A method is proposed to calculate pack ice driving forces. In order to develop the method, stress distributions in a circular ice floe are calculated for various boundary loading conditions. The analysis is carried out using a special-purpose finite element program in which Sinha’s creep equation is used to model the behavior of ice. Charts relating pack ice driving forces to stresses in the ice floe are produced for both linear elastic and creep equations for ice behavior. The results indicate that, for a short period of loading time and at low stress levels, a linear elastic analysis can be used to calculate the pack ice driving forces. However, when the stress levels in the ice floe are high or the time span of load application is long, linear and nonlinear analyses produce much different values for pack ice driving forces.