Ice Road Truckers (2007) s08e09 Episode Script

Now on Ice Road Truckers We're trucking now More chills You scared yet? thrills Whoa! Holy fuck! Here we go! and spills as the action on the winter roads explodes Holy cow! In Winnipeg I've never been that far north, but I'm sure I could find it.
Yep.
Thanks.
Yeah, bye.
Darrell Ward's new company is on a roll.
Ha, ha, ha.
Another load, I got another load.
And I have another load.
It's going to Big Trout.
Mark's not gonna be happy there.
I just stole another one of Polar's loads.
After quitting Polar - You're in or you're out.
- Right on, I'm out the door.
the Montana Legend set up his own shop.
Good, I'm back in business.
And he could prove to be a spoiler in the load count battle.
- You're gonna see me everywhere you go.
- Yeah? Now he's doubling the size of his company - Hello?! - Reno? by bringing in new blood.
I didn't know if I was about to show up in the right place or not.
Well, this is it right here.
His son, Reno.
- How's it going? - Good.
Good.
Taxi driver didn't know where he was going, but we ended up getting here.
Reno showed up here just in time to catch me going to Big Trout.
Right on.
This is cool.
The truck looks good except it's not moving.
Let's make it work.
I've worked with my dad, you know, growing up forever.
I mean, pretty much every weekend growing up I'd was washing and greasing his truck, you know, for 50 bucks a truck or whatever.
So I've worked for him a long time.
I think Reno grew up around trucking industry all his life.
We need to get on the road.
Yeah.
I wonder what these winter roads are like.
Yeah, it's a new experience for you.
I'm gonna tell you that right now.
My dad's taught me about everything that I know from riding motorcycles to fishing to driving to hunting, like all that.
What do you think of my big old fat stacks up there, Reno? Well, they're not that useful unless they blow smoke so I think you blow enough smoke, we don't need any coming out of the stack.
You know Reno and I are really similar.
I can't set out on the highway and drive a truck up and down the highway every day.
I gotta go find the more challenging trucking.
Reno's the same way.
He grew up doing the same thing.
Well, at least some of your shit is organized in here.
A lot of more organized than in the Polar shop, I'll tell you that much.
I can tell by the outside of the Polar yard that it was a mess inside.
I know.
Reno doesn't hold back either.
He drives like I do.
You want a job done right, Reno can do it.
This will be your first winter road and I'll run us up through and into Ontario on the highway.
Get us through the scale because I've already got my log book fired up.
When we hit the winter road, I'm gonna let you drive.
You've never driven on roads as rough as these.
I'm pretty sure I have I'm pretty sure you haven't.
You haven't set out on these winter roads for 300 kilometres with the bumps this high.
I'm all greased up, oil's checked, everything's up.
I'm ready to go.
The father-son duo will hit the 620 mile trail to Ontario's remote Big Trout Lake.
And the team will need to drive non-stop over the long route to get there on time.
You know there's 30 kilometre an hour speed limit on these roads so we just need to keep a steady pace.
Make sure that we're to Big Trout by morning.
As one ice road career begins another could be coming to an end.
This fucking shit's melting, man.
Trying to get my little arse back to Winnipeg.
After delivering to Deer Lake the day before, Art Burke's racing back to Winnipeg to grab another load.
It's really fucking warm and now that it's warm, it's gonna get slipperier.
If win out then Well, then we'll have to fucking deal with it, eh.
The trip up went off without a hitch and a smooth return could put Art back on the boss's good side.
This fucking road is slippery, man.
Makes the arse of the truck all weird.
Beep-beep-beep.
But now This is the one with the twists and the turns and all that stuff.
he's gotta tangle with Dollar Hill.
Last time I tried this hill, it took two cracks at it, but that was during the snow storm, eh.
Earlier in the season Come on, baby, you can do it.
his old nemesis stopped him dead in his tracks.
We're stranded here, in the middle of Timbukfuck.
And he was stuck for days A repeat performance could earn him an early ticket home.
Hang on.
Hear her spinning? I'm not gonna make this Get over here in the fucking snow.
Come on, baby.
Come on, baby.
Come on, baby.
Don't even ask! Just don't say a fucking word.
Not a word.
Fucking shit! That's the kind of shit we can fucking expect, yes.
If the weather gets fucking warmer and lots of it.
Art throws on a set of chains for added traction.
