September 27, 2025 • 7 mins
With a winter window shorter than ever and no time to waste, these drivers risk everything to haul in a lifeline of goods while chasing big paydays before the opportunity melts away under their chained tires. At the world’s northern edge, people and cultures cut off from civilization are briefly connected by a lifeline of roads paved with ice. Each year, a group of skilled, highly trained, and thrill-seeking truckers put their lives on the line to beat nature’s clock – battling dangerous roads, deadly frostbite, and brutal conditions to deliver life-saving supplies such as food and building materials to remote communities. This season, veterans like Todd Dewey and Lisa Kelly return with no hesitation – and no practice runs – while rookies emerge, determined to prove they have what it takes to reign supreme on the ice. With higher stakes, greater risks, and bigger rewards than ever before, it’s them vs. nature.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and good morning, Toddday, good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Where are you at.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm in Charlotte, North Carolina. Where are you hanging at
these days? Todd?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I am in Port Angeles, Washington, way up on the
farthest northwest corner you can get if you know, a
little town named Forks that used to that was used
in the movie The Twilight Saga vampire movie that came
those movies that came out.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Wow, I know that area so well because of the
whole rainforest. And that's where we get the ferry to
go up to. Oh my god, yeah, to Victoria where
I live.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I live right I'm right in I'm right in the rainforest.
I'm right at the base of the Olympic Mountains.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
God, I'm so jealous of you. People don't understand how
beautiful that whole entire area is.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, it's beautiful up here. We got the ocean. I
live right on the edge of the ocean with the
mountains on the back side of my house. And it's
I got all my hunting and fishing and everything hiking,
and the lakes and the mountains and everything you can
think of right in my backyard, including herd, a helk
that tears out my yard every single day, every single week.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Well, see, I have the problem with deer here in
my forest, and we must have like maybe fourteen deer
inside this this group, and every day they're out there
in this forest because we provided this forest for them
back in nineteen ninety seven, and they have respotted in
the most positive way.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Oh yeah, I bet, absolutely, yeah, I got. I got
in my upper field. I got a bunch of big
apple orchard tree, so I get lots lots of That's
why they hang out so much, because they just sit
up there and eat the apples.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah. Plus, you're one of the biggest stars on ice
road truckers. Now, I want to start this off with
a very positive note, so please don't look at it
as a negative. My father was a trucker. My father
faced these these absolute horrid highways. He didn't get to
finish his job like you get to do. I have
the utmost respect for what you guys are doing on
(01:49):
ice road truckers, because you are teaching an uneducated consumer
that what you're doing daily is done every day by
people like yourself. They just don't get on TV.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Oh absolutely, we're not. We're not the only ones. We
just happen to get have a camera pointed at us
to so they can follow us around and watch us
do our job up there up north. But there there are,
there are, There's only a handful. There's not a lot,
you know, a lot a lot of people. I've seen
lots of truckers come in over the years up there
up north and Yep and think they have what it
takes and within one run and they managed to get
(02:22):
back after breakdowns and being stuck and they're like this
this is not for me. I can't, I can't, I
can't do this. It does happen.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I was going to ask you about the rookies. Are
you like a martial artist when it comes to the
rookies and even though they're challenging as hard as they
can be, you're sitting there with one corner of your
eye watching them to make sure that they play by
the rules right so that they don't come out of
this with an injury.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Oh absolutely, I mean that that's part of being a
veteran trucker and being you know, up on the ice
is of course, you want to make sure every every
trucker gets in and out of there, whether they're new
or they're not, you know, I'm not. I would never
leave anybody behind. And someone's broke down and and they're
new and they're like, I don't know what to do.
I'm not going to say, well, just hang out, try
to get a hold and help. I'm stopping and I'm
going to and do anything I can to make sure
(03:06):
and help them get back up and going. But that's
one thing you don't want to do, though, is if
if you're nervous and you're scared of anything of driving
on the ice or in snow blizzards or deep snow,
or you don't have a little at least a little
bit of mechanical skills when it comes to how a
truck mechanically works and what it takes to fix most
of the items on your truck, then you might want
(03:29):
to choose a different career. Well.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I was pretty good when I lived up in the
state of Montana, but the second I moved to Carolina
and I basically forgot how to drive in the snow.
