By Truck to the North: My Arctic Adventure

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Big Bill is a truck driver. Andy Turnbull is a writer. TD is a poodle.
Together they make a 4000 kilometre trip up Canada’s West Coast from
Vancouver to Tuktoyaktuk in a 18-wheeler stuffed with everything from
tomatoes to tulips. On their way north, they encounter rock slides,
totem poles, moose, tourist traps, trucker stops, cinnamon buns as big
as a steering wheel, the Northern Lights, and
minus–49-degree-centigrade temperatures. For accommodation, Bill,
Andy, and TD share a one-bunk truck cab. They experience breakdowns and
help other truck drivers in distress. On the final leg of their journey,
while driving over the frozen waves on an ice road, Andy listens to the
ice under their wheels strain and crack while Bill tells him about
people he knew who have gone through the ice to the bottom of the Arctic
Ocean.

Like the first volume in Annick’s adventure-travel series, 52 Days by
Camel: My Sahara Adventure (1998), the format of By Truck to the North
combines a fast-paced, informative text with scores of entertaining
photographs and sidebars. The author’s main subject, Bill, makes this
extraordinary trek several times a year. Part of the appeal of
Turnbull’s prose is the way he is able to maintain wide-eyed surprise
at the extremes of Bill’s daily experiences and yet capture the
essence of the Arctic work routine. The result is an entertaining,
hands-on view of Arctic life and truck driving. Highly recommended.