Ice Road Truckers

Ice Road Truckers is a docu-reality TV series from The History Channel that features both the dangers and thrills of truck driving with ice road truckers including Lisa Kelly, Alex Debogorski, and others. Each week, the ice road truckers drive eighteen wheelers hauling equipment and supplies over 200 miles through a twisting, barren landscape with a temperature of up to 60 degrees below zero. The TV show’s drivers brave volatile weather and risk death, acting as mercenaries for the right price and the right thrill—though the tension between them and their employers can sometimes be as icy. In the first season, the truckers haul loads from Yellowknife, Canada across provisional roads made of frozen lakes, to one of three diamond mines. In Season 2, a new ice road on the Tuktoyaktuk Winter Road pairs experienced drivers with more inexperienced “highway maggots.” In Season 3, the ice road truckers follow the Dalton Highway, which features dangerous ice roads constructed over the Arctic Ocean. The season’s tagline? “In the dark heart of Alaska, there’s a road where hell has frozen over.” In Season 4, new destinations are added along the Dalton Highway, showcasing yet again the truckers’ perseverance. Season 5 will reportedly feature truckers hauling cement in India’s Himalayas. In the first season, drivers included 20-year veteran Hugh “The Polar Bear” Rowland, legend Alex Debogorski, and 21-year-old rookie T.J. Tilcox. Over the next 3 seasons, ice road truckers both new and old join the show and its grueling task. In Season 3, former school bus driver Lisa Kelly joined as the youngest female driver—and she remains the only female driver on the show. Critically praised and universally acclaimed, the season premiere of Ice Road Truckers in 2007 became the most-watched original telecast in the History Channel’s history and, in 2008, Twentieth Century Fox even closed a rights deal to use the show’s premise for an action film. MORE