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Driving the ice road * Canada - To diamond mines
Yellowknife,Northwest Territories,Canada -Reuters, by Cameron French -Mar 12, 2008: -- Deep cracking sounds accompany each loaded truck that passes along a road of ice across frozen lake water to supply Canada's diamond industry... The ice road sags slightly then reforms, water filling and freezing in the new cracks... The three-year ice-road veteran bears heavily tattooed arms and says he doesn't use a seatbelt, a typical claim by ice-road drivers who appreciate the need for a quick exit... With only 100 centimeters (39 inches) of ice at its weakest points one day in February, the trucks run at less than full capacity. Topping them up would raise the risk of plunging through the surface of one of the dozens of lakes the road traverses... In reality, it's not that dangerous an enterprise, provided you play by the rules, says Chris Hanks a former road manager and occasional consultant for miner BHP Billiton... "We've done 50,000 loads without putting a truck through the ice," he said on a recent drive up the road. "Our safety record's better than the public highways"... (Picture by Cameron French/REUTERS- A view of an open pit mine is seen at the Diavik diamond mine, south of the Arctic Circle in Canada's Northwest Territories, February 13, 2008. Once a hotbed of gold mining, Canada's far north is now unearthing riches from a different precious commodity - diamonds)Labels: driving ice roads
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