John Denison
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John Denison (1917-2001) was a famous ice road engineer who operated in the Northwest Territories, Canada in the 1950s-1970s.
He was a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and also a veteran of World War II. In 1946, he came north to work at the RCMP detachment in Yellowknife where he was involved in the search for a missing trapper. During this ordeal, Denison he nearly lost his fingers and toes to frost bite. He quit the RCMP in 1947 but stayed in the north and worked on the Cat Trains supplying the mining camps with equipment. He eventually became associated with Byers Transport Limited, with whom he engineered a network of winter ice roads throughout the Northwest Territories to service various mines (including Port Radium, Discovery Mine, Tundra Mine, and Rayrock Mine. His major interest was hauling around large buildings on ice roads between mining camps. Denison's road into the Tundra Mine was an engineering feat of the day, as not many people in the 1960s would have believed an ice road into the very hostile and cold climate of the Canadian Arctic, beyond the Treeline, would be feasible.
The exploits of John Denison were the topic of a book in the 1970s by Edith Iglauer entitled "Denison's Ice Road".
In 1998, John Denison was awarded the Order of Canada for his work on the ice roads in the 1950s-1970s. John Denison passed away in 2001 at the age of 84.
