Ice Road
Ice roads (ice crossings, ice bridges) are frozen, human-made structures on the surface of bays, rivers, lakes, or seas in the far north. They link dry land, frozen waterways, portages and winter roads, and are usually remade each winter. Ice roads allow temporary transport to areas with no permanent road access. Seen in isolated regions of northern Canada, Alaska's Bush, northern Michigan, northern Scandinavia and Russia, they reduce the cost of materials that otherwise would ship as expensive air freight, and they allow movement of large or heavy objects for which air freight is impractical.
Ice roads differ from winter roads in that they are built primarily across frozen waterways. Ice roads may be winter substitutes for summer ferry service. Ferry service and an ice crossing may operate yearly at the same time for several weeks.
An alternative meaning of ice bridge is a natural ice road or a structure formed during glaciation. These were used in prehistoric migration.
Read more about Ice Road: Function, Driving, Media References
Famous quotes containing the words ice and/or road:
““The room’s very hot, with all this crowd,” the Professor said to Sylvie. “I wonder why they don’t put some lumps of ice in the grate? You fill it with lumps of coal in the winter, you know, and you sit round it and enjoy the warmth. How jolly it would be to fill it now with lumps of ice, and sit round it and enjoy the coolth!””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“Through the hollow globe, a ring
of frayed rusty scrapiron,
is it the sea that shines?
Is it a road at the world’s edge?”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)