Road To The Ice Sheet
In the spring of 2000 the Swedish construction group Skanska's Greenlandic subsidiary completed six months' work in establishing a 30 kilometres (19 mi) road for the testing company Nausta, which operates a testing site in northern Sweden. The road runs through the glacial valley of Akuliarusiarsuup Kuua, from Kangerlussuaq to the edge of the permanent inland ice in Isunngua. A road stretching 150 km (93 mi) was laid on the inland ice. Nausta built the facility to complement the winter testing done by Volkswagen in northern Sweden and Finland.
The site at Kangerlussuaq was primarily used in the summer half of the year, from April through October. The entire testing ground was used to test cars' performance in extreme cold and conditions of near-zero friction. The cars were flown from Europe to Kangerlussuaq, and then driven to the proving grounds after last-minute checks. This project was abandoned and from 2006 the road leading to the edge of the ice cap is maintained for tourist purposes only, though access to the last segment of the road is limited and requires a key to open the padlocked gate. Ice activity has demolished the inland ice segment of the road, and it now ends in Isunngua, on the edge of the ice sheet.
Coordinates: 67°08′40″N 50°10′00″W / 67.14444°N 50.16667°W / 67.14444; -50.16667
Read more about this topic: Isunngua
Famous quotes containing the words road to, road, ice and/or sheet:
“Evil can be got very easily and exists in quantity: the road to her is very smooth, and she lives near by. But between us and virtue the gods have placed the sweat of our brows; the road to her is long and steep, and it is rough at first; but when a man has reached the top, then she is easy to attain, although before she was hard.”
—Hesiod (c. 8th century B.C.)
“The road to the Other World all ages can travel.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Will lovely, lively, virginal today
Shatter for us with a wing’s drunken blow
This hard, forgotten lake haunted in snow
By the sheer ice of flocks not flown away!”
—Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898)
“As many lies as will lie in thy paper, although the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)