The road was finished now, but some of the machines still had work ahead of them. In fact, road work is never ended.

All summer long, tractors pull mowing machines beside the highways, cutting the grass. Brush and small trees must be kept cleared away so that drivers can see ahead. In winter, the motor graders and the snow plows can keep the road clear. But in places where heavy snow piles up into drifts, caterpillar tractors often push special snow plows that eat through the drifts with powerful whirling blades. With one motion these plows dig out the snow and throw it off to one side of the road.

The caterpillar treads work better in snow than wheels with tires. So the “cats” are used all winter long in the Far North. There they even pull whole trailer trains on runners. The one in the picture is hauling Muskeg schooners, which are really trailer houses on sleds. Muskeg is an Indian word for swamp. The cats pull the schooners over frozen, snow-covered swamps.

You may wonder why anyone wants to use a trailer home in the roadless wastes of the Far North. The fact is that men work there the year round, prospecting for oil. When they think they have located oil there or anywhere else, well-drilling machinery goes to work.