Ice Road Truckers (2007) s05e09 Episode Script
Road to Nowhere
Tonight on Ice Road Truckers Should have turned around when we had the chance.
The worst storm of the season pounds the Dalton Mother nature Kicking our butt.
Bringing Dave to the breaking point What in the hell have I gotten myself into now? And sending Lisa Can you see anything at all? Into danger.
While Rick and Hugh I got a freaking Ratchet strap holding my fuel tank on.
Find trouble at every turn.
We're lost! 5 AM, at the Carlile truck yard in Fairbanks.
Crap.
It's so deep out here.
Lisa Kelly is digging her way out of yesterday's blizzard.
Got a pickup truck and some steel going to Prudhoe.
Brush this off so it latches.
For crying out loud.
Jeez! What's happening? Holy crap! I think there's too much snow or something.
It didn't latch up.
There.
There.
It made noise this time.
Lisa locks her trailer in place But hauling a 10-ton pickup isn't the kind of challenge she was hoping for.
Why the heck am I hooked to a pickup truck? I'm a heavy hauler now.
Ten days ago Stop! Stop! Stop! Fuck.
A rookie mistake cost Lisa her chance to join the heavy haul team.
Heavy haul's not for everybody.
Now she'll have to earn her way back one light load at a time.
You know how you want but you can't get? I freaking have it and I still don't have it.
Who would have figured heavy haul would be harder to get into than the movies? Warning.
Blowing snow.
Low visibility up on the haul road.
Now we're gonna go play in the snow today.
It's gonna be fun.
300 miles north Wind chill factor's up to the 60-below mark.
If you're out there on the road, you guys, keep it between the lines and we'll see you when you get home.
This is just ridiculous.
Nasty weather is the last thing Dave Redmon wants to see.
Just got to get this trailer up.
I mean, they've been on my ass.
It's just been a real Thorn in my butt, and now we've just got to make a call.
You know, just go get it.
Yesterday Dropping this trailer so we can head back to Coldfoot.
A massive blizzard forced Dave to abandon his load of pipe on the side of the road.
Just making no sense to stay and it's just steadily going downhill quick.
Now he's determined to retrieve the trailer and finish the run.
You know, the weather, it's just the wind is blowing so bad it's drifting the road shut.
But with another storm on the way It's not gonna be easy.
Yeah, I'm trying to bobtail back down to my trailer, but we got no heat in here, 'cause we're not generating any engine heat.
We had to stop here on the side of the road.
We got no heat.
Driving a big rig with no heat at 50-below isn't just miserable--it's dangerous.
Just gonna make sure the hot water valves are turned on.
So I have to plug this hole up just to get some heat.
Freezing wind blowing on the radiator makes the in-cab heating system all but worthless.
Yeah, I'm improvising big time, actually.
Um that's got too many holes in it.
Just try to block some of this air so I can get some, uh, heat built up.
And this tape might not even hold in this minus-50.
This ain't even fucking gonna work.
It ain't gon' work.
Just gonna have to deal with it.
With no way to trap the heat, Dave continues the long, cold ride into the storm.
And if we get stuck somewhere, we could be in trouble.
I guess the bad stuff's fixin' to come.
I don't know.
It's not looking really good.
All we can do is just keep plugging forward.
2,600 miles east Hugh rowland and Rick Yemm have hustled up another load.
Hey, how's it going? Hey, not too bad.
Yeah.
Holy fuck.
Last week, their trailers took a beating, and they're not welcome back at First Nations transport.
What I can't figure out is you and Rick come back with two broken trailers.
You know, what's the problem? That's the way it goes down, man.
I'm finished with you guys.
I don't need you coming here and wrecking everything.
Adios.
Fuck you.
Now they're counting on Polar Industries to keep the paychecks coming.
This load, uh, they have fuel tanks for Muskrat Dam.
Okay.
Without fuel tanks, they're gonna freeze to death, so it's kind of important that those guys get there, you know, pretty easily and as soon as they can.
But be careful, 'cause those roads are really rough.
The 400-mile trail to Muskrat Dam runs into Ontario province, making it one of the most isolated winter roads in Canada.
One more thing I have to mention.
There's no cell phone coverage.
So you guys are gonna be out there for two days With no way of communicating with civilization, so you just be cautious.
But Hugh and Rick can't afford to be picky.
Are you coming too? No.
What'd we do? Scare you last time? Nobody wants to run with you.
Well, I got a--an envirotank.
They call this an envirotank.
It's a storage tank for the fuel up in the Indian reserve up at Muskrat Dam.
They keep running out of diesel fuel and gasoline up there.
It's not really the-- the price of the load.
It's more--more of the case of what the load actually is.
This is fuel for them for the year, so the more tanks they get, the bigger their tank farm gets, the more fuel they can stockpile for the whole season.
So it's a lot more than just the cost of a tank.
Well, let's hit the road here.
Big cash.
There's no signs where we're going.
We got to do it all by map, so hope--I hope like fuck we don't get lost.
Every single run's been to a different fucking place, so you get-- we haven't gotten any type of a break on, "oh, yeah, okay.
I know this corner's coming up.
I know that straightaway's there.
" Here we are, blind again.
We do these kind of crazy jobs and we're kind of used to the fact that there's no 911.
Well, I guess you could call him "nine" and me "one-one," 'cause that's the only two things that'll fucking help us out here.
Coming up Ah! A whiteout paralyzes the Dalton.
