Ice Road Truckers: Season 1

It s one of the most perilous roads in the world, a strip of ice built on frozen lakes that connects remote billion-dollar mining outposts in northern Canada with civilization 350 miles away. In the brief two months a year that the road is passable, ten thousand loads, some weighing as much as twenty-two tons, will travel over the highway in an urgent race to provide critical supplies to the camps before the ice melts.

ICE ROAD TRUCKERS follows the competition and camaraderie of six truckers over a season on the ice road, as they brave white-outs, thin ice, and the deadly cold to perform one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. From the construction of this massive frozen highway and the preparation of the truck fleet, to the risky final days when the melting highway grows dangerously unreliable, THE HISTORY CHANNEL takes viewers on a thrilling, adrenaline-pumping ride.

DVD Features: Ice Road Truckers episode of Dangerous Missions; 5 Featurettes: Meet the Truckers , Overcoming the Challenges , Perils of the Ice Road , Behind-The-Scenes , The Countdown Wages of Fear has nothing on Ice Road Truckers. Transporting unstable nitroglycerine is Driving Miss Daisy compared to the sanity and death-defying challenges facing these drivers who face great rewards but even greater dangers. Where these guys are going, there are no roads, except for about two months when the lakes freeze solid enough to allow the transport of literally tons of essential supplies to Canada's remote diamond mines as far as 350 miles away near the Arctic Circle. The goal is to deliver 10,000 loads in 60 days. The truckers call it the "dash for the cash." Fasten your seatbelts; it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Ice Road Truckers is one of the most harrowing of the "dirty jobs" sub-genre of reality TV. This History Channel series mines a little extra drama by playing up the competition between the drivers to see who can make the most runs. The series' most compelling personality is Hugh, a 21-season veteran known as "the Polar Bear," who suffers what another driver calls "a bad luck year." Hugh is the kind of guy who will blow poisonous methyl hydrate into his own suspect transmission. Among those trucking for him are Alex, the 25-year "marathon man" with 11 kids), 21-year-old TJ, and Drew, a 35-year-old "newbie." But the conditions under which these "titans of the ice" operate is all the drama this series needs. Suffice to say, there are up to 800 drivers when the season begins. By the spring thaw, there are only about 125 remaining. Consider: Truck breakdowns and equipment failures can leave truckers stranded in the middle of nowhere in 40-below temperatures. Blinding snowstorms can reduce visibility to zero. Speeding can cause waves that blow out the ice. A shout-out to the camera crew who faced these dangers with the truckers and captured nerve-wracking footage of the trucks making their treacherous way over heaving, cracking ice, and behemoth 18-wheel rigs plummeting through the broken ice to the lake's bottom. --Donald Liebenson