2mph (10 km/h) in parts.

That means the whole journey can take 18 hours, drivers must be accompanied and speed limits are strictly enforced. On the way back, when the trucks are empty, drivers are allowed to speed up a little (37mph, 60km/h) on the "express route".  

Have a fabulous weekend.