eskimo's on the Arctic

After many days & nights of travel an Eskimo dog sled was spotted, he had a dead seal on it thayt had been taken from the Arctic and was headed back to his village of Coppermine, this meeting was a complete surprise for both the truckers and especially the Eskimo who had never seen the likes of this massive gathering of men and machines. Cont.

Book Cover

Pictures

As soon as I get some tech advice I will post pictures of equipment and ice roads,remember I was a trucker not a computer whiz.--Later

north to the Arctic

North always North to the Arctic

They fought their way north day by day the temperatures dipped into the minus 70 below range and the engines on the big diesels were left running 24 hours per day, the drivers would have to fuel up and check the oil levels with engines running all this after 15 or more hours of driving, the favorite saying when they were awakened in the AM was (it sure did;nt take long to spend the night here). The axels on the big trailers gave them a lot of trouble with the massive loads they were carrying and the extreme tempertures they were plagued by breaking apart and after this occured several times they had to replace many axels and all of them on the rigs that were carrying the 300,00 lb. plus loads, this was a major setback as they had to fly the axes in and then replace them under very adverse conditions, the men never backed off from whatever challenge confronted them, I found this to be true over many of my ice road trips with problems we faced, such as rigs slideing off the trail and having to be totally unloaded to get them back on track to mechanical problems of all kinds, the word quit was never used and although we were forced to turn around and go back to our starting point on occasion we always gave it another try and in the end we got the job done. Continued

North to the Arctic cont.

They special ordered several big Mack trucks with flat bed trailers that held over 5500 gals of diesel fuel in the bed and when the rig was loaded plus the wieght of the truck and trailer they grossed out over 350,000 lbs., these Macks plus the dozen or so Kenworths and the huge snow train with several big bulldozers made up the primary convoy. The Macks were shipped into Valdez, Alaska, loaded up and driven to Eagle on the Yukon, River a trip of some 500 miles with the last 168 miles into Eagle having to be cleared of snow, all of the supply's were trucked in and the convoy was off to the Arctic Ocean with the big Cats leading the way. They had mountains , river's and tundra to contend with, the rivers such as the McKenzie had to have an ice bridge built over it, this was done by pumping water from the river onto the existing ice and making a 60 ft. wide and 4 ft. plus thick ice bridge in order for these huge loads to go safely across, this was done on several river crossing's. Every inch of this trip up and back had to be bulldozed in front of the following convoy, 20 miles progress in one day was great but there were many days only a mile or two were made and mechanical problems at times shut the whole outfit down for many hours. A very bad accident occured with the snow train , it jackknifed into a canyon and burned up the engines and electrical system putting it totally out of commission, they offloaded the frieght and put it onto sleds behind the Cats and continued on. I will tell about my recovery of this big snowtrain in another chapter. In spite of all the problems these men never backed off and made their on towards their Arctic Ocean destination.---Continued.

Book 18 wheels north to Alaska, available at-

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Trucking story/s of Alaska and the Arctic North

This is the start of a brand new blog relating to Alaska trucking and the book which I wrote, Eighteen Wheels North To Alaska, we will be talking about the book and some of the story's in it, also other tales of Alaska's historic past and additional incidents that I have experienced in my many years of working and living in the Alaskan North. The first subject that comes to mind is the historic trip that was made in the winter's of 1954,55 and 1955,56. This project known as the distant early warning system was born from a decision by our military leaders to install a radar shield totally across the Arctic Ocean shoreline to give warning of a possible sneak attack by Russian bombers over the North Pole, these journeys were made over thousands of miles of never before traveled areas of Alaska and the Arctic North and I doubt that there has ever been or ever will be another ice road trip to match this historic undertaking, truly a journey that could be hailed as the "Mother Of All Ice Road Trips". This task was headed up by a company called Alaska Frieght Lines owned by Al Ghezzi who in my opinion was the greatest innovator of Alaska and Arctic transportation of our time, Al Ghezzi was a man who had the fore sight, imagination and guts to put together this massive undertaking of transporting hundreds of tons of materials across this forbidding and difficult terrain. I suppose the Jap attack on Pearl Harbor had a lot to do with their thinking as both the US and Russia were dealing with very heavy issues during this so called cold war that many thought could erupt into a full blown conflict. The first trip left from Fairbanks, Alaska after being outfitted and loaded up in the fall and in the winter of 1954&55 they struck out from Fairbanks and proceeded cross country north and east over frozen tundra,lakes, rivers and mountains,through country that had never before or since seen the likes of this gathering of men and machines bent on reaching their goal on the Arctic Ocean shoreline, this ice road trip was lead by a team of bulldozers and followed by 32 conventional diesel trucks and trailers plus a huge machine called a snow train, it consisted of a locomotive type power unit and 5 - 40 foot pull trailers behind it , this unit was capable of hauling 150 tons on it's 24 electric powered wheels with tires over 7 feet tall, this unit was ordered and special built by the R.G. LeTourneau company for Al Ghezzi, This machine was 264 feet long and over 17 feet tall truly a monster. They made slow but steady progress towards the Arctic Ocean and after many difficult miles of travel and mechanical problems they reached their destination, unloaded and returned back south to Eagle, Alaska on the Yukon River. The following winter of 1955-56 they resupplyed the snow machine and brought in huge Mack and Kenworth trucks and trailers and departed for a much longer trip much farther north and east. Will post this and continue later.