The truck's up in the ditch.
We got about 6 or 8-foot-high drifts in the road.
Can't move ahead 20 minutes without something happening.
On the Canadian winter roads, Alex Debogorski is looking for his next paycheck.
Working here at St.
Theresa's point.
I had a fellow approach me.
He's got a construction company.
He wants his pickup hauled back to, uh, the shop.
Hauling a pickup truck from St.
Theresa back to Winnipeg should be an easy day's work.
But the last ten miles into town will take Alex across the thinning ice of a Shiny.
It was windy the last couple days.
Well, that wind is polishing the ice.
My friend, he did this all his life for Robinson Trucking.
He had a heavy load in the springtime, probably march.
And he got out there and he started having water coming through the ice.
Like, as he was driving, water was shooting up in the air, eh.
He knew he was screwed.
You can't stop.
You can't turn around.
There's nothing you can do.
You just have to keep going.
He says he just pulled her out of here, opened the door, stepped out.
He took about six steps, he looked over his shoulder, and he says all he seen was a whole sheet of ice tipped up like a big door, and his whole load just sort of slid off.
He just saw the end of the truck and then the truck disappeared where the ice just came back down again, and then it went in all fell to the bottom.
With the lake behind him, Alex pulls into the village of St.
Theresa Point.
In the bush, equipment is limited.
They'll have to use a front end loader to lift the pickup onto the flatbed.
You lift the front end up and put the wheels on the deck.
I expect it'll work.
I'm sure they've done this a few times before.
- Looks good? - Good enough.
You do what you got to do.
With the pickup strapped down, Alex heads back to Winnipeg.
It's a load.
If it helps me to beat Hugh and Rick in load count, then that's almost as good as getting paid.
Maybe even better, especially if it's the one load that puts me over.
Back in Fairbanks You know, this wind's gonna blow me away.
Holy fuck.
Rookie Maya Sieber reports for duty.
Today, I'm gonna meet with Layne.
I'm here at Carlile and we're gonna talk about my training process and how it's been going.
Yesterday Looks like staring into a white wall.
Maya drove into the heart of a blinding snowstorm to deliver an urgent load of pipe.
I feel like I'm ready to move on and I feel like I'm ready to finally get in my own truck.
Yeah, I got some good news for you and some bad news.
Okay.
I talked to Phil, and He thinks you're ready.
As far as the bad news is just simply that it's a different truck.
It's not gonna be a w900.
Oh, come on.
That's all.
So all the training that you did in that truck with that big power and that transmission is gonna be--start over a little bit.
Understandable.
I've been through that before.
And it'll certainly get you through the first season here.
Cool.
I'm excited.
Okay? Good.
Thank you.
Okay, so the truck is 1301.
After just two solo runs Okay, great.
Thank you.
Okay? All right.
Thanks, Maya.
See you later.
Her gutsy performance in the storm has earned Maya her own rig.
I've been really anticipating getting my own truck and that's getting back to trucking normally and that's trucking alone.
Out in the truck yard, shop manager Gary McConnell gets to work on Maya's new rig.
Oh, man.
She's dead.
She ain't gonna go.
After months of sitting She won't even hit.
The truck's batteries are dead.
Just gonna have to hook the chain to it and tow it to the shop, I guess.
Hooking a chain on the bumper here.
Well, we're gonna be putting this new Ford Ecoboost to the test.
We'll see how she goes.
It's a lot of weight for the truck.
All right.
Get fired up here.
We're ready.
Here we go.
We'll give her a shot.
Come on.
All right, we got her.
It looks like we've got it done.
Take that truck into the shop there.
We'll put a new set of batteries in it.
All right.
That's how we do it.
Slowly out, because otherwise we're gonna be dusted out.
I'm a poet.
Lisa Kelly is hauling a Blowing from the west again Which is the way the bad storm's coming from.
Been a big westward storm.
Oh, that's nice.
The tarp that protects the windshield has come loose.
Damn it.
Try to stay.
Ah! The last thing Lisa wants to deliver is a damaged load when she's hoping to regain the boss's confidence.
It ain't gonna come loose this time.
It's hard to get a good swing on your door when you've got your toes hanging off 4 feet above the ground.
Whoa.
Whoa.
I'm gonna fall off of here.
The truck¡s okay.
It's very, very challenging today.
Very challenging.
Coming up If I don't have enough fuel to make it out, well, then I'm stuck.
Rick gambles big We don't want that tank to fall off.
It's full of diesel.
And Dave isn't going anywhere.
The wind out here's blowing 50 miles an hour.
It's just got the road blowed shut.
Now we're, uh, just rolling into Pickle Lake here.
Told us we got to fuel up here, 'cause there's nothing for the rest of the way in.
But as Rick fuels up He notices a problem.
Strap broke itself, so.
A tank could fall off.
What's wrong? I'm screwed.
I got to figure out a way to get that fucking saddle tank fixed now.
Did you talk to this guy in-- well, he just said, "if you got a 3-inch Ratchet strap, we can Ratchet strap it up.
" This strap on Rick's tank broke from the rough roads.
After burning the bridge with one company, the last thing Rick needs is a reputation for not finishing the job.
I'm just gonna put a Ratchet strap on it and hope it does the trick here.
You got to the frame there on both of them or what? Come on, for fucking sakes.
We had to get a winch strap and winch her up tight.
He's gonna have to keep checking that now.
We don't want that tank to fall off.
It's full of diesel.
