NOME, Alaska – Crews worked to build a path Sunday over a half-mile of Bering Sea ice for the final leg of a Russian tanker’s mission to deliver fuel to a town isolated amid one of Alaska’s most severe winters in decades.

The tanker was moored roughly a half-mile from Nome’s harbor after a Coast Guard cutter cleared a path for it through hundreds of miles of a slow journey stalled by thick ice and strong ocean currents.

The tanker got into position Saturday night, and ice disturbed by its journey had to freeze again so workers could create some sort of road to lay a hose that will transfer 1.3 million gallons of fuel from the tanker to the harbor in Nome.

Workers spent Sunday morning walking around the vessel and checking the ice to make sure it was safe to lay the hose, which will take about four hours, said Jason Evans, Sitnasuak Native Corp. board chairman.

The final job of transferring fuel from the ship to the town comes with its own hurdles: In addition to waiting for the ice to freeze, crews must begin the transfer in daylight, a state mandate. But Nome has just five hours of daylight this time of year.

The transfer can continue in darkness, Betty Schorr of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation has said. It could be finished within 36 hours if everything goes smoothly, but it could take as long as five days, she said.

A storm kept Nome’s 3,500 residents from getting a fuel delivery by barge in November. Without the tanker delivery, supplies of diesel fuel, gasoline and home heating fuel in Nome are expected to run out in March and April, well before a barge delivery again in late May or June.