There's no way in hell I'm getting out there on
that road.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, it's it's It could throw a lot of stuff
with you this year up here, which Mother Nature did
not want to cooperate with us, and the snow was thin,
and we did a lot of bigger loads, some oversized loads.
Not gonna let a lot out of the bag, But
there was a lot of things that happened this year
that we have definitely not had happen on any other season,
and so I was. It still impresses me after thirty
(04:03):
five years of trucking and just about every condition I
think that i've that is, there's no other conditions I
could possibly get into. There's no other situations I can
get into. It's all happened. Something comes up and bites
me right in the aspect, gets me every time, and
I'm it's like, oh my gosh, are you freaking kidding me?
How is this even possible? So those are the moments
where you'll start hearing some swear words, probably come out
(04:25):
where you're really stressed out because I'm not My situations
I'm trying to fix it so I can get going
are not working, yep. But you know what, you keep
going and you keep pushing and you keep striving, and
you keep coming up with new solutions, and pretty soon
my tires are rolling and I'm back to going again.
I still wonder how I even did it. I'm still
some of the situations up there, I'm still trying to
figure out how i came up with the ideas to
(04:46):
get out of them.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Please do not move. There's more with Todd Dewey coming
up next. The name of the show Ice Road Truckers.
We're back with Todd Dewey. One of the things that
is to me is superstar on this show is the
fact that you guys waste absolutely no time. You are
sending out a powerful message to the blue collar workers
(05:08):
of this nation and around the world. You don't waste time,
and you stay focused. That means so much to me
as a business leader.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Oh, you got to stay focused up there, Absolutely you can't.
You You got to concentrate it. Everything you're doing, what
your chuck's doing, what gear you're in, what's coming around
the corners, you know, the weather that gets stown that
you up there. And with that being said, is you
remember the climate change has definitely changed over the years.
The seasons up there have gotten shorter. Just because the
seedars have gotten shorter doesn't mean there's less loads to
(05:38):
take up there. Now that the communities don't need, they
don't need, they don't need very much products to live. No,
they still their demand is get more and more and more.
They need more loads, they need more food, they need
more building supplies. They need new equipment up there. They
need new boats for the lakes. They're fishing to feed
their families. See the summertime, yep. I mean this, this
stuff doesn't stop. So with that being said, you need
(05:59):
to push as hard as you can up there on
those ice roads. And remember when you get on the
ice roads and you turn off the highways up there,
which are still icy and snowy, But when you turn
onto the real ice road, there's no there's no way stations,
there's no there's no there's no wait cop or waiting
around the corner to check your log book to see
how many hours you've been driving, because I'll tell you what,
(06:20):
After you've been pushing all day long, Let's say you've
been driving eleven hours, twelve hours, you've been fighting the
ice roads. And then you see and you come down
a little crest of the hill and you're like, oh,
this is ice crossing. You stop, you check it out.
You're like, yeah, this is definitely ice. All right, Well,
it doesn't look like it's that far across there. But
then you roll out out of this ice crossing. It
might be there could be a five hour ice crossing.
(06:42):
You can't stop and you can't stop on the ice.
There's no stopping on the ice. So once you roll
on it, even if you've already been working twelve hours,
and you roll out out of that ice because you
think it's just right around the corner where it comes off,
No no, no, no, no, you go around a different corner.
It continues on the ice around some other little highland
that's out there, and you got to keep going. So
until you're off that ice, there is no stopping because
you can run a twenty hour day up there and
(07:04):
minimum or you get to a snore blizzard that happens
and you're trying to find yourself a good spot to
stop in the snow blizze. And the problem is with
the snow blizzard is when you start pushing two feet
of freaking snow, you don't want to stop because you're
afraid if you stop, you're not going to able to
get your momentum and get back going again. Wow. So
there's so many situations that you get thrown with up there,
But at the same time, I'm monol idea. It's the
most exciting stuff you have ever dealt with in your life,
(07:26):
and it gets your heart pumping, and it's just to me.