Well, I'd have to run in with one tank and if I don't have enough fuel to make it out, well, then I'm stuck.
With more than truck held together by a thin nylon strap, Rick rolls back into the wilderness.
Get the load in.
Like, this is what we're all about.
You don't call the Carlile mechanics.
"I got a problem.
" You got to figure out a way yourself and that's it.
Well, if it gets any worse-- well, I can't lose that fuel tank.
But in the same hand, it's Why not live your life on the edge a little bit? If the 1,400-pound tank rattles loose, it could mean disaster on the road.
But Rick's willing to take his chances.
When I'm going this way, I'm making money.
When I'm going that way, I'm not.
SoWhy I got a freaking Ratchet strap holding my fuel tank on.
But you can't predict what's gonna happen in the bush.
Back in Fairbanks This wind really sucks right now.
Maya's new truck is ready to roll.
So I got to find truck 1301.
Oh, this is 1301.
How cute.
Look how small it is.
Oh, wow.
There's over a million miles on here.
Well, I definitely got a mic for this I can put in here.
This is an old-- look at the size of this-- I've never seen anything that small.
It's, like, half the size of a twin mattress.
I didn't even know that's, like, possible.
Well, this is definitely not an 18 nor a 13 speed.
It's a split ten speed.
But it's okay.
You got to start somewhere.
I have to prove myself before they put me in a $100,000 truck.
It's just is gonna be another-- another challenge.
That's all.
While Maya settles into her new ride up north I gotta get this fucking thing slowed down.
Dave is nearing his abandoned trailer.
The wind out here's blowing 50 miles an hour.
It's just got the road blowed shut.
But the arctic blizzard has traffic backed up for miles.
Can't move ahead 20 fucking minutes without something happening.
Five miles ahead, the storm has wreaked havoc on the road.
Yeah, we got 50, Can't get out of here.
You don't know where the edge of the road is.
The DOT crew struggles through the chaos.
Doing what we can with it.
You can't see 20 feet in front of you today.
But the damage is already done.
Uh, basically, we're trying to get a couple trucks up in the ditch.
We've got about 6 or 8-foot high drifts in the road.
Mother nature, kicking our butt.
Five miles South Dave's frozen in his tracks.
Snow plow just went by.
Now he's got to drive 20 miles back the other way to get the snow blower and drive up here.
Hell, that'll take two hours just for him to get back here.
Just problem after problem after problem.
As the storm rages on, Dave settles in for a long, cold wait.
We're an hour away from shelter.
We're gonna die slow, cold, and alone.
Wish I was back in Alabama right now.
Half way up the haul road Can you see anything at all? Lisa Kelly fights through the heart of the storm.
These delineators ain't exactly reflecting right now with all the snow built up on 'em.
There's no color.
They're just white.
Well, when it's so bad that I can't see the road, I just don't--I just try to stay right in the middle of it.
I don't want to try to figure out where the edges are.
I don't know what's coming up the hill, 'cause I can't really see.
Whoa.
While Lisa pushes on Back in Fairbanks, the blinding snowstorm has stopped traffic, giving Maya a chance to gear up her new truck.
I'm looking for a badass knife.
Okay.
I don't leave my house without a knife or a can of mace in New York, so it's no different up here.
And if somebody ever tried to grab me, they're getting kicked, they're getting sprayed, and they're getting stabbed.
I need something that's really sharp in case I have to stab a bear or something.
I don't know.
This is a Ken onion blur.
It is spring-assist.
Got the combination blade.
Ooh, I like that.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I like that.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, yeah, I'll take this one.
Okay.
Gonna need one of those to skin a moose.
I protect myself with a knife and some pepper spray and a huge attitude.
Freezing our fucking ass off.
After four cold, miserable hours The DOT has cleared a path for traffic to keep moving north.
Well, we got this big, gigantic snow blower up here clearing the road for us, basically just to make us a path to get us through.
Gear.
Got to keep going forward.
Just not a good idea to drive if you don't have to.
It's better to sit and wait it out, but we're stuck in the middle of it right now.
Now we've got zero fucking visibility right here.
Everything's just blowing white in front of me.
What in the hell have I gotten myself into now? You know, we went and made a stupid fucking mistake and came down here to get in it when we shouldn't have.
Should have turned around when we had the chance.
We are absolutely in zero visibility.
Finally, through the whiteout Yeah, baby.
Dave spots his pipe load.
Finally made it to this load of pipe.
Thought we'd never get this damn thing picked back up.
We won't play around here much.
We got to get our asses a-movin'.
With his load recovered, Dave heads back into the storm Got to focus.
Got to focus.
And blindly steers his rig the final miles to Prudhoe Bay.
I'm not gonna fuck this up.
After two long, cold days Dave Redmon finishes his job.
Well, I made it finally.
I'ma drop this trailer, turn in my paperwork.
But we got here and that's all that matters.
Slicker than snot in a chicken's lip around these corners, isn't it? Right.
As Hugh leads the way, Rick lags behind Nursing his loose fuel tank over the relentless bumps.
Got a wounded soldier in my truck here, so.
Got the tank strapped up, so I can't really give her too much.
You're going five rounds with Mike Tyson every time you roll in here.
But ten miles ahead Took the wrong turn here.
Looks like we're not the only ones that did this.
Is there no road out there? I mean, what's our bearing this way? Is that, uh, northwest end? Well, that's east.
That's east.
North, west.
This goes north.