Okay, boy, away we go Moving back down that shitty fucking hill again, man.
We're gonna get fucked here.
We're sliding like a fuck, eh.
Not a fucking word.
Art readies to make another run at it, backing down the hill so he can build more speed.
The one thing on my fucking mind, buddy Get up that fucking hill.
Hang on.
Feel her spinnin'? We might not make this fucking Dollar Hill, boy.
Hope we do.
Okay, now you want to talk, boy.
I'm s-- I'm sorry, but, I-- Fuck! I'm fucking getting into this and if I don't get into it, I can't do it.
Okay, that's the hill that fucked us the last time, eh? And there's more towage to it just the other end of it in the dark down there not too fucking keen on.
While Art guns for Winnipeg 180 miles to the southwest Think the ice roads will be safe? the competition's making noise.
Hang in there, baby, she's a little icy around them curves.
Hugh Rowland's hauling a load of home supplies to the town of Pauingassi.
We're past mid season now.
It's gonna start warming up next week.
We need three good weeks to finish here or hire some more trucks.
Down the stretch VP's looking to bury Polar.
I know she's slicker than snot on a chicken's lip out he, right now.
But the 340 mile trail has already started to melt.
Mother Nature's never nobody's friend.
She does what she wants and she gets away with everything.
The back wheel's going right off the ground.
And it's taking all the veteran's got to keep the 20 tonne trailer on the road.
Dash for the cash.
Trucking now, buddy.
We're trucking now.
Now the only thing that's gonna stop us now is if it warms right up and the roads go to hell.
So basically we're on a roll right now.
Oohh shit! Deep in Manitoba Trucking now, buddy.
We're trucking now.
Hugh Rowland's snow bound.
Oohh shit! Yeah.
I told my number's out.
Hugh's quick thinking manoeuvre avoided a head on collision, but now the 20 tonne rig is buried deep in the snow.
- What's that? - I said you were cooking pretty good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You got a strap? I got a strap and - You got a strap.
- Yeah.
He completely jackknifed.
- Yeah, let's just put it around.
- Sure.
I knew that was coming.
As soon as I've seen him coming around the corner But he did the right thing.
He was jackknifed and then he hit, he hit the gas pedal to step on her.
I just parked her in the weeds there to save the truck anyway.
Shouldn't take much to get me out of there.
My bumper's bent into my spare tire.
- Did you wreck much on your truck? - No, I don't think so.
No.
Want a chain wrap around her first or Uh I knew he was gonna jackknife around there, but I thought our trailers would hit But I knew he wasn't gonna hit my truck because I moved my truck.
Could've been worse.
Yep.
Could've been a lot worse yeah.
I'll give her - Give her a snag there.
- Yeah Okay? I'm good to go.
That's good.
Hurt bumpers.
No hard feeling.
Okay, let's rock and roll.
Today Hugh walks away without a scratch, but the near miss is a reminder of the dangers that lurk around every turn.
So what happened, them guys get cookin' around here and they Could've been a lot worse.
Could've killed us, killed everybody.
Nobody got hit.
Nobody got hurt.
We're back trucking.
That's the main thing.
180 miles to the northwest Make the corner Make the corner Oh shit! It can get a little rough through here, buddy.
Hey, are you sliding around everywhere? Holy shit! Polar's power house team of Lisa Kelly and Todd Dewey are fighting one of the toughest trails in Canada.
Right now we're just fighting this winter road.
The ice road's a bit way more dangerous.
They're not even roads.
I mean, they're just horrible this year.
The duo's hauling construction equipment and a pontoon boat.
And they're taking the loads 90 miles over Polar's privately built and unmaintained path to distant Utik Lake.
Mark's put a lot of money into this road and he needs a return on his investment that he made on it before it melts away.
And so we need to get loads there fast.
But the road's starting to melt Whoa I'm just getting to this river crossing here.
and so is the ice.
I think it'd be a good idea if we just kind of stop and check it out.
I-I don't know if there's any damage been done to it.
I don't know if it's broke through or cracked.
I don't know.
Make me feel better.
Okay, right behind you, Todd, in just a second.
I mean this I'm almost scared to walk on this.
And the thing that's scary is there's running water under here.
It's an actual river, not a lake.
That's what makes it scary, you know.
- Yeah.
- I don't know I think the scariest part's going be out there and that's the part we're not gonna walk to.
No.
All right, well, let's do this thing.
Standing around ain't gonna get us across.
