orrendous weather, impassable roads, severe temperatures, and lack of infrastructure limit the movement of freight and passengers on the North Slope. For companies that specialize in these logistics, however, the challenge is part of the fun—as is knowing that they’re providing North Slope communities with the goods needed to survive, and supplying companies with materials and equipment to operate year-round.

“We genuinely believe we have one of the most incredible jobs on earth,” explains Don Kious, general manager of UIC Oil & Gas Support. A subsidiary of Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation, UIC Oil & Gas Support works alongside UIC subsidiary Bowhead Transport to move people, freight, fuel, and supplies across some of the most unforgiving terrain in North America.

“We serve as the lifelines of the Arctic,” he adds. “We’re not just transporters; we’re connectors.”

“Our company prides itself on putting the customer first,” says John Jansen, vice president and general manager of Lynden Oilfield Services, part of the Lynden family of companies. “We are innovative in how we operate, and if we see an opportunity to improve our customers’ operations by helping them with something, we’re big on finding solutions.”

UIC Oil & Gas Support has been working in the Arctic for more than thirty years, transporting materials and people to, from, and around the North Slope. It carries everything from construction materials for oil and gas companies to appliances, fuel, and food for village residents.

North Slope operations manager Joseph Barron says UIC Oil & Gas Support has a variety of equipment in its fleet to get the job done.

“We have the largest PistenBully fleet on the North Slope, which is our main piece of equipment,” he explains. “These play a big part in personnel transport, freight hauling, and trail construction. We also have Case IH Quadtrac Steigers, Tucker Sno-cats, custom lowboys, and tracked equipment.”

Lynden has supported the North Slope for decades, providing services even before the Dalton Highway opened in 1977. The company moves “pretty much anything,” Jansen says, from specialty chemicals to groceries.

“Lynden has a barge service that runs into the Arctic out of Seattle, Anchorage, and Dutch Harbor, as well as a fleet of Hercules aircraft,” he says. “We also operate hovercraft on the North Slope and out of Bethel.”

Lynden Oilfield Services uses its fleet of 15 tractors and 6 PistenBullys to haul freight out to North Slope villages in winter, and it leases its fleet of 110 upright tanks to the oil and gas industry. The company also has 60 500-barrel (or 21,000-gallon) frac tanks.

“There is plenty more stuff, but those are our primaries,” notes Jansen with a laugh.

Working in a place where temperatures can reach -50°F takes a toll on both equipment and Arctic crews. Mechanical failures are common, and if something breaks during a transport, there’s no place nearby to get it fixed.

“You have to be spot-on in your maintenance,” says Barron, noting that one of the biggest challenges crews face in such a remote environment is equipment failure. “Working on the North Slope is unlike anything else in the world. There are severe low temperatures, huge temperature swings, whiteout conditions, and 60 mph winds. But you can’t stop; you have to keep rolling.”

“Our equipment is almost as tough as the people running it,” adds Kious. “Weather delays, mechanical failures, river crossings, ground thaw, and daylight shortages are real—and so is the commitment to never leave a load (or a person) stranded.”

Kious considers the UIC Oil & Gas Support crew to be the toughest, most competent, most resourceful on the planet. He beams, “When shit hits the fan in the middle of nowhere and you’re 300 miles from the nearest road, you don’t want a meeting—you want my team.”

Kious notes that his crew has pulled freight through blizzards, whiteouts, and mechanical nightmares with nothing but a wrench, a tarp, and “a prayer to our favorite ancestor.”

“Out there, there’s no AAA service,” he adds. “There’s just us, the tundra, and our ancestors judging how well we packed.”

UIC Oil & Gas Support recently moved 1.2 million pounds of freight from the highway terminus at Deadhorse to the northwestern coastal village of Point Lay—a nineteen-day traverse.

“It was a logistical nightmare to be honest,” says Barron. “There was so much planning between permitting and day-to-day travel. Our crews work 18 hours a day on a basic freight haul, so you normally plan for 50 to 60 miles a day. On the Point Lay run, we were hauling twelve pieces of equipment with twenty-two trailers; some days we did 25 miles, and some days we did 70.”

In addition to carrying enough food for the crew, having enough fuel for the journey was a crucial concern because the equipment is run 24 hours a day to keep it warm.

“When you’re planning for slower traverse days or weather delays, that may extend the expected timeline,” says Barron. “The terrain is also a problem; people think that the North Slope is flat, but it’s not. There are a lot of hills, so when you have a Steiger [tractor] hooked up to three trailers pulling 200,000 pounds, it takes multiple pieces of equipment to get them up a hill.”