Well, it's gotta be back over there then somewhere.
But I don't even see-- I don't see any marker, nothing.
And this road don't even get going anywhere, does it? We're at the end of it.
Well, we'll have to turn around regardless.
This ain't it, so.
The road they thought would lead to Muskrat Dam has hit a dead end.
We're in the wrong place.
This isn't it.
Lost in no-man's land All we know is that we were supposed to come to the end of the road and we were supposed to be on the winter roads after that, but we went too far.
Hugh heads back to break the news to Rick.
We're lost! No, listen, just-- there's room to turn around down there, so just turn around and there's a road right past here.
Yeah, I seen that.
The sun was in everybody's eyes.
We drove right into the light.
I'll try not to get my feet wet.
This is a little nasty fuck up.
This was about two hours.
Can't make it.
That's--so that's gonna be four hours we lose today alone there just on this little wrong turn.
Alex is loaded up, hauling a pickup truck South to Winnipeg.
These winter roads, ice roads here, they present lots of challenges.
They're not a--they're definitely not a normal road, you know, whether it's weather, distance, lack of services, uh, potential for accidents.
But suddenly, there's trouble on the road ahead.
The wheel fell off or what? - Hello.
- Hello.
You have trouble with your wheel? Yeah.
The strut came off.
Yeah.
Don't think that's gonna be goin' back in there very soon, eh? Yeah, it's pulled the bolts right out of the top.
I can't see you putting that back in.
Yeah.
So all those parts are probably good, but, uh, how do you get that back in there? You want a ride, I'll give you a ride.
Yeah.
We're just gonna leave the truck here and give these people a ride and then hopefully they can find a tow truck to come and get it.
We'll try to make some room.
Okay.
Is everybody in here? Everybody's happy? Or as happy as we can be under the circumstance.
Now Alex's payload is one pickup truck and a family of four.
You pinched your finger on that spring? On the rim.
And I was kind of-- it went like this.
Yeah.
And it went along on the thing and got caught when it turned.
And it grabbed your finger? Yeah.
Well, I got--did you bring the ax? Might have to cut it off.
No.
Just kidding.
We still need to find a girl who's gonna have a baby so I can deliver a baby on this truck.
Coming up Lisa presses her luck.
I'm hoping I'll get lucky and get over the last hill here.
And Hugh and Rick Fuck up again.
Are on the road to nowhere.
Hey, I got an idea.
Let's just drive around.
On the north slope of Alaska Lisa is still battling the blizzard.
It's just a gustin'.
But you know, if you ain't rollin', you ain't making money.
I'm hoping I'll get lucky and get over the last hill here.
It's been hard to see at times.
Yeh! I do believe that is the light of Prudhoe there yonder.
Finally, she pulls her Two days battling a monster storm has reminded Lisa that being an Ice Road Trucker is about more than just the size of your load.
In the end, I have to get the job done, and no matter what it is they want me to drive, that's my job.
Although I prefer to drive some other things, I still need to shut up and take the stuff I don't want to take, 'cause it's my job.
Back in Canada I guess $16 a month wasn't enough.
Alex hauls his load and his passengers safely into town.
Hey, thank you, sweetheart.
It's no problem.
Oh, don't squeeze.
Hey, no problem.
God bless you guys.
All the best.
Be good.
You never know what's gonna happen next.
I'm waiting for the flying saucers to come.
Completing this run puts Alex ahead of his Canadian rivals, while on the Dalton, Dave is hot on Lisa's heels.
As day breaks Hugh and Rick get back on the road.
But a broken fuel tank and one wrong turn have them half a day behind schedule.
We're heading for muskrat dam and we fuck up.
Apparently we're not very good map readers.
Already on the outs with one trucking company, they can't afford to deliver late and burn another bridge.
That's okay.
We'll get her back.
Just heading up to our first ice crossing here.
Just ahead Round lake seven miles across And just inches of ice between their load And 150-foot drop To the bottom.
Regardless how much time we make up on high ground, we still gotta do the lake crosses.
You can't speed on the lake.
Somebody will got--somebody will die.
Our first big lake for this trip here.
This one, they say, takes an hour.
We got to slow down to Ten here just to-- it's thin ice.
We're right up to snuff for weight too.
Got to be careful here.
Feel like one of us is gonna fucking drown here today.
It's deep enough that I don't want to end up in it.
That's all I know.
That's an island, I guess, that we just drove by.
Driving by an island sounds funny.
I guess for people that don't drive on ice roads it sounds funny.
It's when you fall asleep and run into an island That's when fucking gets bad.
We're just coming out for Round right now.
Just across the lake They stop to check the map We're regrouping? We're regrouping here and I'm looking at this and I don't understand it, so.
Well, this is what we've done.
And they don't like what they see.
So we got to fucking double back 12.
Okay.
See, we were going to the town of Round Lake.
Oh.
I say we-- hey, I got an idea.
Let's just drive around.
The road to Muskrat Dam runs through the town of Round Lake Not across the lake itself.
So this is twice in two days we've ended up on the wrong road.
We fucked up again.
The wrong way.
Now they'll have to haul their 50,000-pound loads back over thin ice.
You get around an ice road, anything can happen, right? Anything can fucking happen.
On the next Ice Road Truckers Oh, my gosh.
Cabin fever strikes Lisa.
They don't have food in this camp and so I've been living off of food in this truck.
Dave gets angry.
I'm not gonna sit here and kiss your ass! And Rick finally snaps.