I got no reason to keep looking at it whining like a baby.
Might as well just do what we gotta do.
With the sun beating down on the weakening ice Lisa's gonna wait here on this side.
I'm gonna see if I can fight my way across first.
the convoy takes a gamble.
If he goes across it and I don't hear anything I'm fine.
But if he's like calling back like, oh, I heard a crack, blah, blah, blah, then I'm gonna be pretty skeptical about going very fast.
Here we go, baby.
On the melting ice crossing to Utik Lake Here we go, baby.
Todd and Lisa are taking a crack at it.
We looked at the ice, we can't see any water coming through from the river underneath so we're just gonna go.
I mean, there ain't no turning around.
There ain't no going back.
It just is what it is and it really sucks.
Hauling over 20 tonnes, Todd's the first to test the ice.
When you come out here, Lis, look to your right and look at the all water that's come through and refroze.
It's basically-- It looks like the river's right next to you.
But it's spooky looking and it looks wet like it ain't frozen.
Ugh Maybe it's not frozen.
I'm more worried about getting up the hill on the other side trying to get off the ice up the hill.
See right about where you're at or a little bit back is where I'd start running for it, right where that friggin' ice and water's up through.
I can't hit it too hard on the river.
If I damage or crack the ice there's a chance that Lisa could fall through because I went too fast trying to make the hill.
Here we go! As Todd gains speed, he puts even more pressure on the splintering ice.
Ha, ha, ha.
Get ready to go.
I'm at the top.
All right, here I come.
That was fucked up.
I didn't think we were gonna make it.
After Todd's already pushed the ice to the brink All right, I coming down on this river.
now it's Lisa's turn.
Lis, I haven't heard anything from you.
You okay back there? Oh, I'm sorry.
I was just admiring the open water that you pointed out.
Yeah, that sun is friggin'-- That's fresh.
It looks like it's like doubled up and then froze like little gushers or something.
It's freaky looking.
All right, now of course it's making noise.
So the water will only flow there.
That's the water he's talking about right there.
All right, Todd, I'm off the river.
I gonna run at this hill here.
So far she survived the thinning ice.
I'm gonna try to run at this hill a little fast.
But she'll have to scale the hill or roll right back onto it.
Come on, Lis, you're gonna make her.
Come on, get up the hill.
I made it.
Oh, that was so, so close.
- Woo! - Virtual high five.
Now all we gotta do is finish running this road, get into Utik Lake.
While Lisa and Todd look to keep Polar in the game on the road to Ontario's Big Trout Lake Watch it.
Reno Ward's cutting his teeth on the winter roads.
Careful.
It's gonna be rough.
Easy! Good, if you can handle that bounce, the rest shouldn't give us a problem.
Unless I find a bigger jump next time.
You will too, trust me.
Big enough to tip you over.
Besides the hill's hard in some of them.
If you hit them fast it's fucking So far the rookie's held his own over 500 miles of brutal terrain.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Don't drive that on this ice this fast.
All right.
Let's go check out the ice.
First ice crossing.
Looks like the rest of the road pretty much.
I know it does except for it's flatter and smoother Yeah And you gotta ten kilometre an hour speed limit going across it.
But now Reno's got to prove his mettle on the ice.
Best thing to do with Reno is just throw him under the bus, throw him in the fire and see how he deals with it.
Yeah.
Let's head out across it.
Let's burn some daylight.
For sure.
Are you scared yet? Do you want me to drive? No.
This ain't some place where you want to wear your seatbelt.
Yeah.
Ever drove a loaded semi across a frozen lake before? No.
- Hear it crack? - No.
- You can hear it cracking.
- Can you? Sometimes, yeah.
Yeah, sometimes you get pretty big pops.
You've gotta chill.
If the 25 tonne rig breaks through it's an 80-foot plunge to the bottom of the lake.
- Be a cold day swimming.
- Yeah.
Swimming with the fish.
Be fish food.
Yep! That's one ice crossing down, Reno.
- One notch on your belt, right? - Yeah.
Darrell and Reno-- nothing can stop us! In the Canadian wilderness Well, she's fucking slick out there when the sun is shining.
VP boss Hugh Rowland's on this last 50 miles to the community of Pauingassi.
Oh, I usually go to Pauingassi once or twice a year and they don't take much stuff, but the stuff they do take is very important.
But rising temperatures are making the final stretch a challenge.
