The spring thaw is in full melt mode as the drivers get in one last lick before the ice roads close for the season. Steph Custance is the first to experience the melt as she slips and slides deep into the trees off a slick road. Meanwhile Todd Dewey is struggling with a big load of construction material over a long and twisty trail. Art Burke is not too happy when he is pressured into retrieving a super heavy bulldozer over a dangerously melting ice crossing. Reno Ward takes a risky final run just to have his truck die on the ice and Lisa Kelly is heading home when she gets an emergency call to come to the rescue before it's too late.
At the top of the world, in the coldest parts of North America, there is a whole trucking industry that most people had never heard of. Some communities and industries can only be reached for a few months each year, when rivers or seas freeze over. Ice Road Truckers features the activities of drivers who operate trucks on seasonal routes crossing frozen lakes and rivers in remote arctic territories in Canada and Alaska.
Seasons 1 and 2 are based in Canada's Northwest Territories, first the diamond mines around Yellowknife and then the Mackenzie River ice road from Inuvik. Seasons 3 and 4 move to the USA and focus on Alaska's improved but still remote Dalton Highway, supplying the oilfields in Prudhoe Bay. Seasons 5 and 6 split coverage between Alaska and the winter roads Winnipeg, in Canada's Manitoba, while Alex heads farther north than ever before on the deadly Dempster.