Fuck with my truck like that again, I'll fucking kill ya.
The worst storm of the season pounds the Dalton Mother nature Kicking our butt.
Bringing Dave to the breaking point What in the hell have I gotten myself into now? And sending Lisa Can you see anything at all? Into danger.
While Rick and Hugh I got a freaking Ratchet strap holding my fuel tank on.
Find trouble at every turn.
We're lost! 5 AM, at the Carlile truck yard in Fairbanks.
Crap.
It's so deep out here.
Lisa Kelly is digging her way out of yesterday's blizzard.
Got a pickup truck and some steel going to Prudhoe.
Brush this off so it latches.
For crying out loud.
Jeez! What's happening? Holy crap! I think there's too much snow or something.
It didn't latch up.
There.
There.
It made noise this time.
Lisa locks her trailer in place But hauling a 10-ton pickup isn't the kind of challenge she was hoping for.
Why the heck am I hooked to a pickup truck? I'm a heavy hauler now.
Ten days ago Stop! Stop! Stop! Fuck.
A rookie mistake cost Lisa her chance to join the heavy haul team.
Heavy haul's not for everybody.
Now she'll have to earn her way back one light load at a time.
You know how you want but you can't get? I freaking have it and I still don't have it.
Who would have figured heavy haul would be harder to get into than the movies? Warning.
Blowing snow.
Low visibility up on the haul road.
Now we're gonna go play in the snow today.
It's gonna be fun.
300 miles north Wind chill factor's up to the 60-below mark.
If you're out there on the road, you guys, keep it between the lines and we'll see you when you get home.
This is just ridiculous.
Nasty weather is the last thing Dave Redmon wants to see.
Just got to get this trailer up.
I mean, they've been on my ass.
It's just been a real Thorn in my butt, and now we've just got to make a call.
You know, just go get it.
Yesterday Dropping this trailer so we can head back to Coldfoot.
A massive blizzard forced Dave to abandon his load of pipe on the side of the road.
Just making no sense to stay and it's just steadily going downhill quick.
Now he's determined to retrieve the trailer and finish the run.
You know, the weather, it's just the wind is blowing so bad it's drifting the road shut.
But with another storm on the way It's not gonna be easy.
Yeah, I'm trying to bobtail back down to my trailer, but we got no heat in here, 'cause we're not generating any engine heat.
We had to stop here on the side of the road.
We got no heat.
Driving a big rig with no heat at 50-below isn't just miserable--it's dangerous.
Just gonna make sure the hot water valves are turned on.
So I have to plug this hole up just to get some heat.
Freezing wind blowing on the radiator makes the in-cab heating system all but worthless.
Yeah, I'm improvising big time, actually.
Um that's got too many holes in it.
Just try to block some of this air so I can get some, uh, heat built up.
And this tape might not even hold in this minus-50.
This ain't even fucking gonna work.
It ain't gon' work.
Just gonna have to deal with it.
With no way to trap the heat, Dave continues the long, cold ride into the storm.
And if we get stuck somewhere, we could be in trouble.
I guess the bad stuff's fixin' to come.
I don't know.
It's not looking really good.
All we can do is just keep plugging forward.
2,600 miles east Hugh rowland and Rick Yemm have hustled up another load.
Hey, how's it going? Hey, not too bad.
Yeah.
Holy fuck.
Last week, their trailers took a beating, and they're not welcome back at First Nations transport.
What I can't figure out is you and Rick come back with two broken trailers.
You know, what's the problem? That's the way it goes down, man.
I'm finished with you guys.
I don't need you coming here and wrecking everything.
Adios.
Fuck you.
Now they're counting on Polar Industries to keep the paychecks coming.
This load, uh, they have fuel tanks for Muskrat Dam.
Okay.
Without fuel tanks, they're gonna freeze to death, so it's kind of important that those guys get there, you know, pretty easily and as soon as they can.
But be careful, 'cause those roads are really rough.
The 400-mile trail to Muskrat Dam runs into Ontario province, making it one of the most isolated winter roads in Canada.
One more thing I have to mention.
There's no cell phone coverage.
So you guys are gonna be out there for two days With no way of communicating with civilization, so you just be cautious.
But Hugh and Rick can't afford to be picky.
Are you coming too? No.
What'd we do? Scare you last time? Nobody wants to run with you.
Well, I got a--an envirotank.
They call this an envirotank.
It's a storage tank for the fuel up in the Indian reserve up at Muskrat Dam.
They keep running out of diesel fuel and gasoline up there.
It's not really the-- the price of the load.
It's more--more of the case of what the load actually is.
This is fuel for them for the year, so the more tanks they get, the bigger their tank farm gets, the more fuel they can stockpile for the whole season.
So it's a lot more than just the cost of a tank.
Well, let's hit the road here.
Big cash.
There's no signs where we're going.
We got to do it all by map, so hope--I hope like fuck we don't get lost.
Every single run's been to a different fucking place, so you get-- we haven't gotten any type of a break on, "oh, yeah, okay.
I know this corner's coming up.
I know that straightaway's there.
" Here we are, blind again.
We do these kind of crazy jobs and we're kind of used to the fact that there's no 911.
Well, I guess you could call him "nine" and me "one-one," 'cause that's the only two things that'll fucking help us out here.
Coming up Ah! A whiteout paralyzes the Dalton.
The truck's up in the ditch.
We got about 6 or 8-foot-high drifts in the road.