You can't do nothing about Mother Nature.
When the ground water starts to run, you got two weeks left.
Well, this is pounding out already.
Oh.
That means it's just a matter of time we'll be in the swamp here.
Well, fuck.
We got an ice crossing.
And now, he'll have to get his 30 tonne load over the melting ice at Fishing Lake.
Too late in the season to be worried about ice crossings now.
If you're not up to full weight by now, we're in trouble.
Says max 15, but I'm gonna keep it down about seven or eight.
I mean, this is a heavy load.
We-- we're talking 80 thousand here so Give it a tap or two going across this puppy.
Here we go Ice crossing on the way to Pauingassi.
Wow.
Really cracking.
Hugh barely rises above the weight limit, but it still might be too much on the rapidly deteriorating ice.
That's what makes it bad when it breaks, starts warming up, breaking up, it can-- Fucking gone right away.
Ooh, look at that rip in the ice.
Wow.
She's cracking into a million fucking pieces when I go across it.
Slippery and cold this ice.
Just slippery and cold.
It's shattering.
Could wait til I get there and then just fucking cracks.
Beautiful day for a drive on the lake.
Well, we're just coming up to Pauingassi now.
Finally Hugh makes it across and on the other side rolls up to his destination.
Pauingassi, Pauingassi! With the delivery of home supplies, VP maintains their razor-thin margin over Polar.
That's-- We're done, we're empty.
Time to hit the road.
Turn and burn, money in the G As night falls Let's high tail it back.
Art Burke's still hammering down.
It's bad up there, man.
Can't be too careful.
On the home stretch back to Winnipeg he's looking to prove to the boss that he still belongs on the team.
This is sucker is slippery.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Buddy whoa.
Here we go.
Hold on! On the road back to Winnipeg Art Burke season is spinning out of control.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Buddy, whoa.
Here we go.
Hold on! We're fucked now! - You okay? - Yeah, you? Fucked it there.
Stop and let's look at the damage.
This is a nightmare.
Well I don't know.
Fuck! It's fucking slippery.
The fucking thing jackknifed.
Couldn't get it out in time and she fucking turned cross ways and this went into this, right? It fucking happens, man.
This is slippery as fuck, eh.
What the fuck can I say! Another touch up, boy.
Already on the outs with his Polar boss, the massive damage to the rig could be Art's nail in the coffin.
I don't think it's a good idea to pick up a load with the whole bunk fucking tore off her.
Tomorrow I guess we'll have to take the truck back what's left of it.
We'll see what Mark got to say.
Yeah, at the rate I'm going I gotta it pretty much all covered.
The only thing left now is to get through the fucking ice.
As you know, I'm gonna get a blast with this one or the axe.
As morning breaks Do you think you'd get tired of the snow, if you had to live up here.
Oh my God, would I.
One of the biggest things you gotta worry about out here.
Yeah.
Other people mostly.
Other people mostly.
Darrell Ward's strategy to expand his company is paying off.
Right on, another load delivered, Reno.
Yes, sir.
As son, Reno, passes his first test on the roads.
Oh.
It was a good experience for Reno and I think Reno maybe learned a lot.
Right on, Reno.
Let's get out of here.
- It all came off pretty good.
You drivin'? - Yeah.
With father and son joining forces, they could be unstoppable.
But 260 miles to the northwest Me and Todd are gonna get offloaded, get rid this pontoon boat.
He's gonna get rid of his roller thingies.
Kind of excited to get over here and get these things dumped off there.
Just kind of see what that all entails, you know what I mean? We're here at Utik Lake.
Lisa and Todd are keeping Polar moving forward.
I'm gonna go untie this thing.
We're ready to offload.
The convoy delivers their hauls to a new airport site at Utik Lake.
It won't go! There! Got it! And log two key loads for the company.
Thank you very much.
You can have these two, I think.
This thing fell off ramp real quick.
Screws me up.
You win.
- Hey guys.
- Yeah.
You actually showed up on the day where we're about to light up Oh, right on.
And blow a whole bunch of rock up to level the grade on the runway.
That's awesome.
So if you guys want, you can come up, give us a hand loading the last couple of holes And just press the button and light it up.
To make room for a new runway, 50,000 pounds of dynamite must be detonated to level the ground and Lisa and Todd are given the honours.
How fast from the time we pull that to the time that goes off.
Uh, it'll be about a second or so if It's not as quick as it should be, it should be a lot quicker.
