Would just like to say a quick hello, and a quick question if you dont mind. Regarding Ice roads in canada
Do i need a canadian drivers licence.
Work permits?
finding the right company, and how i find them
Do they actually employ us brits ?
Ive really always wanted to drive the ice roads, i drove in bosnia for 6months was -25, and them roads wernt as looked after as the canadian roads i bet, obviously not ice roads but still, some experiance there.
Any help would be much appriciated,
I have a job driving 18tonners at moment, so will be looking to save up all my holidays to go out there for the season
You can apply for a two year work permit, and while you’re there it is possible to get full citizenship
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You’d probably have more chance of groping the pope than driving on a Canadian ice road as a Brit. They like you to have had a licence for a while, have experience and to have had driven in Canadian winter conditions. From what I’ve read, they have thousands of applications each year from Canadians alone and the chances of being employed as a Brit, with a fresh licence and no Canadian winter driving experience are…lets just say low.
What about all the talk of canadian companys wanting to make us do the trip over to canada to work for them? not ice roads but normal trucking?
Maybe the best way of getting on that ice road then is to make the move over to canada and get full citezenship, then couple of years down the road go then for the ice roadâ– â– ?
Thanks for reply though cleared alot up, even if it was not what i wanted to hear
Yes there are lots of Canadian companies looking for drivers from overseas to fulfill lots of jobs that are apparently needing to be filled for the normal road jobs.
A while back I would see much in magazines such as ‘Truck and Driver’, or ‘Trucking’ about it all and there would even be adverts for driving jobs. Whether they were agencies of direct companies I don’t know.
Click [u]here[/u] for the overseas forum where there will be a host of questions similar to yours. I’m certainly not an expert, but just passing on information from my own investigation from when I too had the idea to go to Canada.
Probably because my heart no longer lies in truck driving anymore. It has for twenty five years (most of which was pre 21 in age) but my priorities are now on obtaining a degree instead. My family and friends are here and I’m more social than I used to be. So for me to move to another country for a year or two and spend long hours on my own doesn’t fill me with excitement in the way it used to. I visit that side of the pond and hire cars and drive around for a month or so instead. That satisfies something in me without having to go for the extreme of moving and working.
I can still see the appeal, but it is no longer for me.
Watching the second series of ice road truckers, the company didnt even seem to like to employ people from southern canada, they wanted to keep the jobs local, so the money they made would stay in the local economy, so chances of someone not even canadian prob really slim.
Ive never fancied it after watching the programs, ok at first be exciting and differnt, but think after awhile it would be really boring, driving really slowly, for 20+ hours, in freezing cold conditions, nothing to see but ice.
Driving round Canada itself and seeing some different scenary and getting to go over to the US, see the different places there that would interest me.
Kenny1975:
Watching the second series of ice road truckers, the company didnt even seem to like to employ people from southern canada, they wanted to keep the jobs local, so the money they made would stay in the local economy, so chances of someone not even canadian prob really slim.
Ive never fancied it after watching the programs, ok at first be exciting and differnt, but think after awhile it would be really boring, driving really slowly, for 20+ hours, in freezing cold conditions, nothing to see but ice.
Driving round Canada itself and seeing some different scenary and getting to go over to the US, see the different places there that would interest me.
Yeh i may just have to wait it out, then hopfully get her indoors to cotton on to the idea that i want to move to canada maybe move to yellowknife lol
Several of us brits have done the ice roads. I am looking forward to the third year, but under different colours.
To be honest, if there is any time for boredom then it is on the lakes themselves when you are jammed in 5th on idle and the landscape is a little bland, but you use the time to eat and make coffee, or play a game or something. Last year I was shooting at crows. Also, if you are in convoy then you chat on the CB. In the bush it is a little too non-stop work to get bored, and most of our ice work is bush followed by lakes. One lake, Sandy Lake, is 44 or 45 kms across and take over 3 hours to get over. Last year we got caught in a snowstorm on the way out. That wasn’t boring, it was unnerving!
And you see all sorts of things on the lakes themselves. This had broken down.
And bushwork has its moments of excitement.
They do get thousands of applications, but only a handful are serious. Lots of drivers like the idea but jack after the first run, and the firms are getting pretty quick about weeding these out.
Personally, I love it. I will keep going as long as my creaky old joints allow.
Did u live in canada before going up the ice roads? or did u do it straight from britain? i understand that maybe thousands of applications go in, but its if they can handle it which i bet 50% cant, when i watched that ice road truckers a while back, 800 trucks started, a handful remained apparantly
I was in Canada a year before I went on them, but I arrived in midwinter and the winter roads started soon after I arrived so I wouldn’t have got on them that year.
At BFS, many drivers asked to go on them then backed out when the roads got close to opening. Loads of hopefuls, 15 finalists. I was the first brit but second expat (poor old Uwe held that accolade) to go up for the firm so that maybe shows you how nervous it makes the firms.
As for 50% who don’t see it through the first year, it’s probably closer to 95%. It is hard on the trucks, hard on the drivers, and nerve wracking work and you need to be prepared for it.
-50 is hard to breathe let alone work in it, and the bush roads are hard going so it is something that takes determination and readiness.
