(Another) Ice Road Trucker thread

I read a few. I figure who better to ask than Canadians.

My "short" intro/story....

It's been an interesting 5.25 years. Got a job salmon fishing in Alaska in 2010 at 34 y/o. Which ultimately brought me out to the Bering Sea that winter for P. cod. (Kinda like the show except fish not crab.) In the fall after ~9 months of horrid experiences (financially) I started scraping together money for my CDL school. Hopped the ferry to Homer just after Christmas, hitchhiked to Anchorage, got my CDL, saved for my trip to MA, flew over, picked up my car and drove out to the Bakken.

Eventually found a company that would give a newbie a break and drove side/bellies for ~1 month. Would've been longer but the pay was not that consistent.... I needed something because my bills at the time were over my head.

I ended up wirelining for 3.5 years, just got laid off a few days ago. Hours before anyone on my shift knew we put all the names (support, supervisors, etc) on the board. Pretty much all the fat had been trimmed. We were left with 42 from 130+ at the beginning of the year after a few rounds of lay offs. I was one of 7 Tuesday. While there, kept my skills maintained driving National 900A cranes to/from the shop/location. (~250mi roundtrip, once a week) Nothing much, but it's something.

No sorries, I view it as an opportunity to start experiencing life again. I've been looking at ice road trucking for years (before IRT existed) and now have no interference... and a little experience. I was looking for realistic opinions regarding succeeding in getting a position. Also any tips in helping with that. As you can see I'm from the US but also have another passport.... whatever makes things easier. Hazmat / Tanker / Dbls-Triples endorsed. Have been in -30F with winds gusting to 50mph, on rare occasion in the oilfield. Slept in a hammock while in Alaska... worst there was 10F with 60 sustained, not too bad. Have driven 1.4D on occasion, if that's any sort of plus.

I usually do things alone and do not ask others anything. This is an exception because I've found some but not much useful information online that I like to validate from other sites. There tends to not be "another" site for the more important stuff. Lots of "Buy Now" though.

 

Thank you for your replies. Amazingly how quickly small moments and simple decisions can change one's life. As of now looks like this dream is squashed and I have a bunch of things to deal with. I'll go for it in the future if life/circumstances permit.

Quite a bit disheartened.