A second?! A second's a long time in blasting.
I'm so excited, Todd.
You get - You get to yell.
- Okay, I'll yell.
Fire in the hole! Holy cow! Look at that, lis, look Holy cow! Did you just see that? Holy shit! - Did you guys see that? - Oh, it was awesome! Now that you gonna have all the fun for the day.
I guess we better get back in the truck and hit the road We got a lot of loads to do.
Let's roll! I thought it was awesome.
In Manitoba We're on our way back to fucking Winnipeg where the trucks is totalled.
This time really piece has tore off it.
Oh well.
We go back and see what happens, boy.
Art Burke's on his way back to Polar headquarters.
I gotta go in now and explain to Mark why the bunk of the truck is held on with bungee cords and all this kind of stuff.
My bottom line, not really looking forward to this.
Now it's time for Art to face the music This is gonna be a wonderful time.
and come clean to the boss about his damaged rig.
Excuse me.
Mark how are you doing this morning, buddy? Well, *** over.
I just gonna shut the door for this one.
I jackknifed the truck, buddy.
How fucked is it? Well, it's not good.
I'll tell you that Aghh all right.
Let's go look.
I'm not sure Yeah, let's go look.
Holy fuck! You know, it's the same thing as last year.
This is a fucking nightmare all over again.
Last season, Alex Debogorsky, totalled his truck costing Mark tens of thousands and it was his last run ever for Polar.
Fuck! I can't imagine it's the first time it's happened.
- No, but it shouldn't happen at all.
- Yeah.
Fuck! What am I supposed to do with this?! Fuck! You know what, Art, at this point I don't, I don't even know what to say.
I mean, the worst time ever right now.
I mean, I've got, I've got so many loads I got to get out.
I can't be down a truck right now.
- I mean that's gonna cost me thousands - Hmm-hmm.
And my customers are gonna get pissed off at me because we can't move the freight that we've promised them.
I mean, one truck down at this time of year is the worst thing that could happen to me right now.
And now and even more how competitive things are getting, when I got these clowns down the road and I got Darrell Ward down on the other side of me.
I mean, like all the chips are against me right now.
And Darrell was supposed to be the maniac breaking trucks around here.
I might as well just hand the rest of the loads over to him.
Well, Mark, boy, all I can say about this is fucking shit happens.
The roads are slippery and we know when we went into this shit it could fucking happen and it happened.
I don't know what else to say man.
I apologize for wrecking your fucking truck, but hey.
Shit does happen, Art, but I mean we try and make sure we got quality skilled professional drivers so shit doesn't happen.
It doesn't matter how fucking good you can drive.
That's the first time something happens to me - in six fucking years.
- I'll tell you what? I've got guys that have driven the winter roads for 20, 25 years and barely even put a set of chains on to get in and out of the bush.
Not on that fucking roads, you didn't.
Well, I'll tell you what.
I can bring two guys in you can talk to.
Fucking right.
You know what.
I don't even want you around here today.
I gotta get you I gotta make some decisions.
Either you're gonna come back here tomorrow morning and get a dispatch sheet from me or you're gonna get a plane ticket home.
Well, either way I'll be just as happy with the plane ticket home because right the way I feel now I don't want to be here anyway.
Well, you know what, Art, it's that kind of fucking attitude, I mean, you're gonna make that decision so much better.
I know we're both hot right now so it's best that we probably just go our separate ways before we say something one of us regrets, all right? - Okay, deal.
- All right.
See you tomorrow.
Well, I just went in for Mark and got my touch up.
That was a joyous moment.
Mark says he doesn't want me around here today and to tell you the fucking truth I don't want to be around here today neither.
He sits in there on his fucking arse all day long with his feet up on the fucking desk.
He doesn't know what's happening out there in the first fucking place.
The road is slippery as a fuck.
It's getting fucking warm.
It's time to fucking go home anyway.
I've here for six shitty fucking weeks and I'm fed up with it.
If he gets me a plane ticket home, I'll be happy as fuck.
But if he tells me to stay I'll finish the fucking thing because I like to finish what I fucking started and I'm fucking out of here.
Next time Damn it! on Ice Road Truckers See the top the snow banks, that's why we call it Ricochet Hill.
kings.
I'm superwoman now? queens Hell yeah! All you gotta do is come here and and jokers Come on, both of you, I'll come after both of you motherfuckers.