HISTORY Channel’s “Ice Road Truckers” were forced to move the show 2,500 miles farther north for its new season after the diamond mines that own the treacherous winter roads outside of Yellowknife, Canada wouldn’t let it return.
For the second season, set to debut next month (with a sneak preview this Sunday), the show had to be filmed on a different ice road – which runs from Inuvik, Canada down a river delta and across the frozen Arctic Sea to the remote polar outpost, Tuktoyaktuk, where oil sand is mined.
Instead of hauling diamond mining equipment, this season the truckers are moving machinery needed for oil exploration.
History Channel officials refused to provide details of the conflict with the mines’ operators. Instead, in a written statement yesterday, it focused on the upcoming season.
“We’ve had no problems working with the mines; we’ve found them to be very cooperative,” the statement said. “However, to keep the series fresh and intriguing, with the assistance of the Territorial Government, we identified numerous potential roads and the current location was selected because of its character and history. This is a unique ice road that presents a distinctive set of challenges that fans of the show will appreciate.”
The Yellowknife road – which runs hundreds of miles across several massive lakes which freeze solid each winter when the temperature dips to 40 below – is owned by Diavik Diamonds and BHP, another gem mining company.
Officials at both operations didn’t like the way that last season’s show portrayed life on the ice road.
They believed the drivers came off as cowboys who took excessive risks to make more money and that the camera crews created distractions for the drivers.
This year, they issued new rules prohibiting commercial filming on the road.
Millions of fans became familiar with both the ice road and the hard-bitten, real-life truck drivers last summer when the adventure show, unpredictably, became one of the biggest cable hits ever.
For the second season, which wrapped up filming last month, four of last year’s drivers returned: Hugh Rowland, Alex Debogorski, Rick Yamm and Drew Sherwood. A couple of new drivers also joined the show.
Much of the drama this Season, at least early on, is derived from the friction between last season’s drivers and the local drivers in Inuvik who see them as interlopers.
Diamond mining in Canada is a relatively new industry.
Only in the last few decades has diamond mining become a billion-dollar industry in the north.
Oil speculation in the region is far older, but also has its issues – most prominently the lack of a pipeline running from the area where “Ice Road Truckers” was filmed this year.