On to the Arctic ocean ice

They knew that the Arctic Ocean was very near when they saw the Eskimo seal hunter, they stopped and took pictures and handed out some goodies to the Eskimo and then headed out onto the ice covered water towards Victoria Island , one of their destinations, they had gone about 35 miles out when one of the heavy loaded Macks broke through the ice and all but the front steering tires ended up beneath the surface, the bottom of the trailer was flat against the ocean ice. Had this rig gone any further and broke clear through it was over 700 feet to the bottom of the ocean. They offloaded the frieght and pumped the diesel fuel out of the in bed storage and then were able to get the rig out of the ice. They decided that the danger of others breaking through was not worh taking the risk so they off loaded all of the heavyest loads and put the frieght on sleds and continued on with Cats pulling them to their destinations which they reached with no further problems. These Pioneer truckers had made this historic trip a reality and all that was left to do was return some 1900 plus miles back to Alaska. Cont.