Even when the weather is good, the isolation of working in the Arctic can take a toll on crews.

“Everyone is away from home and living in a camp for two- or three-week shifts or longer,” Jansen explains. “A lot of companies operate ‘heavy’ in winter, so some crews may spend an entire season up there being away from home and dealing with the challenges of living in a harsh, harsh environment.

Arctic transport duty takes a special type of person, he believes. “It helps to have a strong family core at home to deal with things while you’re gone, but you still have to be tough enough to deal with the environment and what is a pretty physically challenging job most of the time. What is challenging in other locations becomes even more difficult when dealing with bad weather and long hours,” says Jansen.

While on the Slope, Lynden crews work 12 to 15 hours every day, seven days a week.

“It’s not easy work, and when they’re done, the only thing to do is eat and sleep,” says Jansen. “We have a gym and things like that, but there’s really not much to do other than have lunch with your coworkers, go to bed, and get ready to do it all over again the next day.”

Working in the Arctic requires understanding far more than how to operate a machine.

“All of our employees go through an orientation where they do some basic training, as well as Arctic and survival training. But most environmental training is on the job,” says Jansen. “It’s hard to tell someone how treacherous it can be until they’re in it, which is why we show them what to do at the time.”

What’s true for Lynden Oilfield Services applies to UIC Oil & Gas Support too. “Our crew is highly trained; they are HAZWOPER [Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response] certified, bear-guard certified, and have had medical training like first aid and CPR,” says Barron. “But what’s more important is that they know to watch out for each other; as our ‘feet on the ground,’ they make the calls and have the authority to do what needs to be done.” Barron notes that UIC Oil & Gas Support has an impressive safety record.

“It’s all about the attitude, and you have to love what you do,” he continues. “It’s not your normal job; we ask a lot out of our crew, and they deliver.”

While every transport on the Slope has its challenges, some are more difficult (and memorable) than others. Obstacles facing the Lynden crew in the spring of 2015, for example, required a huge amount of replanning and repurposing of equipment to keep oil fields operational.

“The Dalton Highway flooded about 40 miles south of Deadhorse, washing out the road in places and raising the roadbed about 6 or 8 feet with ice after it froze,” says Jansen. “Trucks tried to get through, but it had to be closed down.”

Jansen says Lynden employees worked around the clock to find options to transport large and/or heavy items or chemicals that couldn’t be flown from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay.

“We had to get really creative,” he says. “The oil companies were in panic mode because, just like any city, there are certain absolute necessities that they have to have to continue to operate. They can’t shut down; wells and pipelines will freeze, which are critical.”

The company dealt with the closure by flying in its Hercules aircraft and setting up camps at Franklin Bluffs, 48 miles outside of Prudhoe Bay.

“We were craning and forklifting anything they could offload from trailers onto overland equipment so that we could go around the flooding,” says Jansen. “When the road finally opened back up, it could only be used at certain times of day while they fixed it, so there were hundreds and hundreds of loads of material trying to get through. And, of course, everything was a priority. It was a juggling act.”

Even when the haul road is wide open, timelines can be a problem for freight haulers in the Arctic. Overland transport requires a lot of planning—which doesn’t always happen.

“Unfortunately, freight haulers are the last people to know that there’s any freight to be hauled,” Kious says with a laugh. “An individual may buy a vehicle, take time to shop around for the best rate, buy it, and then realize that they have to get it from Point A to Point B. We have a week left in the season, and suddenly it’s, ‘Can you take it?’”

As with individual orders, so goes commercial freight. Kious says, “A project may be in the planning stages for three years and suddenly gets funding. The RFP [request for proposal] gets sent out, they award the contract, and now things have to get from Point A to Point B right now.”

A lot of administrative work goes into logistics, which includes coordinating personnel, food, fuel, synchronized shipments, and permitting. On the North Slope, a single trip might require permits from the US Bureau of Land Management, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, and local permits from the village of Nuiqsut, Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, or the North Slope Borough, among others.

While transporting items can be a challenge anywhere, deliveries of goods, services, and even people in the Arctic can make a difference in how companies and communities thrive—and even survive.

“We make life possible in the Arctic; we are passionate about it and go above and beyond to contribute to these communities,” says Kious. “We buy fuel in the villages to ensure that funds go back in, but we call in advance to make sure that what we need is not a strain on the community. If someone breaks down on the trail, we throw them on the transport and take them to where they’re going.”

As he sees it, “We are the protectors of the North.”