Fort Dodge grew up on gypsum, the pale bluffs along the Des Moines River here holding some of the richest deposits in the country, and the city's industrial edges still carry that history in the plants running along the river bottom. Estlund Contracting Services works job sites across that same built-up landscape, and winter turns the crew toward clearing the driveways, lots, and access roads tied to those properties and the neighborhoods around them. The river valley through town creates its own weather pocket, holding fog and cold air low against the bluffs even after the surrounding farmland has warmed, so a lot or driveway down near the water can stay iced over longer than one up on flatter ground. Pushing a commercial lot back to bare pavement before a shift starts, or clearing a driveway down to the concrete before a workday, is the same read of the ground a contracting crew already uses on a build site. This is river-valley work, in a city that was built on what came out of these bluffs in the first place.