Frozen Experiences of a Lifetime: Cycle-Tour an Ice Road (Northwest Territories)

Forget about ice-road trucking: For the full ice road experience, leave the heated cab behind and pedal the frozen thoroughfares of the Far North instead. One good bet is the 120-mile winter road that connects Inuvik, a large town in the Mackenzie Delta of Canada’s Northwest Territories, with the village of Tuktoyaktuk, on the shore of the Arctic Ocean. The road, which is open from roughly December to April, follows the frozen Mackenzie River as it widens and spills into the ocean; it’s broad and flat, offering cyclists plenty of room to steer clear of passing trucks. Another major ice road begins in Yellowknife, NWT, and travels to the diamond mines a couple hundred miles north.