Can't move ahead 20 minutes without something happening.
On the Canadian winter roads, Alex Debogorski is looking for his next paycheck.
Working here at St.
Theresa's point.
I had a fellow approach me.
He's got a construction company.
He wants his pickup hauled back to, uh, the shop.
Hauling a pickup truck from St.
Theresa back to Winnipeg should be an easy day's work.
But the last ten miles into town will take Alex across the thinning ice of a Shiny.
It was windy the last couple days.
Well, that wind is polishing the ice.
My friend, he did this all his life for Robinson Trucking.
He had a heavy load in the springtime, probably march.
And he got out there and he started having water coming through the ice.
Like, as he was driving, water was shooting up in the air, eh.
He knew he was screwed.
You can't stop.
You can't turn around.
There's nothing you can do.
You just have to keep going.
He says he just pulled her out of here, opened the door, stepped out.
He took about six steps, he looked over his shoulder, and he says all he seen was a whole sheet of ice tipped up like a big door, and his whole load just sort of slid off.
He just saw the end of the truck and then the truck disappeared where the ice just came back down again, and then it went in all fell to the bottom.
With the lake behind him, Alex pulls into the village of St.
Theresa Point.
In the bush, equipment is limited.
They'll have to use a front end loader to lift the pickup onto the flatbed.
You lift the front end up and put the wheels on the deck.
I expect it'll work.
I'm sure they've done this a few times before.
- Looks good? - Good enough.
You do what you got to do.
With the pickup strapped down, Alex heads back to Winnipeg.
It's a load.
If it helps me to beat Hugh and Rick in load count, then that's almost as good as getting paid.
Maybe even better, especially if it's the one load that puts me over.
Back in Fairbanks You know, this wind's gonna blow me away.
Holy fuck.
Rookie Maya Sieber reports for duty.
Today, I'm gonna meet with Layne.
I'm here at Carlile and we're gonna talk about my training process and how it's been going.
Yesterday Looks like staring into a white wall.
Maya drove into the heart of a blinding snowstorm to deliver an urgent load of pipe.
I feel like I'm ready to move on and I feel like I'm ready to finally get in my own truck.
Yeah, I got some good news for you and some bad news.
Okay.
I talked to Phil, and He thinks you're ready.
As far as the bad news is just simply that it's a different truck.
It's not gonna be a w900.
Oh, come on.
That's all.
So all the training that you did in that truck with that big power and that transmission is gonna be--start over a little bit.
Understandable.
I've been through that before.
And it'll certainly get you through the first season here.
Cool.
I'm excited.
Okay? Good.
Thank you.
Okay, so the truck is 1301.
After just two solo runs Okay, great.
Thank you.
Okay? All right.
Thanks, Maya.
See you later.
Her gutsy performance in the storm has earned Maya her own rig.
I've been really anticipating getting my own truck and that's getting back to trucking normally and that's trucking alone.
Out in the truck yard, shop manager Gary McConnell gets to work on Maya's new rig.
Oh, man.
She's dead.
She ain't gonna go.
After months of sitting She won't even hit.
The truck's batteries are dead.
Just gonna have to hook the chain to it and tow it to the shop, I guess.
Hooking a chain on the bumper here.
Well, we're gonna be putting this new Ford Ecoboost to the test.
We'll see how she goes.
It's a lot of weight for the truck.
All right.
Get fired up here.
We're ready.
Here we go.
We'll give her a shot.
Come on.
All right, we got her.
It looks like we've got it done.
Take that truck into the shop there.
We'll put a new set of batteries in it.
All right.
That's how we do it.
Slowly out, because otherwise we're gonna be dusted out.
I'm a poet.
Lisa Kelly is hauling a Blowing from the west again Which is the way the bad storm's coming from.
Been a big westward storm.
Oh, that's nice.
The tarp that protects the windshield has come loose.
Damn it.
Try to stay.
Ah! The last thing Lisa wants to deliver is a damaged load when she's hoping to regain the boss's confidence.
It ain't gonna come loose this time.
It's hard to get a good swing on your door when you've got your toes hanging off 4 feet above the ground.
Whoa.
Whoa.
I'm gonna fall off of here.
The truck¡s okay.
It's very, very challenging today.
Very challenging.
Coming up If I don't have enough fuel to make it out, well, then I'm stuck.
Rick gambles big We don't want that tank to fall off.
It's full of diesel.
And Dave isn't going anywhere.
The wind out here's blowing 50 miles an hour.
It's just got the road blowed shut.
Now we're, uh, just rolling into Pickle Lake here.
Told us we got to fuel up here, 'cause there's nothing for the rest of the way in.
But as Rick fuels up He notices a problem.
Strap broke itself, so.
A tank could fall off.
What's wrong? I'm screwed.
I got to figure out a way to get that fucking saddle tank fixed now.
Did you talk to this guy in-- well, he just said, "if you got a 3-inch Ratchet strap, we can Ratchet strap it up.
" This strap on Rick's tank broke from the rough roads.
After burning the bridge with one company, the last thing Rick needs is a reputation for not finishing the job.
I'm just gonna put a Ratchet strap on it and hope it does the trick here.
You got to the frame there on both of them or what? Come on, for fucking sakes.
We had to get a winch strap and winch her up tight.
He's gonna have to keep checking that now.
We don't want that tank to fall off.
It's full of diesel.
Well, I'd have to run in with one tank and if I don't have enough fuel to make it out, well, then I'm stuck.
