DCHP-1 Online

winter road

• 1 Hist. a route used in winter, especially by dog drivers.

  See also: winter trail  

  • 1801  One of the natives who followed us, called it the Winter Road River.
  • 1820  (1890)  The winter road through the woods from Rabbit Point to Moose Lake, had the men been acquainted with it, would have brought them to the post in two days.
  • 1860  On returning with the mail packet, winter overtook them in the Abbittibbe Lake, when they abandoned their canoe, and not knowing the usual winter road, they were obliged to follow the course of the river

• 2a a secondary road used only when the ground is frozen, usually because the terrain is impassable at other times, formerly used by sleighs.

  See also: snow-road  summer road  

  • 1808  (1809)  The country people who first form the winter roads on the snow, direct their Carioles by the nearest course where the snow is most level; and they go in as straight a line as possible, to the place to which they are destined.
  • 1842  We fear the French Canadians will not feel satisfied with being deprived of their good Winter Roads, which they were just beginning to enjoy under the Sleigh Ordinance.
  • 1937  The winter road from St. Felicien, Lake St. John, to Chibougamau, was completed in time to permit of a considerable tonnage being freighted for mining interests before "break-up."
  • 1957  This was evidently a "summer road," i.e. one which could be used at all seasons of the year by either sleighs or wheeled vehicles; a "winter road" was meant to be used by sleighs only, and therefore the construction cost was much less than for a summer road.
  • 1964  It's carried out on a scale that would have been almost inconceivable a quarter of a century ago when "winter roads" were a political issue as debatable as socialized medicine

• 2b Lumbering a road swamped (def. 1) through the bush and used for hauling logs during the winter months.

  See also: snow-road  swamp ((v.))  (def. 1)  

  • 1847  (1957)  As an instance of the importance of these roads, some enterprising Lumbermen on the Upper Madawaska have penetrated, at their own expense, the Townships in the rear of Victoria District [i.e. Hastings County], by winter roads, by means of which they are able to obtain supplies, delivered at their shanties, at Bytown prices.
  • 1902  . . . the winter road by which they hauled saw-logs to the mill, cut right through the forest, where the deep snow packed hard into a smooth track, covering roots and logs and mud holes, and making a perfect surface for the sleighs, however heavily loaded, except where here and there pitch-holes or cahots came.
  • 1947  To this day some of their winter roads may still be picked out from the air, but on the ground they have become so overgrown they are hard to find, except where the "corduroy" of logs over a gully or soft ground lies rotting among the second growth.

• 3 Obs. a route following the course of a frozen river.

  See also: ice-road (def. 2)  

  • 1829  The winter roads are not those followed in summer: those of winter, are along the edges of the frozen rivers.