VP Express finally delivers their first loads of the season, but after a heated confrontation with owners Hugh Rowland and Vlad Pleskot, new hire Art Burke falls behind the bosses on the way back home. When his truck breaks down hundreds of miles from Winnipeg, Art suddenly finds himself stranded and alone. Polar snags a lucrative new contract, but it's over one of the most dangerous roads in Manitoba. Darrell Ward is the first to blaze the trail, but when he fails to conquer a mammoth incline, he's sent rolling backwards onto the ice. Fellow Polar drivers Lisa Kelly and Alex Debogorski follow close behind, but Lisa's broken wrist threatens to shut her down in the remote Canadian wilderness.
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.