The documentary series examining the lucrative but highly dangerous job of driving trucks on Canada’s ice highways continues. In this episode, a pair of trucks transport a 135ft-high derrick to a new drilling site. Rick rails against his employers; Hugh and Drew are confined to base; and a rookie error sees Alex lost on the ice.
The rig move continues apace this week as supervisor Jerry Dusdal prepares to transport a vast derrick from Aput to Langley. This $1.5million metal tower is a key element of the oil drilling station. Attempts to move it were thwarted by a storm (see last week’s episode), but now the weather has cleared and the operation is underway. Time is of the essence, as the company loses thousands of dollars for every hour the derrick is out of service.
Ice profilers head onto the road to check that the ice can support the derrick’s 108-ton weight. By using radar signals and boring a hole in the road surface, engineers determine that the ice is 59 inches thick – more than enough for the job in hand. The derrick is carefully lowered onto two trucks – one at either end of the structure.
With the load secured, the trucks set off on the 50- mile journey to Langley. All oncoming traffic is warned to surrender the right of way, but one convoy appears not to have received the message. The situation is especially tense because each vehicle on the road creates a pressure wave underneath the ice. If the wave trailing the convoy should smack into the wave following the derrick, the ice above could rupture. Fortunately, the approaching vehicles pull over in time and the two trucks reach Langley with their cargo in one piece.
Over in Tuktoyaktuk, a frustrated Rick Yemm considers quitting his job. He believes he is not being given due respect by his employers. “I’m being singled out, treated different by the bosses,” he says. “If nothing’s gonna change here, well, there’s no point in me staying.” Rick phones his old boss, Hugh Rowland, for a few words of advice. Hugh urges his pal to stick around, but can find little sympathy for his plight. Rick is eventually reunited with his truck, but is less than thrilled to discover that his first load will be garbage bound for the landfill at Inuvik.
Hugh, meanwhile, has pulled an impressive 25 loads so far this season, but he is still a rookie on the northern ice roads. When his boss issues jobs to all the senior truckers, Hugh finds himself without a rig to drive. Confined to base, the Polar Bear is stuck fixing trucks and doing odd jobs. “I’m a yard boy today,” he reflects ruefully.
Drew Sherwood is likewise restricted to light duties – driving a box van around town and pulling shifts in a forklift truck. Drew refuses to see his work as a demeaning step down from trucking on the ice road. “I can guarantee you that Rick or Hugh would not do my job,” he says. “They’d think they were better than that.” Drew insists he has no ‘macho’ illusions about being a truck driver. “I’ll drive anything,” he says. But even on a forklift truck, Drew cannot escape trouble. While attempting to unload a snowmobile, his wheels get stuck in the snow and he must call for help.
Elsewhere, Alex Deborgorski receives the call-up to help out with the rig move at Aput. Despite his 26 years of trucking on the Yellowknife highways, Alex is also a rookie up north. His unfamiliarity with the road costs him dear this week when he misses the right-hand turn to Aput and heads in the wrong direction. Jerry fears that his missing trucker may be lost when he fails to answer his radio. “There’s a few roads to follow out here, you know, and he might have missed a corner,” he says. “Hopefully, he’s all right.” With night falling, will Alex realise his mistake and find his way back?
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