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 callsmith discovered 17 months ago - Ice Road Trucking
Ice Highway - 317 miles long - Northern Canada
Throughout Canada's history, no one has ever mined diamonds. The reason is that Canada doesn't have any diamonds.Most people believed that. By 1990, no diamonds had ever been found in Canada.But a few prospectors believed...
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- callsmith rated 17 months ago
- Ice Road Trucking
Ice Highway - 317 miles long - Northern Canada
Throughout Canada's history, no one has ever mined diamonds. The reason is that Canada doesn't have any diamonds.Most people believed that. By 1990, no diamonds had ever been found in Canada.But a few prospectors believed that Canada should have diamonds, especially in the North. Some of these prospectors kept searching, and searching, at their own expense. Some searched for more than 20 years.In 1991 something happened. A prospector found diamonds. Lots of them, close to the Arctic Circle. Enough diamonds to justify construction of a diamond mine. In the 16 years since that discovery was made, Canada has become the third largest producer of diamonds in the world (after Botswana and Russia). Canada now has three diamond mines in production, and three more are under construction. However, there are some challenges. Each diamond field was found under a lake. Canada has thousands of lakes. More lakes than any other country in the world. Diamonds are found in geological structures called "Kimberlite pipes". These "pipes" tend to be almost one kilometer in diameter and about 250 meters deep. The overlying lake is drained, and the diamonds are taken through open pit mining of the Kimberlite pipe. These mines are accessible by air, but there are no helicopters big enough to haul the giant machinery needed for open pit mining. Dirt roads cannot cross the hundreds of adjoining lakes. So, an ice road has to be built each winter over the frozen lakes. The major ice road from the town of Yellowknife to the Diavik Diamond mine at the Arctic circle, is 317 miles long. The trucks weigh from 40 to 60 tons. Ice road trucking is dangerous. The ice over the lakes, can break. Lives have been lost.Ice that is 18 inches thick can support 40 tons, and ice that is 40 inches thick can support 60 tons. But there are serious limitations. The trucks are so heavy, they must keep moving, they cannot stop. They can only move at a speed of between 15 and 20 miles per hour.They can only use the ice road during the two coldest months of the year (January, February). The temperature frequently falls to minus 40 below. How cold is that? If you take hot coffee outside and throw the coffee out of the cup, high into the air, it will crystallize before it hits the ground. You don't believe me? Try it. But you have to go the Northern Canada in January to try it !The History Channel has just produced an ongoing television series about these ice truckers. They used 26 cameras to record every aspect of the dangers and opportunities faced by these drivers ( including the danger of falling through the ice).If you don't watch TV, you can still learn a lot about this story. History Channel has produced 25 two minute topic videos that give good glimpses into all aspects of driving on frozen water. If you are a little curious about the ice road truck driving culture that aids the construction of diamond mines in the Arctic circle, you might find this story quite interesting. If it grabs you, you could apply for a job driving a 60 ton truck there next winter. The pay is $1,000 a day, for 60 days !If you scroll the left sidebar on this link, here, you can find all the History Channel videos for this story.
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