That's the whole thrill of it. Besides getting out loaded
in the community. That's the best part of it.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Wow, you got to come back to this show anytime
in the future, Todd. You're exciting and you are so
damn dedicated and that it just inspires me. So please
come back to this show.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Well, come on up, will yeah, come on up next season.
I'm around there, and jump in the truck and we
we'll take you for a ride of your life. You'll
never forget.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Will You'd be brilliant today?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Okay, Sarah, all right, thanks for your time. I appreciate you.
Hello, and good morning, Toddday, good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Where are you at.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm in Charlotte, North Carolina. Where are you hanging at
these days? Todd?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I am in Port Angeles, Washington, way up on the
farthest northwest corner you can get if you know, a
little town named Forks that used to that was used
in the movie The Twilight Saga vampire movie that came
those movies that came out.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Wow, I know that area so well because of the
whole rainforest. And that's where we get the ferry to
go up to. Oh my god, yeah, to Victoria where
I live.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I live right I'm right in I'm right in the rainforest.
I'm right at the base of the Olympic Mountains.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
God, I'm so jealous of you. People don't understand how
beautiful that whole entire area is.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, it's beautiful up here. We got the ocean. I
live right on the edge of the ocean with the
mountains on the back side of my house. And it's
I got all my hunting and fishing and everything hiking,
and the lakes and the mountains and everything you can
think of right in my backyard, including herd, a helk
that tears out my yard every single day, every single week.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Well, see, I have the problem with deer here in
my forest, and we must have like maybe fourteen deer
inside this this group, and every day they're out there
in this forest because we provided this forest for them
back in nineteen ninety seven, and they have respotted in
the most positive way.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Oh yeah, I bet, absolutely, yeah, I got. I got
in my upper field. I got a bunch of big
apple orchard tree, so I get lots lots of That's
why they hang out so much, because they just sit
up there and eat the apples.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah. Plus, you're one of the biggest stars on ice
road truckers. Now, I want to start this off with
a very positive note, so please don't look at it
as a negative. My father was a trucker. My father
faced these these absolute horrid highways. He didn't get to
finish his job like you get to do. I have
the utmost respect for what you guys are doing on
(01:49):
ice road truckers, because you are teaching an uneducated consumer
that what you're doing daily is done every day by
people like yourself. They just don't get on TV.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Oh absolutely, we're not. We're not the only ones. We
just happen to get have a camera pointed at us
to so they can follow us around and watch us
do our job up there up north. But there there are,
there are, There's only a handful. There's not a lot,
you know, a lot a lot of people. I've seen
lots of truckers come in over the years up there
up north and Yep and think they have what it
takes and within one run and they managed to get
(02:22):
back after breakdowns and being stuck and they're like this
this is not for me. I can't, I can't, I
can't do this. It does happen.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I was going to ask you about the rookies. Are
you like a martial artist when it comes to the
rookies and even though they're challenging as hard as they
can be, you're sitting there with one corner of your
eye watching them to make sure that they play by
the rules right so that they don't come out of
this with an injury.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Oh absolutely, I mean that that's part of being a
veteran trucker and being you know, up on the ice
is of course, you want to make sure every every
trucker gets in and out of there, whether they're new
or they're not, you know, I'm not. I would never
leave anybody behind. And someone's broke down and and they're
new and they're like, I don't know what to do.
I'm not going to say, well, just hang out, try
to get a hold and help. I'm stopping and I'm
going to and do anything I can to make sure
(03:06):
and help them get back up and going. But that's
one thing you don't want to do, though, is if
if you're nervous and you're scared of anything of driving
on the ice or in snow blizzards or deep snow,
or you don't have a little at least a little
bit of mechanical skills when it comes to how a
truck mechanically works and what it takes to fix most
of the items on your truck, then you might want
(03:29):
to choose a different career. Well.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I was pretty good when I lived up in the
state of Montana, but the second I moved to Carolina
and I basically forgot how to drive in the snow.
There's no way in hell I'm getting out there on
that road.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, it's it's It could throw a lot of stuff
with you this year up here, which Mother Nature did
not want to cooperate with us, and the snow was thin,
and we did a lot of bigger loads, some oversized loads.
