– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

northern frontier,

narrator: On the Western Hemisphere's

northern frontier,

the race is on.

- You're going into the bush.

It's you against Mother Nature.

Mother Nature is unpredictable.

♪

narrator: And the most ambitious company on the ice

roads is Muskie Creek.

♪

- My problem right now is that we have

so much forecasted right now and so many commitments.

I'm short on drivers.

We've got seven loads to load tomorrow.

My name is Bill Danh.

And I'm the operations manager here at Muskie Creek.

Apparently, there's an air leak on the air tank.

Did anybody do anything about it?

Our primary goal is to service northern communities

via winter road access.

With about six weeks of winter roads,

we have to slam these loads in as quickly and as efficiently

as possible.

Some of the communities that we go to,

their only source to get food, building materials,

is by local roads.

♪

It's crucial in that short window that we have

we get as much freight up into those communities

so that they can sustain for the next year.

♪

- Bill. - Todd.

Nice to meet you, buddy. - Nice to meet you.

- Yeah. - Heard a lot about you.

[rock music]

- I'm Todd Dewey.

And I come from a little town called

Port Angeles, Washington.

[horn honks]

Sweet [bleep].

After spending five, six years up here being on the ice road,

you know, it becomes a part of you.

♪

I'm taking on this challenge this year

because I have a chance to actually make some money

and build a nest egg back for me and my wife now

and buy my own big rig.

- Muskie Creek, we have a very good reputation.

Whatever we commit to, we fulfill.

We don't leave a load behind.

So Garden Hill is where your load is going to be going.

- OK.

- And then from there, you're going to cross the ice.

Then you're going to travel down here to St. Theresa Point.

That's going to be where I need you to pick up the back-haul.

- OK, you got it.

narrator: Todd's burning 800 miles to Garden Hill.

Then he's crossing Island Lake to pick up his back-haul

in St. Theresa Point.

- It's loaded.

It's ready, secured, just need a load of screw piles.

They go into the ground.

- You can't start the building until those are in, right?

- There's a housing shortage in Garden Hill.

So all loads, materials, it's all critical.

- Gotcha, 10-4.

- My biggest concern is that he

may have lost his edge.

I really can't afford any mistakes to happen.

- You know, I'm coming up here with a super set

of skills that not a lot of guys have.

[horn honks]

I'm 51 years old.

I don't know if I've got what it takes

anymore to do these roads.

But I'm going to hit it hard.

And I'm going to see if I can make myself some good coin.

Am I nervous?

Absolutely.

See if an old man's still got what

it takes to get the job done.

♪

- The road is in rough, rough shape.

See, you can't see [bleep] like that right here.

There's a lot of pieces on here, heavy items.

If they fall off, there's no way

I'm going to manually and physically put

them back on my load.

It's getting a lot worse now, buddy.

You feel that right there?

Yeah, yeah, that's-- that's getting rough.

♪

[metal screeching]

And I have definitely got something going

on with my load in the back.

The drill bit is sticking out about a foot

on the passenger side.

This is not good.

♪

She is cold.

♪

Well, this is screwed.

This wood beam had slid out of here almost a foot.

Here's a better visual.

The wood has slid this far.

Half the problem is that it's so cold

and the deck is so slick, and these pieces of wood

are just sliding right on the deck.

If it pushes too hard and slides with too much momentum

and busts these straps, that whole thing's just going

to slide right off the side.

And this whole pallet of these drill bits

are out in the middle of the ice road.

That's not good.

Well, I got an idea in my head.

I don't know if it'll work.

But it sure is worth a try.

[chains rattling]

Here it goes.

Whoa, you gotta love the ice roads, right?

OK.

Now we can link these two together so it's double-locked.

Pull the slack out.

♪

Double-linked that.

Those are bound.

In theory, as I'm backing the truck up,

that chain is going to come tight.

And it's going to pull that load on the trailer.

That's what I'm hoping will happen.

OK, this is it.

We're going to give her hell and give her a try.

I hope this works.

to slide tons of steel screw piles back on his trailer.

- Oh, come on, you son of a bitch.

[intense music]

♪

[metal creaking]

[bleep] yeah.

It looks like it moved.

[bleep] yeah.

It slid right here.

You can see.

This block-- see how far that block is sticking out?

This block was sticking clear out here.

So this whole thing is now slid right back into position.

Now I'm going to re-rig it.

And I'm going to try to do the same thing to the front

and get it pulled over.

Tell you what, nothing like being in the bush

and figuring [bleep] out.

That's why I love being on the ice roads.

♪

All right, re-rigging.

♪

OK, round two.

♪

[metal creaking]

♪

♪

Oh, hell yeah.

We are back on the trailer.

That's what the ice roads are all about, baby.

Figure [bleep] out, and just get it done.

♪

Get my load strapped and head back on the road.

[rock music]

♪

I'm ready to roll.

Mission accomplished, baby.

My load is nice and straight back there.

I'm ready to put some miles on here

and get this load into Garden Hill.

Just another beautiful day on the ice roads.

♪

[intense music]

♪

narrator: Approaching Island Lake outside Garden Hill--

- The ice crossing just opened up.

It's only open for light traffic, which means that it's

not open for full weights yet.

- The ice is not as thick as it's supposed to be.

I hope you have a will in place set up for your family,

because most likely you ain't making it home.

That's what could go wrong.

It's life and death up here.

[intense music]

♪

I'm a little concerned right now.

I'm not hearing a lot of noise out of the ice.

♪

The cracking of the ice is always spooky.

But that's part of the ice crossing.

You want to hear it cracking.

That actually means that the ice is really, really strong.

When you can't hear any noise at all, that's not a good sign.

I don't like that.

I don't like that one single bit, not at all.

narrator: Cracking sounds indicate

the ice is flexing to relieve stress

from the truck's weight.

If the ice is too thin or too weak to flex under the stress,

it could shatter, releasing Todd and his truck

into the clutches of the deadly frigid depths.

♪

- And off the ice.

Hell, yeah.

Go get my next load and turn and burn.

♪

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
ice /aɪs/ A2	noun - frozen water
load /loʊd/ B1	noun - a cargo or amount carried verb - to put cargo onto something
road /roʊd/ A1	noun - a path for vehicles
truck /trʌk/ A2	noun - a large vehicle for carrying goods
crossing /ˈkrɔːsɪŋ/ B1	noun - the act of going across something
challenge /ˈtʃælɪndʒ/ B1	noun - a difficult or demanding task verb - to question or test someone
goal /goʊl/ A2	noun - an aim or purpose
critical /ˈkrɪtɪkl/ B2	adjective - very important or crucial
concerned /kənˈsɜːrnd/ B1	adjective - worried or anxious
cracking /ˈkrækɪŋ/ C1	noun - the sound of something breaking adjective - excellent or fast
cold /koʊld/ A1	adjective - having a low temperature
slick /slɪk/ B2	adjective - smooth and slippery
slide /slaɪd/ B1	verb - to move smoothly over a surface
straps /stræps/ B1	noun - strips of material for securing
pallet /ˈpælɪt/ C1	noun - a wooden structure for storing goods
drill /drɪl/ B2	noun - a tool for making holes verb - to make a hole
bits /bɪts/ B1	noun - small pieces
idea /aɪˈdiːə/ A1	noun - a thought or plan
risk /rɪsk/ B2	noun - the chance of danger or loss
edge /ɛdʒ/ B1	noun - the sharp side or brink