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There has a been a popular show on TV here called "Ice Road Truckers", about the tribulations of hardy trucker types who drive over a specially made road over frozen lakes in alaska.

I happened to see a bit of it while browsing and they mentioned "temps down to -18 celcius" which, previously in the UK, would have caused a collective shudder of "how can they live when it's that cold ?". But today I just thought, "oh, it was colder than that in liverpool last night and that's just a coupla hundred miles away"

alaska ? It's for wimps :-))

keep to the Fen Causeway

by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Tue Dec 21st, 2010 at 10:39:56 AM EST
-18 is not cold for Alaska

in some places, that's October weather

it's cold when you have to leave your car running day and night, or it will freeze and never start.  that would be at about -50 deg

by stevesim on Tue Dec 21st, 2010 at 10:46:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I am a wimp.

For six years I worked 11:00pm to 7:00am in a rail yard guiding locomotives and throwing switches. In the winter, before a switch could be thrown, I would use a special broom to clear the switch of snow and ice so that the mating sections would meet. Stiff bristled with a putty knife or scraper on the other end, it always eventual did the job.

When the arctic blasts came down across the Canadian Plains, then sweeping across frozen Lake Erie at 45-50kph on a mid January with temps around -25C to -30C at 3:00 am while I was scraping the ice out of a group of two or three switches for a couple or three hours in an open rail yard, I would think THAT was TFC (the T is Too, and the C is Cold, but the meaning of the F seems to elude me). But at about 42 degrees North Latitude, our area is almost at the Tropic of Cancer to those of the Far North.

I reiterate, I am a wimp. ;-)

by Mentatmark (mentatmark at gmail dot com) on Tue Dec 21st, 2010 at 11:21:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm pretty sure Ice Road Truckers is filmed up in the Northwest Territories, not Alaska.  -18 sounds pretty warm by their standards.

Good Christ, they sent that terrible show abroad?

Don't get me started on Ice Road Truckers.  That is the worst of all the abominations the History Channel has come up with that have nothing to do with history.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Wed Dec 22nd, 2010 at 08:03:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Well the guns and Nazis channel isn't exactly overflowing with great history. At least it's better than the Bloody Crab fishing series that my father is watching at the moment. How many ways are there to show a basket of crab lifted over the side of a boat?

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Wed Dec 22nd, 2010 at 08:22:35 AM EST
[ Parent ]
But at least guns and Nazis have something to do with history.  Truckers driving drilling and mining supplies around frozen roads in the middle of nowhere?  Not so much.

The crab show is on the Discovery Channel, I think.  Discovery and History have gotten themselves into an arms race to see who can come up with the most ridiculous idea for a show about Manly Men doing stuff the rest of us wouldn't do for all the gold in Fort Knox.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Wed Dec 22nd, 2010 at 08:30:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I never understood the point of the ice truckers show - it seemed to be 1 hour of content drawn out into about 3 seasons of crap.
by njh on Wed Dec 22nd, 2010 at 05:23:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
It's just simple, don't have to think much, modern "reality" entertainment.

I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears
by Gringo (stargazing camel at aoldotcom) on Wed Dec 22nd, 2010 at 11:58:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Ah, nevermind, apparently they do film in Alaska now.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.
by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Wed Dec 22nd, 2010 at 08:17:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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