With more than truck held together by a thin nylon strap, Rick rolls back into the wilderness.
Get the load in.
Like, this is what we're all about.
You don't call the Carlile mechanics.
"I got a problem.
" You got to figure out a way yourself and that's it.
Well, if it gets any worse-- well, I can't lose that fuel tank.
But in the same hand, it's Why not live your life on the edge a little bit? If the 1,400-pound tank rattles loose, it could mean disaster on the road.
But Rick's willing to take his chances.
When I'm going this way, I'm making money.
When I'm going that way, I'm not.
SoWhy I got a freaking Ratchet strap holding my fuel tank on.
But you can't predict what's gonna happen in the bush.
Back in Fairbanks This wind really sucks right now.
Maya's new truck is ready to roll.
So I got to find truck 1301.
Oh, this is 1301.
How cute.
Look how small it is.
Oh, wow.
There's over a million miles on here.
Well, I definitely got a mic for this I can put in here.
This is an old-- look at the size of this-- I've never seen anything that small.
It's, like, half the size of a twin mattress.
I didn't even know that's, like, possible.
Well, this is definitely not an 18 nor a 13 speed.
It's a split ten speed.
But it's okay.
You got to start somewhere.
I have to prove myself before they put me in a $100,000 truck.
It's just is gonna be another-- another challenge.
That's all.
While Maya settles into her new ride up north I gotta get this fucking thing slowed down.
Dave is nearing his abandoned trailer.
The wind out here's blowing 50 miles an hour.
It's just got the road blowed shut.
But the arctic blizzard has traffic backed up for miles.
Can't move ahead 20 fucking minutes without something happening.
Five miles ahead, the storm has wreaked havoc on the road.
Yeah, we got 50, Can't get out of here.
You don't know where the edge of the road is.
The DOT crew struggles through the chaos.
Doing what we can with it.
You can't see 20 feet in front of you today.
But the damage is already done.
Uh, basically, we're trying to get a couple trucks up in the ditch.
We've got about 6 or 8-foot high drifts in the road.
Mother nature, kicking our butt.
Five miles South Dave's frozen in his tracks.
Snow plow just went by.
Now he's got to drive 20 miles back the other way to get the snow blower and drive up here.
Hell, that'll take two hours just for him to get back here.
Just problem after problem after problem.
As the storm rages on, Dave settles in for a long, cold wait.
We're an hour away from shelter.
We're gonna die slow, cold, and alone.
Wish I was back in Alabama right now.
Half way up the haul road Can you see anything at all? Lisa Kelly fights through the heart of the storm.
These delineators ain't exactly reflecting right now with all the snow built up on 'em.
There's no color.
They're just white.
Well, when it's so bad that I can't see the road, I just don't--I just try to stay right in the middle of it.
I don't want to try to figure out where the edges are.
I don't know what's coming up the hill, 'cause I can't really see.
Whoa.
While Lisa pushes on Back in Fairbanks, the blinding snowstorm has stopped traffic, giving Maya a chance to gear up her new truck.
I'm looking for a badass knife.
Okay.
I don't leave my house without a knife or a can of mace in New York, so it's no different up here.
And if somebody ever tried to grab me, they're getting kicked, they're getting sprayed, and they're getting stabbed.
I need something that's really sharp in case I have to stab a bear or something.
I don't know.
This is a Ken onion blur.
It is spring-assist.
Got the combination blade.
Ooh, I like that.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I like that.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, yeah, I'll take this one.
Okay.
Gonna need one of those to skin a moose.
I protect myself with a knife and some pepper spray and a huge attitude.
Freezing our fucking ass off.
After four cold, miserable hours The DOT has cleared a path for traffic to keep moving north.
Well, we got this big, gigantic snow blower up here clearing the road for us, basically just to make us a path to get us through.
Gear.
Got to keep going forward.
Just not a good idea to drive if you don't have to.
It's better to sit and wait it out, but we're stuck in the middle of it right now.
Now we've got zero fucking visibility right here.
Everything's just blowing white in front of me.
What in the hell have I gotten myself into now? You know, we went and made a stupid fucking mistake and came down here to get in it when we shouldn't have.
Should have turned around when we had the chance.
We are absolutely in zero visibility.
Finally, through the whiteout Yeah, baby.
Dave spots his pipe load.
Finally made it to this load of pipe.
Thought we'd never get this damn thing picked back up.
We won't play around here much.
We got to get our asses a-movin'.
With his load recovered, Dave heads back into the storm Got to focus.
Got to focus.
And blindly steers his rig the final miles to Prudhoe Bay.
I'm not gonna fuck this up.
After two long, cold days Dave Redmon finishes his job.
Well, I made it finally.
I'ma drop this trailer, turn in my paperwork.
But we got here and that's all that matters.
Slicker than snot in a chicken's lip around these corners, isn't it? Right.
As Hugh leads the way, Rick lags behind Nursing his loose fuel tank over the relentless bumps.
Got a wounded soldier in my truck here, so.
Got the tank strapped up, so I can't really give her too much.
You're going five rounds with Mike Tyson every time you roll in here.
But ten miles ahead Took the wrong turn here.
Looks like we're not the only ones that did this.
Is there no road out there? I mean, what's our bearing this way? Is that, uh, northwest end? Well, that's east.
That's east.
North, west.
This goes north.
Well, it's gotta be back over there then somewhere.
But I don't even see-- I don't see any marker, nothing.
