Chill with Ice Road Truckers

Randy Cordova
The Arizona Republic
Jul. 6, 2007 12:00 AM

Hugh Rowland has emerged as one of TV's most engaging reality stars this summer, thanks to a surprise hit called Ice Road Truckers.

"Every time I come down here, they say it's as popular as hell," says Rowland, visiting Los Angeles from British Columbia for a publicity tour. "They don't show the (expletive) thing up in Canada, so everyone thinks I'm full of (expletive) when I say I'm on TV."

Just how big is Ice Road Truckers? The debut episode last month drew 3.4 million viewers, a record for the History Channel. Subsequent episodes have retained as much as 90 percent of that audience. The majority of viewers are men: Probably the same guys who made Deadliest Catch a success for the Discovery Channel.

"We knew we were on to something different," says Dolores Gavin, the show's executive producer. "There was an energy around this that was very unique and different. It was hard to define."

On the other hand, the show itself is almost ridiculously easy to explain. The title tells all: The show focuses on six men who haul supplies over a 300-mile long ice road. That's all, folks.

But in this case, simple means compelling.

One thing that makes the show so riveting is the breathtaking photography of Canada's northwest region. The show is filmed with high-definition equipment for spectacular results. If you have an HDTV, Ice Road Truckers is visual catnip.

Then there are the truckers themselves, an appealingly ragtag group of men. Alex Debogorski, a veteran driver, has 11 children and seven grandchildren. At the other end of the spectrum is 21-year-old T.J. Tilcox, a trucker who hates the cold. Go figure.

Rowland is kind of the grand poobah of the show. He owns four trucks and has spent more than two decades in the business. He was initially skeptical when he was approached about doing the program.

"It surprised the (expletive) out of me actually," he announces. "I thought, sure, come up and film me, but I don't know what you're going to see. But then when I saw the DVD of the first episode, I thought it was pretty cool."

The show's origins can be traced back to a 2000 episode of Modern Marvels that focused on ice road truckers. The program earned positive feedback from viewers.

"We knew the audience had a kernel of interest from that show," Gavin says. "Then our take was that it is more than just a dangerous job. It's this whole bizarre world up there with sub-zero temperatures and a race against the clock before the ice melts."

The show's buzz was fanned by a theatrical trailer that played in movie houses a month before the premiere.

"Kudos to the marketing department for that," Gavin says. "A lot of things just came together at the right time to make this a great show, and that was a big part of it. People would see the trailer and think, 'People are driving on ice? What is that?' "

The show is such a hit that a DVD release is already scheduled for Nov. 30, and Gavin says there are talks of producing another series.

As for Rowland, he is enjoying his 15 minutes in the spotlight. During his recent visit to California, a typical day consisted of radio and print interviews, plus an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel's talk show.

"I'm just going with the flow," says Rowland, who confesses he hates reality television. "I'm in a nice hotel room. They take me to supper and for drinks, and it's all covered."

As for getting money for being in Ice Road Truckers? Guess again.

"We don't making nothing off of it," he says.

You figure with the show being so popular, he'd earn a little something.

"Well, I kind've said that, too, but we don't know if it's going to fly," he says in a low voice. "But we'll see. This whole TV thing is different. It's like a whole other adventure."

http://www.azcentral.com/ent/tv/articles/0706iceroad.html