On August 22nd, 2024, the latest truck bearing the Arctic Force livery rolled out of our Montréal-Nord depot for its first deployment. It was a Tuesday afternoon. There was no ceremony — just a driver named Éric, a unit number stencilled on the door, and a Samsara GPS unit blinking green on our dispatch board.

That's exactly how Marc and Daniel Tremblay wanted it. For two people who built this company on showing up without fanfare, the milestone meant more in motion than it would have in any press release. But 15 years after two brothers retrofitted a pair of second-hand pickups in a rented garage in Rosemont, we think the story is worth telling.

Why Fleet Scale Matters — And Why It's Not About Vanity

There's a version of this announcement that reads like a number being celebrated for its own sake. That's not what this is. The reason Arctic Force operates at the scale it does isn't vanity — it's because our service guarantee requires it.

Every Arctic Force contract carries a 45-minute on-site response guarantee. To deliver on that promise across 12 cities and a 600-kilometre service radius — in the middle of a major storm that may be stressing every route simultaneously — you need redundancy. You need trucks already pre-positioned at regional depots when the forecast turns. You need the ability to absorb a mechanical failure, a road closure, and a surge in emergency calls at the same time, without asking any client to wait.

Fleet size isn't a marketing number for us. It's the infrastructure behind our guarantee. You can't promise 45-minute response across 12 cities with 50 trucks. The math doesn't work, and every snowstorm makes that math unavoidable.

Why We Standardized Our Fleet

When Daniel began the fleet standardization process in 2019, the goal was simple: pick one platform and commit to it completely. Our platform was chosen after a rigorous three-winter evaluation against six competing platforms, including Class 5 competitors from multiple manufacturers.

It won on four criteria that matter to our operations specifically:

  • Cold-start reliability at −40°C — Our gasoline V8 platform starts reliably in extreme cold without block heater dependency, unlike diesel platforms that gel in Northern Quebec temperatures.
  • 19,500 lb GVWR — Accommodates the full plow-plus-spreader configuration without exceeding legal weight thresholds on city routes.
  • Upfitting compatibility — Boss and Western plow systems install without frame modification. Standardization means any truck can be reconfigured for any depot.
  • National service network — With hundreds of service locations across Canada and the U.S., no truck in our fleet is ever far from certified service support.

Standardizing on a single platform also transformed our maintenance operation. Our mechanics know every component on every truck in the fleet. When a unit needs repair before a storm, we fix it in hours — not days — because we've fixed the exact same issue on hundreds of identical trucks before.

What Comes Next: Burlington, VT and the U.S. Expansion

This fleet milestone coincides with the opening of Arctic Force's first cross-border depots in Burlington, Vermont and Plattsburgh, New York — extending our 45-minute response guarantee to Northern New England for the 2024–25 season. Both depots are fully operational with 12 units each, pre-positioned and staffed before the first October forecast.

The U.S. expansion represents the next phase of what Marc has called "structured growth" — adding markets only when the infrastructure to serve them is already in place. We don't announce markets and then figure out how to serve them. We build the depot, staff the team, and park the trucks before the contract is signed.

Is Your Property in Our Service Area?

Our fleet covers 12 cities across Quebec, Ontario, and the Northeast U.S. Enter your postal code to check coverage, or contact our team for a free site assessment.

The Number Behind the Number

Full fleet scale means hundreds of operators, 12 depot managers, 3 dispatch coordinators, and a fleet maintenance team of 18 technicians. It means every Boss and Western plow blade sharpened before every season, every Samsara GPS unit calibrated, and every tailgate salt spreader serviced and load-tested.

It means that when a Category 2 snowstorm hits Montréal at 2 AM on a Tuesday in February, and the city's 40 busiest parking lots need to be clear before retail opens at 9 AM, we have the capacity to do it — with units to spare. That's the only milestone that matters.

The fleet is on the road. See you this winter.