Ice Road Truckers

Ice Road Truckers (commercially abbreviated IRT) is a reality television series that aired on History Channel from 2007 to 2017. It features the activities of drivers who operate trucks on ice roads crossing frozen lakes and rivers, in remote territories in Canada and Alaska. Seasons three to six also featured Alaska's improved but still remote Dalton Highway, which is mainly snow-covered solid ground.

Ice Road Truckers
GenreReality
StarringTruckers
Narrated byThom Beers
Tom Cotcher (UK)
Theme music composerSteven Tyler, Joe Perry, Mark Hudson
Opening theme"Livin' on the Edge" by Aerosmith (Seasons 1  4 only)
Country of originCanada
United States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons11
No. of episodes138 (list of episodes)
Production
ProducersDavid McKillop
Dolores Gavin
Thom Beers
Philip Segal
Dawn Fitzgerald
Adam Martin
Aron Plucinski
Running time45  48 minutes
Production companiesOriginal Productions
Prospero Media (season 8)
Shaw Media (season 8)
Release
Original networkHistory
Original releaseJune 17, 2007 (2007-06-17) 
November 9, 2017 (2017-11-09)

History

In 2000, History aired a 46-minute episode titled "Ice Road Truckers" as part of the Suicide Missions (later Dangerous Missions) series. Based on Edith Iglauer's book Denison's Ice Road, the episode details the treacherous job of driving trucks over frozen lakes, also known as ice roads, in Canada's Northwest Territories. After 2000, reruns of the documentary were aired as an episode of the series Modern Marvels, instead. Under this banner, the Ice Road Truckers show garnered very good ratings.

In 2006, the History Channel hired Thom Beers, owner of Original Productions and executive producer of Deadliest Catch, to create a series based on the Ice Road book. Shot in high-definition video (although the season ended before History HD was launched in the US), the show "charts two months in the lives of six extraordinary men who haul vital supplies to diamond mines and other remote locations over frozen lakes that double as roads".[1]

Airings

Season one of Ice Road Truckers was shown on the British national commercial channel Channel Five in February/March 2008. In Australia, it aired on Austar and Foxtel in early 2008, and from June 18 it also began being shown on Network Ten. In autumn 2008 season one aired on RTL 7 in the Netherlands. In Italy. the first season premiered on History Channel on January 7, 2010 as "Gli eroi del ghiaccio" ('Heroes of the ice').[2]

The second season premiered on June 8, 2008, in the US; October 9, 2008 on History in the UK and in Australia; November 12, 2008, in New Zealand; and January 7, 2009, on Channel 5 in the UK. The first season was not aired in Canada until March 4, 2009, on History Television. The third season premiered on May 31, 2009, in the US; September 10 in the UK. Channel Five debuted series 3 on January 5, 2010.

Reception

The series' premiere was seen by 3.4 million viewers, to become the most-watched original telecast in the History Channel's 12-year history at that time.[3] Among critics, Adam Buckman of the New York Post said, "Everything about 'Ice Road Truckers' is astonishing".[4] Virginia Heffernan of The New York Times said, "Watching these guys ... make their runs, it’s hard not to share in their cold, fatigue and horrible highway hypnosis, that existential recognition behind the wheel late at night that the pull of sleep and the pull of death are one and the same. ... [I]t gets right exactly what Deadliest Catch got right, namely that the leave-nothing-but-your-footprints, green kind of eco-travelers are too mellow and conscientious to be interesting to watch. Instead, the burly, bearded, swearing men (and women) who blow methyl hydrate into their own transmissions and welcome storms as breaks from boredom ... are much better television."[5] During 2007 the series was shown in the United Kingdom, Australia and various countries in Africa.

The show opening features a truck falling through the ice. While real accidents with fatal outcomes might be mentioned, the show has never featured them; the show opening is a miniature model filmed inside a studio. A season-one rumor that the sequence was staged using a real truck and dynamite caused discontent among the drivers.[6]

Episodes

SeasonEpisodesOriginally aired
First airedLast aired
110June 17, 2007 (2007-06-17)August 19, 2007 (2007-08-19)
213June 8, 2008 (2008-06-08)September 7, 2008 (2008-09-07)
313May 31, 2009 (2009-05-31)August 23, 2009 (2009-08-23)
416June 6, 2010 (2010-06-06)October 3, 2010 (2010-10-03)
516June 5, 2011 (2011-06-05)September 25, 2011 (2011-09-25)
616June 3, 2012 (2012-06-03)September 23, 2012 (2012-09-23)
712June 9, 2013 (2013-06-09)August 25, 2013 (2013-08-25)
812July 7, 2014 (2014-07-07)September 28, 2014 (2014-09-28)
910August 2, 2015 (2015-08-02)October 18, 2015 (2015-10-18)
1010August 4, 2016 (2016-08-04)October 6, 2016 (2016-10-06)
1110August 24, 2017 (2017-08-24)November 9, 2017 (2017-11-09)

