Ice Road Truckers is a documentary-style reality television series that debuted on The History Channel on June 17, 2007 in the 10:00 PM Eastern time slot. The series has been heavily promoted on The History Channel, with commercials featuring the theme song for the show: Livin on the Edge by the rock band Aerosmith. In 2000, The History Channel aired a 46-minute documentary called Ice Road Truckers as part of the former Suicide Missions series, which was renamed Dangerous Missions after the September 11th attacks. Based on the book Denisons Ice Road by Edith Iglauer, the documentary detailed the treacherous job of driving trucks over frozen lakes, also known as ice roads, in Canadas Northwest Territories. After 2000, reruns of the documentary were aired as episodes of the show Modern Marvels.
In 2007, Ice Road Truckers was spun off into a new series, also aired by The History Channel. The show is produced and narrated by Thom Beers of Original Productions, who is noted for narrating popular Discovery Channel shows such as Monster Garage. Shot in high definition, the show charts two months in the lives of six extraordinary men who haul vital supplies to diamond mines over frozen lakes that double as roads. During the finale of the shows first season of 10 episodes, The History Channel aired a promo for season 2, but no premiere date was announced.
View TIce road truckers. Video hosted on Youtube. Cast
Hugh Rowland
A rough-around-the-edges 20-year veteran of Ice Road trucking, Hugh is 50 years old and is based in Kelowna in southern B.C. He is known by the Ice Road trucking community as "The Polar Bear," which is a reference to his strong personality, bearish attitude, stamina and consistently high number of loads delivered per season. Hugh owns four trucks and drives one while the other three are manned by ice road rookies Drew Sherwood and Todd White, as well as friend and co-worker Rick Yemm. Hugh's trucks all have the emblem R&R Hoe Services on the doors.
During the course of the season, all of Hugh's hired drivers end up prematurely leaving the ice road for reasons such as banishment for excessive speeding in Todd's case, to heated disagreements as to the working condition of Hugh's trucks in Rick and Drew's case. Hugh's truck is called "The Crow's Nest", which is in good condition, but his other trucks are not mechanically sound.
Rick Yemm
One of Hugh Rowland's employees, this brash, tattooed trucker from Kelowna, B.C., was in his second year as an Ice Road trucker. In 2006, Yemm was one of the first truckers onto the Ice Road after it opened, when the sound of cracking ice was loudest. This stressful experience almost caused Yemm to quit driving on the Ice Road. He decided to continue, however, remarking "I was too stupid and too stubborn to quit". During this season Hugh's truck foot heater was broken, and Rick was risking frostbite. A source of tension between Rick and Hugh, Rick tried to put up with the broken heater and freezing temperatures in the cab so that he could keep hauling loads and make money. However, feeling that Hugh was not fulfilling his responsibilities to maintain the trucks, Rick quit the ice road and returned home.
Alex Debogorski
A legend in the Ice Road trucking community, 2007 marked Debogorski's 26th year as an Ice Road trucker. Debogorski is the father of eleven children, seven grandchildren, and is a year round resident of Yellowknife. As stated in the series, being that he has been a staple driving the ice roads, it is something of a good-luck charm for Alex to pull the first load over the ice roads at the beginning of every season.
Jay Westgard
Jay is also a year round resident of Yellowknife. Despite his relative youth, Westgard is considered by the Ice Road community as the most talented driver of his generation. Westgard is currently 25 years old. He began driving trucks at age 16, and owned his first truck by age 18; at the time of his introduction, Westgard had acquired a reputation as a driver who excels in hauling oversized loads. Because of his experience, he is entrusted with delivering some of the more demanding loads, such as a huge 48-ton ore scrubber. He also agrees to lead a convoy hauling vital jet fuel to remote Delinea job most veterans would turn down because the trip is very risky.
T.J. Tilcox
A 21 year-old ice road rookie Tilcox is vocal about how he hates the cold, the ice, and how he is here for the experience, not the money. Tilcox has been trucking since age 16, and decided to try ice road trucking after seeing an advertisement in the paper. By his own admission, Tilcox is a "very nervous" person, a fact made evident by his inability to urinate during his drug screening. One question posed by the series is whether Tilcox has the wherewithal to survive the cold should he become stranded. He starts the season with an older truck with no heat, but moves to a brand new Volvo truck from Trinity Transportation. This new truck was acquired when a co-worker decided not to finish out the remainder of the ice road season. Tilcox proceeds to get in an accident before ever hitting the ice road with his new truck, due to a failure of an air hose. Tilcox is cleared of responsibility and allowed back on the road, after a delay to be shuffled back into the queue. After the accident Tilcox is injured while tying down a load, and several days later experiences severe abdominal pain which becomes so bad that he has to be flown out to receive medical care. Tilcox is able to return to the ice roads after being treated for his injuries. Fortunately, his insurance covered the twelve thousand dollar bill . Despite his ordeals, Tilcox gains respect for the job and the men who do it as well as self-satisfaction at himself having run for the entire seasona rare feat for a rookie.
Drew Sherwood
Drew is a veteran trucker, but an Ice Road rookie. He joined Hugh Rowlands team after answering an advertisement in the local newspaper. Sherwood shows a high degree of confidence that he will have no problems adjusting from highway to ice driving. Rowland considers Sherwood an arrogant rookie and a "one year driver". In the series premiere, Sherwood states "I have no intention of going into a ditch, bro", which is soon followed by his driving into a ditch. His hard luck continues when he subsequently loses his battery box and batteries (resulting in two days lost while a replacement box is fabricated on the spot), suffers a flat tire, and then experiences problems with his trucks on-board computer that forces him to abandon a load on the roadside. This truck is eventually put up for sale after the ice road season. Sherwood ends up driving the truck of fellow driver Todd White (who is banned from the roads for excessive speeding) just to pick up where he left off. After further mechanical problems with this second truck, Drew decides to leave the ice roads and return home.
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Can I get the electronic mail of drivers???