In a forgotten chapter of history, 1.5 million Polish civilians—arbitrarily arrested by Stalin as enemies of the people following the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939—were deported to slave labor camps throughout the most inhospitable forests and steppes of the Soviet Union. The Ice Road is the gripping story of young Stefan Waydenfeld and his family, deported by cattle car in 1940 to the frozen wastes of the Russian arctic north.