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TRUCKERS' STORY * Canada - Ice Road Truckers: A real-life 'macho soap'
One of the America's Toughest Jobs
Yellowknife, N.W.T.,CAN -Canwest News Service, by Alex Strachan -February 24, 2009: -- ... They are the long-haul drivers who transport supplies by eighteen-wheelers to remote mining camps some 500 kilometres from the Arctic Circle. With steel-eyed concentration on the "road" ahead and a steely grip on their steering wheels, the drivers haul their heavy rigs across frozen lakes, on a highway constructed completely of ice, during the two months of the year when the ice is strong enough to support loads weighing as much as 20 tonnes... Collectively, the drivers haul 10,000 loads from Yellowknife, N.W.T. to the mining camps, through stiff winds, occasional blizzards and near-constant darkness. In an economic meltdown -- and thanks to the $2,000 paycheque that can accompany each trip -- a driver can make a full year's salary in just eight weeks... It's a job, though, that demands a cool temperament and coldly calculating eye. The isolation gets to some. The Arctic winds and 20-hour day/nights get to others. And lurking beneath it all, unspoken and never talked about, is the fear that, just once, this will be the time when the ice cracks beneath their wheels... (Photograph by: History Channel: The lives of experienced ice road truckers like Canadian Hugh "Polar Bear" Rowland may not be anything like a Hollywood movie, but the premise of the highly rated Ice Road Truckers is now being adapted into a feature film...)Labels: truckers' stories
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