Mackenzie River Ferry

The Mackenzie is the second longest river in North America, and also the second largest, exceeded only by the Mississippi-Missouri system. Its various tributaries flow from the Rocky Mountains into the Great Slave Lake, then north a thousand miles to the Arctic Ocean. Near its mouth the great river is anywhere from one to ten miles wide, so there is no way it could be economically bridged. Instead, the Dempster Highway crosses it on a ferry. In the fall, when the river begins to freeze, the ferry is hauled well up the bank and stored until spring.

In the winter the river freezes thickly enough that the highway reopens, and even big trucks can drive safely across the ice. But twice a year, at freeze-up and break-up, the river cannot be crossed at all. During these months communities north of the river were truly isolated before the coming of air travel.

Next: The Dempster Highway