Photograph by Randy Quan
A star of the History Channel’s massively popular reality TV series Ice Road Truckers, which begins its fourth season this fall, the burly Yellowknifer is known to audiences worldwide as a gritty kind of philosopher—he actually enjoys listening to the sound of the ice cracking as he hauls 70,000 lb. because, he says, “it’s basically talking to you.” At 56, he has 11 children, 11 grandchildren and has plied the dangerous network of frozen roads in the Far North for 30 years, servicing diamond mines and oil and gas operations. His book, King of the Road: True Tales from a Legendary Ice Road Trucker, is due for release this fall, and a new show, Extreme Trucking, premieres this winter. Maclean’s spoke to him during his stay in Letchworth, north of London.
Q: So what are you doing in the U.K.?
A: I came for a truck show to sign autographs and meet fans. I was in London once before; I’ve an uncle living here. My father was actually a paratrooper in the Free Polish Brigade out of Britain in the last war—he jumped on Market Garden, at Arnhem and Nijmegen. My mother went to Cambridge—she studied math and music—and they met and married in London.
Q: How is it that they came to Alberta, where you grew up?
A: Well, the Debogorskis started out in Poland but were shipped to Siberia by Stalin—they were considered kulaks because they owned land. My uncle and aunt died of starvation and disease there. When Stalin joined the Allies in the Second World War, he donated roughly 100,000 of his political prisoners to the Allied war effort. Grandpa and dad walked 60 miles across the tundra to see the Russian general who was signing the documents. Grandpa went to the African campaign, dad went to Glasgow to train in the paratroopers. Meantime, my mother’s father was a major in the Polish infantry and was shot by firing squad in Auschwitz for moving Jews out of Poland. After the war, Grandpa Debogorski emigrated to the Peace River Country in north Alberta, and dad followed just before I was born. I was conceived in Britain, so that’s where I get my sense of humour from, maybe.
Q: How’d you become an ice road trucker?
A: I was going to be a doctor, lawyer, fighter pilot or Indian chief, and went to the University of Alberta. Then my girlfriend got herself pregnant and we got married at 18 and I went back up to northern Alberta to work. I was working at a tire shop for $2.50 an hour when a fellow came in looking for a truck driver for a coal mine in Grande Cache, Alta. I didn’t have a licence but I figured if I didn’t know how I’d learn pretty quick. One thing led to another. I headed north to Yellowknife in 1976, working for one of the bigger trucking companies. I was working three or four jobs for a while—bought and sold mobile homes, had a taxi for eight years, bounced, worked security, started my own business. Probably about 1980 I bought my first truck. When you live in the north of Canada, especially, the waterways turn to roads in winter.
Q: How’d you get on TV?
A: When the History Channel made a deal with Original Productions out of Burbank, Calif., they come up to Yellowknife to look for characters. People in town would say, if you want a real character you should go find Alex Debogorski. I guess I reached character status in the North many years ago for a variety of good and bad reasons. I have 11 children and I’ve spent all my life trying to prove everybody wrong. I ran for mayor and for MLA sometime after that. I wasn’t successful either way. I usually make my opinions known, in private and in public. I’m conservative. I’d be Republican—I’m too far right for Conservatives in Canada. My father said if you’re going to vote, vote for the farthest right party in the country. He said he had a bellyful of socialism from Stalin when he was in the gulag. And I’ve taken his advice.
Q: Ice Road Truckers does a good job highlighting the risks associated with your job, but just how dangerous is it?
A: If one is working early in the season, or working on a road that isn’t government, or monitored by a big company, all of a sudden the risk goes up. A person drives with the door open, with a pickup behind them a little ways with a radio, someone who can let you know if the back wheel’s going through the ice, some warning so a person at least can try and save yourself. Most of the time I work for the big companies, and the roads are very safe. I’ve gone in a snowbank, had to dig for three hours straight, just to get myself and the trailer out. You’ve got to be careful, as far as being rested, because when you’re driving on the ice road with all that white and just the slow speed is a killer, too, it gets boring and even if you had rest you can doze off.
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