Ice Road Truckers

If the answer to all those questions is yes - then you're ready for the most dangerous job on Earth. You're ready to join the Ice Road Truckers.

Ask yourself - could you spend three months driving a truck in sub-zero conditions with only snatches of sleep for days on end? Could you drive that truck loaded with 88,000 pounds of haulage companies' cargo across what amounts to a two inch thick sheet of compressed ice? Could you hold your nerve, inching your rig along towards an invisible horizon while all around you the sounds of cracking, creaking, shifting ice echoes through the cabin? And could you take your haulage work seriously enough to race frantically against the clock to meet your deadlines before the thaw sets in?

When the lakes and rivers freeze over, plows are sent in to scrape away the layer of snow along the planned road. Once the ice below is exposed to the freezing air (often as low as 60F), it strengthens the deeper ice underneath the road, making it able to withstand the incredibly heavy loads from the haulage companies. On some short pieces of land in between the waterways, it is necessary to create a 'slush' of water and snow and layer it on top of the land. It then quickly freezes over, joining up the ice road. Although the roads are extremely flat, the nature of using ice as a construction material means they can also be very unstable.

Every year an elite number of truckers are risking their lives to sign up with haulage companies and earn what amounts to a year's salary in the space of two or three months. Delivering supplies to remote mining communities in the Arctic Circle across a 350 mile man-made ice road, the brave and the crazy are voluntarily heading into harsh and perilous conditions to one of the coldest frontiers on Earth.