A convoy of about 30 heavy trucks was slowly making its way south Saturday along badly rutted winter roads in northern Manitoba after being stuck for days in a muddy morass.
RCMP Sergeant Line Karpish said everyone who had been stranded on thawing ice roads has been accounted for.
Two trucks remain stuck about 35 kilometres north of Bloodvein First Nation, but the drivers were doing fine and there was a Caterpillar on the way to clear ruts for them, she said.
Sgt. Karpish said two convoys of trucks - including a group stuck earlier at Thunder Lodge - pulled into Bloodvein at 3 a.m. and 9 a.m. on Saturday morning,
They were checked out medically, then set out in one convoy going south.
"They're not moving fast," said Sgt. Karpish, who could not estimate when the convoy will reach Pine Falls. They're travelling at 7 km/h, at best, on ice roads that have re-frozen but remain badly rutted, she said.
"They're going to hit solid ground (at Pine Falls) - they'll scatter," she said.
RCMP have also accounted for 10 residents of Garden Hill and Island Lakes first nations who were stuck when the winter roads melted. They're all at Bloodvein.
No one had to be removed by Medevac, said Sgt. Karpish, who was not aware of any medical problems suffered on the winter roads.
"Our policing issue is resolved," Sgt. Karpish said.
An early spring shut down the ice roads after less than a month this year, cutting more than 30,000 people off from the south.
It means remote communities are left without building supplies and dwindling stockpiles of fuel and food and must fly in supplies at great expense.
Ron Evans, head of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, said Friday they've warned for years about ice-road season getting shorter and shorter - and this year's problem is a good argument for building permanent roads to the communities.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised to help airlift supplies into the reserves.
Normally, 2,200 kilometres of temporary routes over frozen swamps, muskeg and lakes are open for as long as eight weeks. But mild weather forced the government to announce the roads were closed, stranding truckers and travellers in the wild.