A winter road is a seasonal road only usable during the winter, i.e. it has to be re-built every year. This road typically runs over land and over frozen lakes, rivers, swamps, and

sea ice Sea ice arises as seawater freezes. Because ice is less dense than water, it floats on the ocean's surface (as does fresh water ice, which has an even lower density). Sea ice covers about 7% of the Earth's surface and about 12% of the world's oce ...

.Proskin et al, 2011. Guidelines for the Construction and Operation of Winter Roads, Transportation Association of Canada.
- IHSA, 2014. Best practices for building and working safely on ice covers in Ontario, Mississauga, Ontario, 43 p.
- NorthWest Territories Transportation, 2015. Guidelines for safe ice construction, Yellowknife, NWT, Canada, 44 p.Spencer, P.A., Strandberg, A.G. and Maddock, W.A., 2008. Ice and toundra road design for module transport, Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Ships and Marine Structures in Cold Regions (ICETECH), Banff. Segments of a winter road that cross an expanse of floating ice are also referred to as an

ice road An ice road or ice bridge is a human-made structure that runs on a frozen water surface (a river, a lake or a sea water expanse).Masterson, D. and Løset, S., 2011, ISO 19906: Bearing capacity of ice and ice roads, Proceedings of the 21st Inte ...

or an

ice bridge An ice bridge is a frozen natural structure formed over seas, bays, rivers or lake surfaces. They facilitate migration of animals or people over a water body that was previously uncrossable by terrestrial animals, including humans. The most sig ...

. The foundations underlying over-land segments is most often native soil or

muskeg Muskeg (Ojibwe: mashkiig; cr, maskīk; french: fondrière de mousse, lit. ''moss bog'') is a peat-forming ecosystem found in several northern climates, most commonly in Arctic and boreal areas. Muskeg is approximately synonymous with bog or ...

frozen to a given depth, and locally,

bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid Rock (geology), rock that lies under loose material (regolith) within the crust (geology), crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface mater ...

. These surfaces may either be bare or are overlain, as is most commonly the case, with a

snow cover Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout ...

. Over-ice segments of winter roads are often referred to as ice crossings, ice bridges or, simply, ice roads. The weight of the vehicle is supported by the buoyancy of the floating ice and by its resistance to

flexure A flexure is a flexible element (or combination of elements) engineered to be compliant in specific degrees of freedom. Flexures are a design feature used by design engineers (usually mechanical engineers) for providing adjustment or compliance ...

. Where a winter road is built mostly on floating ice, the occasional land crossings are called "

portage Portage or portaging (Canada: ; ) is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A path where items are regularly carried between bodies of water is also called a ...

s" - the

Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road is an annual ice road first built in 1982 to service mines and exploration activities in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut in Northern Canada. Between long, the road is said to be the world's longest heavy ...

is an example. Winter roads facilitate transportation during the winter to, from and within isolated areas in the North where there are no permanent (also called 'all-weather' or 'all-season') roads. They enable supplies (''e.g.'' food, fuel, construction material) to be brought into communities in these areas.Kuryk, D. and Domaratzki, M., 1999. Construction and maintenance of winter roads in Manitoba, Proceedings of the 10th Workshop of the Committee on River Ice Processes and the Environment (CRIPE), Winnipeg, pp. 265-275. The only other alternative, providing there is a small

airstrip An aerodrome (Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for publ ...

nearby, would be to rely on

air transportation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...

. However, this can be prohibitively costly, especially for bulk material. In some areas,

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

is observed to affect winter roads, notably by contributing to a significant reduction in their operational lifespan.McGregor, R.V., Hassan, M. and Hayley, D., 2008. Climate change impacts and adaptation: Case studies of roads in Northern Canada, Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Transportation Association of Canada. Transportation Association of Canada, Toronto.Rawlings, M., Bianchi, R. and Douglas, R.A., 2009. Winter roads and ice bridges: Anomalies in their records of seasonal usage and what we can learn from them, Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Transportation Association of Canada. Transportation Association of Canada, Vancouver.

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* * * * * * * * * {{Road types Roads in Canada by type lv:Ziemas ceļš lt:Žiemos kelias ru:Зимник sah:Кыһыҥҥы суол

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