Ice road trucker

Anyone who calls themselves a true couch potato will readily admit to watching episode after episode of Channel 5’s successful – and ludicrously addictive, for some reason – documentary-drama ‘Ice Road Truckers’.

Documenting (as one would expect) the daily lives of these seemingly fearless, and usually bearded, individuals as they go about transporting goods across the most treacherous parts of deepest Canada – a place where even the fiercest wild animals seem reluctant to tread for fear of falling through the ice – the series is loved for many reasons, one of the primary ones being that however nice a person you are, you just can’t help but hope the trucks will go crashing through the ice and lead to some brutal yet fantastically enjoyable drama as the trucker fights to escape his cabin. While this doesn’t usually happen, the trucks do occasionally crash through with one or two wheels, and it’s then that the viewer is reminded that it wouldn’t actually be that amusing if the whole lot fell in after all!

Clearly, then, despite the obvious risks of such a dubious occupation, there is a demand for such shows on TV, and a need for the public to learn more. But it does beg the question: who, in their right mind, would voluntarily put themselves forward for a job that is well known to be one of the most hazardous things a human being can do while driving on four (or sixteen) wheels?

Well, the answer to that would be simple, according to the show and information available for perusal on the internet: people who need money fast (both men and women) and wish to earn a year’s worth in only two or three months since there are only a couple of months when the roads are passable for heavy goods vehicles, And that’s where being an ice road trucker starts to make a kind of sense – working for only a few intensive months, truckers who manage to deliver the most loads can earn anything from as little as $20,000 to $80,000, making the various compromises somewhat more worthwhile.

If you’re unsure about the prospect of driving a massive weighted vehicle through a slender and terrifyingly narrow path of ice – just a few inches above below-freezing water that would make a Polar Bear think twice about coming out of his cave, if we didn’t mention that before – then why not enquire with the companies who do this about becoming a technician, engineer, or site manager? As awareness of this interesting occupation has become more widespread, opportunities for a number of trucking-related jobs have also become more widely available.

In terms of who is eligible to become an Ice Road trucker in Canada, American / Canadian citizens will likely find getting a job somewhat easier than most; that’s not to say that those from other countries are excluded from the possibility, although it might mean that truck drivers from Europe and other places might be asked to train first, in order to prove themselves capable of this (some might say nightmarish) occupation.

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