[dog77_1999]

llama66 llama66:

is it possible to build a bridged highway or causeway (like they have in Louisiana over the bayou) over the permafrost? or is that impossible? it may be fiscally impractical, I dunno. ziggy, you seem to spend a fair amount of time up there what do you think?

Anything is possible with enough money. Though TBH I don't know of any surface material that does well at low temperatures. It gets way to brittle for the shear stress vehicles cause.

[ziggy]

llama66 llama66:

is it possible to build a bridged highway or causeway (like they have in Louisiana over the bayou) over the permafrost? or is that impossible? it may be fiscally impractical, I dunno. ziggy, you seem to spend a fair amount of time up there what do you think?

hey,you mean the Hudsons bay?

North of Churchill the top meter of dirt is about the most that will get soft in summer and that depends on what kind of grass is on top of it.Some are better insulators then others but basically the ground never thaws unless you disturb it.
The last thing you want to do is take any grass off the soil because just the dark color of the dirt will get it warm enough to start it melting.Because it cant soak into the ground it flows and melts more frozen ground.

Good example of this was when we were asked to skid a blasting shack a mile over the tundra,the boss was green and insisted we do it.Well by lunch time the skid marks were black,wet,and there was small creeks flowing down them to the lake and silting it up.Those tracks will be there a thousand years and will eventually become creeks.

so it's a very fragile environment that way but building roads is easy as you just want to cover the ground with your road and its done.Most of Nunavut where I work is only 10 or 20 feet above sea level so your talking about the worlds largest body of fresh water.Roads have to snake all around these lakes,thats why it's easier to fly,and cheaper.

Or build ice roads and doing one over hudson bay would be brutal with the pressure ridges.
The boggy stuff your probably talking about would me more in Manitoba and Sheps more familiar with that area as i just stop there to change planes.

North of churchill you can fly for many hours without seeing anything but white the majority of the time,no life anywhere and its the same all the way to Yellowknife.
You have to fly over it to appreciate how freaking big and desolate it is.
The people who live there and explored there are a different breed.
The 100 mile nuna road I was at had to cross many rivers so we used a type of portable bailey bridge and made them permanent.This all season road is now what they use to get supplies in to the mine from Baker lake where its barged in the year before.
When we didnt have the road it was heli and ice road,the ice road was 30 miles to town so thats how much water you have to drive around.Check out my youtube vids for a helicopters view of some of it.

[llama66]

so It would be impossible to create a bridged network connecting Churchill to Tuktoyaktuk through the interior of the territories? I was thinking a route like this could be possible,

[ziggy]

dog77_1999 dog77_1999:

llama66 llama66:

is it possible to build a bridged highway or causeway (like they have in Louisiana over the bayou) over the permafrost? or is that impossible? it may be fiscally impractical, I dunno. ziggy, you seem to spend a fair amount of time up there what do you think?

Anything is possible with enough money. Though TBH I don't know of any surface material that does well at low temperatures. It gets way to brittle for the shear stress vehicles cause.

We use the rock and its some of the hardest in the world(canadian shield) so its usually the vehicles that get stressed driving on it,not that theres many vehicles anyways with no roads. Before the nuna road out of baker they had mainstreet and the road to the dump so thats where they cruised,back and forth all day long on their quads and some had trucks.

[ziggy]

[quote="llama66"]so It would be impossible to create a bridged network connecting Churchill to Tuktoyaktuk through the interior of the territories? I was thinking a route like this could be possible,
quote]

It would take the whole population of nunavut and then some on graders and plows just to keep it open

[llama66]

Never even thought of that...lol...kinda important little detail. LOL. it would be an epic project, I guess then expanding the airports would make more sense.

[Hyack]

llama66 llama66:

so It would be impossible to create a bridged network connecting Churchill to Tuktoyaktuk through the interior of the territories? I was thinking a route like this could be possible,

Question: Who the FUCK is going to pay for it....if it was possible????

[ziggy]

The arctic gets so little moisture that it's allmost considered a desert,the annual snowfalls are very small but it blows like crazy and its very crystalline snow that will drift in a pickup truck in 5 minutes so that you cant even see it.
I could spend 2 days on a cat opening up ten miles of ice road last xmas and in 5 minutes 2 days of work would have to be done over again,then it would blow in again,sometimes this would go on for weeks.one step forward,5 steps back.

[ziggy]

the peolpe at rankin,Baker,Whale cove,chesterfield and a few other small towns wouldnt like that map as you bypassed them.

[llama66]

who pays for all the new road construction? us (the taxpayer).

[llama66]

ziggy ziggy:

the peolpe at rankin,Baker,Whale cove,chesterfield and a few other small towns wouldnt like that map as you bypassed them.

I'm sure an actual road proposal for the far north would connect as many communities as possible, unlike my half-assed creation. I just tried to connect Churchill to Tuktoytuk.

[ziggy]

llama66 llama66:

who pays for all the new road construction? us (the taxpayer).

The mine paid for that one and their arguing now about the one farther north from the deep port to the diamond mines.

Heres a vid that might give you an idea of the terrain up there,its as closest to the moon as you can get and I used to talk to the mars guys training on Devon island all the time.Thats where the mars shit happens.

[ziggy]

llama66 llama66:

ziggy ziggy:

the peolpe at rankin,Baker,Whale cove,chesterfield and a few other small towns wouldnt like that map as you bypassed them.

I'm sure an actual road proposal for the far north would connect as many communities as possible, unlike my half-assed creation. I just tried to connect Churchill to Tuktoytuk.

Most Innuit are coastal except for baker lake and gjoehaven,those 2 groups were moved by the govt. many moons ago and chose to settle inland.So any road would have to go up the coast and theres just too much water.

[llama66]

I figured you'd know more about this than I. but you gotta admit, a Trans-Arctic Highway would be good for the north. perhaps one day the tech will exist.

[ziggy]

llama66 llama66:

I figured you'd know more about this than I. but you gotta admit, a Trans-Arctic Highway would be good for the north. perhaps one day the tech will exist.

Nothing works very well after -50 And with the daily and i mean daily blizzards it would be impossible to keep open.We had one pickup truck barged in and we used sleds,quads and my mercedes to get around.

Think of the ice thickness on the ice roads out of yellowknife and then watch this video of us doing ice profiles closer to hudson. You can then appreciate what kind of cold were talking here.(-80)