And this road don't even get going anywhere, does it? We're at the end of it.
Well, we'll have to turn around regardless.
This ain't it, so.
The road they thought would lead to Muskrat Dam has hit a dead end.
We're in the wrong place.
This isn't it.
Lost in no-man's land All we know is that we were supposed to come to the end of the road and we were supposed to be on the winter roads after that, but we went too far.
Hugh heads back to break the news to Rick.
We're lost! No, listen, just-- there's room to turn around down there, so just turn around and there's a road right past here.
Yeah, I seen that.
The sun was in everybody's eyes.
We drove right into the light.
I'll try not to get my feet wet.
This is a little nasty fuck up.
This was about two hours.
Can't make it.
That's--so that's gonna be four hours we lose today alone there just on this little wrong turn.
Alex is loaded up, hauling a pickup truck South to Winnipeg.
These winter roads, ice roads here, they present lots of challenges.
They're not a--they're definitely not a normal road, you know, whether it's weather, distance, lack of services, uh, potential for accidents.
But suddenly, there's trouble on the road ahead.
The wheel fell off or what? - Hello.
- Hello.
You have trouble with your wheel? Yeah.
The strut came off.
Yeah.
Don't think that's gonna be goin' back in there very soon, eh? Yeah, it's pulled the bolts right out of the top.
I can't see you putting that back in.
Yeah.
So all those parts are probably good, but, uh, how do you get that back in there? You want a ride, I'll give you a ride.
Yeah.
We're just gonna leave the truck here and give these people a ride and then hopefully they can find a tow truck to come and get it.
We'll try to make some room.
Okay.
Is everybody in here? Everybody's happy? Or as happy as we can be under the circumstance.
Now Alex's payload is one pickup truck and a family of four.
You pinched your finger on that spring? On the rim.
And I was kind of-- it went like this.
Yeah.
And it went along on the thing and got caught when it turned.
And it grabbed your finger? Yeah.
Well, I got--did you bring the ax? Might have to cut it off.
No.
Just kidding.
We still need to find a girl who's gonna have a baby so I can deliver a baby on this truck.
Coming up Lisa presses her luck.
I'm hoping I'll get lucky and get over the last hill here.
And Hugh and Rick Fuck up again.
Are on the road to nowhere.
Hey, I got an idea.
Let's just drive around.
On the north slope of Alaska Lisa is still battling the blizzard.
It's just a gustin'.
But you know, if you ain't rollin', you ain't making money.
I'm hoping I'll get lucky and get over the last hill here.
It's been hard to see at times.
Yeh! I do believe that is the light of Prudhoe there yonder.
Finally, she pulls her Two days battling a monster storm has reminded Lisa that being an Ice Road Trucker is about more than just the size of your load.
In the end, I have to get the job done, and no matter what it is they want me to drive, that's my job.
Although I prefer to drive some other things, I still need to shut up and take the stuff I don't want to take, 'cause it's my job.
Back in Canada I guess $16 a month wasn't enough.
Alex hauls his load and his passengers safely into town.
Hey, thank you, sweetheart.
It's no problem.
Oh, don't squeeze.
Hey, no problem.
God bless you guys.
All the best.
Be good.
You never know what's gonna happen next.
I'm waiting for the flying saucers to come.
Completing this run puts Alex ahead of his Canadian rivals, while on the Dalton, Dave is hot on Lisa's heels.
As day breaks Hugh and Rick get back on the road.
But a broken fuel tank and one wrong turn have them half a day behind schedule.
We're heading for muskrat dam and we fuck up.
Apparently we're not very good map readers.
Already on the outs with one trucking company, they can't afford to deliver late and burn another bridge.
That's okay.
We'll get her back.
Just heading up to our first ice crossing here.
Just ahead Round lake seven miles across And just inches of ice between their load And 150-foot drop To the bottom.
Regardless how much time we make up on high ground, we still gotta do the lake crosses.
You can't speed on the lake.
Somebody will got--somebody will die.
Our first big lake for this trip here.
This one, they say, takes an hour.
We got to slow down to Ten here just to-- it's thin ice.
We're right up to snuff for weight too.
Got to be careful here.
Feel like one of us is gonna fucking drown here today.
It's deep enough that I don't want to end up in it.
That's all I know.
That's an island, I guess, that we just drove by.
Driving by an island sounds funny.
I guess for people that don't drive on ice roads it sounds funny.
It's when you fall asleep and run into an island That's when fucking gets bad.
We're just coming out for Round right now.
Just across the lake They stop to check the map We're regrouping? We're regrouping here and I'm looking at this and I don't understand it, so.
Well, this is what we've done.
And they don't like what they see.
So we got to fucking double back 12.
Okay.
See, we were going to the town of Round Lake.
Oh.
I say we-- hey, I got an idea.
Let's just drive around.
The road to Muskrat Dam runs through the town of Round Lake Not across the lake itself.
So this is twice in two days we've ended up on the wrong road.
We fucked up again.
The wrong way.
Now they'll have to haul their 50,000-pound loads back over thin ice.
You get around an ice road, anything can happen, right? Anything can fucking happen.
On the next Ice Road Truckers Oh, my gosh.
Cabin fever strikes Lisa.
They don't have food in this camp and so I've been living off of food in this truck.
Dave gets angry.
I'm not gonna sit here and kiss your ass! And Rick finally snaps.
Fuck with my truck like that again, I'll fucking kill ya.