Not gonna let a lot out of the bag, But
there was a lot of things that happened this year
that we have definitely not had happen on any other season,
and so I was. It still impresses me after thirty
(04:03):
five years of trucking and just about every condition I
think that i've that is, there's no other conditions I
could possibly get into. There's no other situations I can
get into. It's all happened. Something comes up and bites
me right in the aspect, gets me every time, and
I'm it's like, oh my gosh, are you freaking kidding me?
How is this even possible? So those are the moments
where you'll start hearing some swear words, probably come out
(04:25):
where you're really stressed out because I'm not My situations
I'm trying to fix it so I can get going
are not working, yep. But you know what, you keep
going and you keep pushing and you keep striving, and
you keep coming up with new solutions, and pretty soon
my tires are rolling and I'm back to going again.
I still wonder how I even did it. I'm still
some of the situations up there, I'm still trying to
figure out how i came up with the ideas to
(04:46):
get out of them.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Please do not move. There's more with Todd Dewey coming
up next. The name of the show Ice Road Truckers.
We're back with Todd Dewey. One of the things that
is to me is superstar on this show is the
fact that you guys waste absolutely no time. You are
sending out a powerful message to the blue collar workers
(05:08):
of this nation and around the world. You don't waste time,
and you stay focused. That means so much to me
as a business leader.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Oh, you got to stay focused up there, Absolutely you can't.
You You got to concentrate it. Everything you're doing, what
your chuck's doing, what gear you're in, what's coming around
the corners, you know, the weather that gets stown that
you up there. And with that being said, is you
remember the climate change has definitely changed over the years.
The seasons up there have gotten shorter. Just because the
seedars have gotten shorter doesn't mean there's less loads to
(05:38):
take up there. Now that the communities don't need, they
don't need, they don't need very much products to live. No,
they still their demand is get more and more and more.
They need more loads, they need more food, they need
more building supplies. They need new equipment up there. They
need new boats for the lakes. They're fishing to feed
their families. See the summertime, yep. I mean this, this
stuff doesn't stop. So with that being said, you need
(05:59):
to push as hard as you can up there on
those ice roads. And remember when you get on the
ice roads and you turn off the highways up there,
which are still icy and snowy, But when you turn
onto the real ice road, there's no there's no way stations,
there's no there's no there's no wait cop or waiting
around the corner to check your log book to see
how many hours you've been driving, because I'll tell you what,
(06:20):
After you've been pushing all day long, Let's say you've
been driving eleven hours, twelve hours, you've been fighting the
ice roads. And then you see and you come down
a little crest of the hill and you're like, oh,
this is ice crossing. You stop, you check it out.
You're like, yeah, this is definitely ice. All right, Well,
it doesn't look like it's that far across there. But
then you roll out out of this ice crossing. It
might be there could be a five hour ice crossing.
(06:42):
You can't stop and you can't stop on the ice.
There's no stopping on the ice. So once you roll
on it, even if you've already been working twelve hours,
and you roll out out of that ice because you
think it's just right around the corner where it comes off,
No no, no, no, no, you go around a different corner.
It continues on the ice around some other little highland
that's out there, and you got to keep going. So
until you're off that ice, there is no stopping because
you can run a twenty hour day up there and
(07:04):
minimum or you get to a snore blizzard that happens
and you're trying to find yourself a good spot to
stop in the snow blizze. And the problem is with
the snow blizzard is when you start pushing two feet
of freaking snow, you don't want to stop because you're
afraid if you stop, you're not going to able to
get your momentum and get back going again. Wow. So
there's so many situations that you get thrown with up there,
But at the same time, I'm monol idea. It's the
most exciting stuff you have ever dealt with in your life,
(07:26):
and it gets your heart pumping, and it's just to me.
That's the whole thrill of it. Besides getting out loaded
in the community. That's the best part of it.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Wow, you got to come back to this show anytime
in the future, Todd. You're exciting and you are so
damn dedicated and that it just inspires me. So please
come back to this show.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Well, come on up, will yeah, come on up next season.
I'm around there, and jump in the truck and we
we'll take you for a ride of your life. You'll
never forget.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Will You'd be brilliant today?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Okay, Sarah, all right, thanks for your time. I appreciate you.
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