Truckers

Trucker Seasons
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Alex Debogorski Main
Hugh Rowland Main
Rick Yemm Main Main
Drew Sherwood Main
Jay Westgard Main
T.J. Tilcox Main
Bear Swensen Main
Eric Dufresne Main
Lisa Kelly Main Main
Jack Jessee Main Main
George Spears Main
Tim Freeman, Jr. Main
Carey Hall Main
Greg Boadwine Main
Ray Veilleux Main Recurring
Dave Redmon Main
Tony Molesky Main
Maya Sieber Main
Darrell Ward Main
Austin Wheeler Main
Ronald Mangum Main
Art Burke Main
Todd Dewey Main
Joey Barnes Main Recurring
Mike Simmons Main
Steph Custance Main
Reno Ward Recurring Main

IRT: Deadliest Roads

Ice Road Truckers
Also known asIRT:Deadliest Roads
GenreReality
Documentary
Starring
  • Hugh Rowland
    (season two)
  • Lisa Kelly
  • Rick Yemm
  • Dave Redmon
  • Augustin Rodriguez
    (Season 2)
  • Tim Zickuhr
    (season two)
  • Alex Debogorski
    (season one)
  • G.W. Boles
    (season two)
Narrated byThom Beers
Tom Cotcher (UK)
Country of originCanada
United States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons2
No. of episodes23 (list of episodes)
Production
ProducersDavid McKillop
Dolores Gavin
Thom Beers
Philip Segal
Dawn Fitzgerald
Adam Martin
Aron Plucinski
Production locationsIndia and South America
Running time45  48 minutes
Production companyOriginal Productions
Release
Original networkHistory
Original releaseOctober 3, 2010 (2010-10-03) 
December 18, 2011 (2011-12-18)

Season one: Himalayas

On October 3, 2010, a spinoff series, titled IRT: Deadliest Roads, premiered immediately after the season-four finale. Rick Yemm, Alex Debogorski, and Lisa Kelly traveled to India and put their driving skills to the test on the narrow, treacherous mountain roads that lead from Delhi to Shimla, then up to the Karchan and Kuppa hydroelectric dam construction sites in the Himalayas. Debogorski quit in the first episode due to fear of angry mobs if he were involved in an accident, and was replaced by Alabama trucker Dave Redmon (who has since been featured in season five of Ice Road Truckers). As the season continued, the drivers were dispatched to carry supplies over the stormy Rohtang Pass to the town of Keylong, which had been cut off for months due to the bad weather. The season finale aired on December 5, 2010, with the truckers attempting to deliver loads of jet fuel for helicopter crews who were working to rescue people stranded in the mountains by the storms. Yemm and Redmon turned back, deciding that the conditions were too hazardous for the volatile cargo; the next day, Kelly hauled the entire shipment herself and delivered it to the crews, becoming the only North American trucker to complete the entire season.

The roads were often hacked out of vertical cliffs like a tunnel with one side open to the air, with rock overhangs overhead and drops of several hundred feet below. One part of the road was called "the Freefall Freeway".

Early promotional spots for the series listed the title as IRT: Himalayas.

Season two: South America

The second season of IRT: Deadliest Roads premiered on September 25, 2011. Six North American drivers are sent to Bolivia to haul cargo along the Yungas Road, notorious for its extreme hazards. The drivers work in pairs – Hugh Rowland and Rick Yemm, Lisa Kelly and Dave Redmon, and newcomers Timothy R. Zickuhr and Augustin "Tino" Rodriguez. Redmon and Yemm quit in episode two; Rowland continues driving alone, while Texas trucker G.W. Boles arrives to ride with Kelly in episode four. Starting with episode eight, the truckers relocate to Peru and begin transporting loads to sites high in the Andes mountain range.

In episode six, Kelly and Boles transport 32 breeding llamas across the Salar de Uyuni, the world's biggest salt flat, 12,000 ft (3,700 m) above sea level. On the way, their truck's radiator begins to leak; after they mend it, they must empty all their drinking water into the radiator to replace the loss. Abundant lithium deposits cause their magnetic compasses to read incorrectly, and for a time, their global positioning system malfunctions.

In February 2015, Tim Zickuhr pleaded guilty to kidnapping and extortion, then was sentenced to a maximum of 15 years' prison.[7][8] Zickuhr's current incarceration and/or parole status are uncertain.

Other media

In 2008, 20th Century Fox acquired rights from the History Channel to create a scripted, theatrical action film based on the series.[9]

In 2010, a video game for the PlayStation Portable was released by Slitherine Software.[10][11]

See also

References

Further reading

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