At least one man is trapped in an isolated community with a rental car that he can't get back to the lender because of the rare road closure. Other residents fear shortages of food and fuel.
The winter road, which is usually open from mid-December to mid-March, stretches about 280 kilometres from Fort McMurray to Fort Chipewyan in the northeast corner of the province by Wood Buffalo National Park.
Much of the road travels over frozen lakes, rivers, muskeg, mudflats and sand dunes in the Athabasca River Delta.
But temperatures in late December have hovered at or above 0 C, which is 20 to 30 degrees warmer than normal. That is causing some previously frozen sections to melt.
A second 228-km stretch of winter road that Parks Canada maintains from Fort Chipewyan to Fort Smith, N.W.T., has also been shut down.
The closures mean people in Fort Chipewyan can only get in or out by plane trips that many of them cannot afford.
Man heard flowing water as he crossed river
Will Fletts said he knew there was something wrong with the winter road when he drove a rental car home to Fort Chipewyan for Christmas.
He had to manoeuvre large ruts, and as he drove on a river, he could hear water flowing beneath the ice under his tires.
Now that the road is closed, Flett has to figure out how to get his rental car back to Edmonton.
"I'm trapped up here," Flett said. "Not only myself. Look at all the other residents to the community and visitors to the community."
Many people in the area were blaming global warming.
Officials say road never closed so early in winter
The Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which maintains the stretch from Fort McMurray to Fort Chipewyan, closed it on Dec. 27.
Wes Holobniuk, the municipality's manager of road operations, said he couldn't remember a time when the winter road melted so early and so extensively, forcing officials to take the extremely unusual step of closing the road at this time of year.
"We have had a couple winters where we would have a day or two of above zero, and then it would cool right down. But this stretch has been well over a week now, so some people enjoy it and some people are saying, 'Oh no.'
"We don't have a lot of snow cover either, just an inch and a half to two inches of snow."
Road may reopen in early January
Holobniuk said the long-range forecast was for temperatures to stay higher than normal, but they're expected to dip low enough to start refreezing the road by Friday.
Holobniuk said he hoped that would allow officials to reopen the road in the new year.
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