The Ingraham Trail, officially Northwest Territories Highway 4, extends from

Yellowknife Yellowknife is the capital, largest community, and the only city in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, about south of the Arctic Circle, on the west side of Yellowknife Bay near the outlet of t ...

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-largest and the most populous of Provinces and territorie ...

to Tibbitt Lake, approximately east of Yellowknife. It was built in the mid-1960s as the first leg of a 'road to resources' with the original intention of encircling

Great Slave Lake Great Slave Lake is the second-largest lake in the Northwest Territories, Canada (after Great Bear Lake), List of lakes by depth, the deepest lake in North America at , and the List of lakes by area, tenth-largest lake in the world by area. It ...

. The highway is designated as a northern/remote route of Canada's National Highway System. The Ingraham Trail serves as both an industrial and recreational highway. In February and March each year, the trail is the initial section of 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 ...

to three diamond mines located northeast of Yellowknife. The trail is also known as Yellowknife's cottage country, with the bulk of seasonal and year-round cabins located between Cassidy Point and Prelude Lake Territorial Park. During the winter road program,

B-train A road train, also known as a land train or long combination vehicle (LCV) is a semi-trailer truck, semi-trailer used to move road freight more efficiently than single-trailer semi-trailers. It consists of one semi-trailer or more connected ...

tractor trailers travel the road, four loads every 20 minutes, 24 hours a day. Although it serves primarily recreational activities and area residences in this lake-dotted country, after the ice break-up on

, the highway is the only access to

Dettah Dettah, sometimes spelled incorrectly as ''Detah'', is a First Nations community in the North Slave Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. Located just southeast of the capital of Yellowknife, it is a drive from that city by ice road acros ...

from Yellowknife. The small

Dene The Dene people () are an Indigenous group of First Nations who inhabit the northern boreal, subarctic and Arctic regions of Canada. The Dene speak Northern Athabaskan languages and it is the common Athabaskan word for "people". The term ...

community is about from Yellowknife by

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 Int ...

in winter or using the Ingraham Trail. For about a month in late winter, a

winter road 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. Segments of a winter road that cross an expanse of flo ...

Lac de Gras Lac de Gras is a lake approximately north east of Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Lac de Gras was the centre of the diamond rush of the 1990s. There are two working, and one closed, diamond mines in the area, Diavik Diamon ...

is opened to trucking of mining supplies, the junction being along the Ingraham Trail. The road condition has suffered due to its frequent use by heavy trucks. This is shown on the first season of the American reality television series, ''

Ice Road Truckers ''Ice Road Truckers'' (commercially abbreviated ''IRT'') is a reality television series that aired on History Channel from 2007 to 2017. It featured the activities of drivers who operated trucks on ice roads crossing frozen lakes and rivers, i ...

'', which aired on

History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

. The Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road also extends from the end of the Ingraham Trail to Contwoyto Lake in

Nunavut Nunavut is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' and the Nunavut Land Claims Agr ...

, forming Nunavut's only connection to the road network in the rest of Canada. The Ingraham Trail is named after Vic Ingraham, a pioneer Yellowknife businessman of the 1930s–40s. Yellowknife has experienced an

aurora borealis An aurora ( aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly observed in high-latitude regions (around the Arc ...

tourism boom the last few years and the Ingraham Trail is the prime viewing location. It is common to come across aurora rush after midnight during the peak aurora season, November to March.

Details

Since January 2014, the road bypasses

Giant Mine The Giant Mine was a gold mine located on the Ingraham Trail, north of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Giant Mine was within the Kam Group, a part of the Yellowknife greenstone belt. Gold was discovered on the property and mineral claims ...

through a realignment that originates off Highway 3, approximately from the Old Airport Road turnoff. At the road crosses the

Yellowknife River The Yellowknife River is a river in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It flows south and empties into Yellowknife Bay just where it is crossed by the Ingraham Trail. It is part of Great Slave Lake, approximately north northeast of the city of ...

followed by the Dettah turnoff at . After this the road passes several territorial parks:Ingraham Trail
at Northwest Territories Parks *

Yellowknife River Territorial Park Yellowknife is the capital, largest community, and the only city in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, about south of the Arctic Circle, on the west side of Yellowknife Bay near the outlet of t ...

() *

turnoff () *

Prosperous Lake Territorial Park Prosperous, the adjectival form of Prosperity, may also refer to: Places * Prosperous, County Kildare, Ireland, a town * Prosperous Bay Plain, Saint Helena Political parties * Prosperous Armenia * Prosperous Indonesia Party * Prosperous Justice ...

() *

Madeline Lake Territorial Park ''Madeline'' is a media franchise that originated as a series of children's books written and illustrated by Ludwig Bemelmans. The books have been adapted into numerous formats, spawning telefilms, television series and a live action feature fi ...

() *

Pontoon Lake Territorial Park Pontoon may refer to: Buoyant devices * Float (nautical), an air-filled structure providing buoyancy * Any of various objects that float on pontoons, including: ** Pontoon (boat), a flat-bottomed boat supported by two or more pontoons ** Floatplan ...

() *

Prelude Lake Territorial Park Prelude may refer to: Music *Prelude (music), a musical form * Prelude (band), an English-based folk band *Prelude Records (record label), a former New York-based dance independent record label *Chorale prelude, a short liturgical composition for ...

( *

Hidden Lake Territorial Park Hidden or The Hidden may refer to: Film and television Film * ''The Hidden'' (1987 film), an American science fiction/horror film * ''Hidden'' (2005 film) or ''Caché'', a French thriller film * ''The Hidden'' (2005 film), a Spanish-British-Ita ...

() *

Powder Point Day Use Area A powder is a dry solid composed of many very fine particles that may flow freely when shaken or tilted. Powders are a special sub-class of granular materials, although the terms ''powder'' and ''granular'' are sometimes used to distinguish sep ...

) *

Cameron River Falls Day Use Area/Hiking Trail Access Cameron may refer to: People * Clan Cameron, a Scottish clan * Cameron (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Cameron (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) ;Mononym * Cam'ron (born 19 ...

() *

Cameron River Crossing Cameron may refer to: People * Clan Cameron, a Scottish clan * Cameron (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Cameron (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) ;Mononym * Cam'ron (born 19 ...

() * Reid Lake Territorial Park () before reaching Tibbitt Lake (). The trail is

chipseal Chipseal (also chip seal or chip and seal or spray seal) is a pavement surface treatment that combines one or more layers of asphalt with one or more layers of fine aggregate. In the United States, chipseals are typically used on rural roads c ...

ed to Reid Lake, leaving the last as gravel.

References

External links

1934 Vic Ingraham and Speed II
NWT Historical Timeline,

Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre The Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre (PWNHC) (''Centre du patrimoine septentrional Prince-de-Galles'' in French) is the Government of the Northwest Territories' museum and archives. Located in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, th ...

Ingraham Trail History
{{NT Roads Northwest Territories territorial highways Gravel roads