King of the Road: True Tales from a Legendary Ice Road Trucker - Hardcover

by Alex Debogorski (Author)

Inside one of the world's most dangerous jobs with the star of History's top-rated reality show, Ice Road Truckers

The highest-rated reality show ever to hit the History channel, Ice Road Truckers follows the heart-pounding adventures of the tough-as-nails truckers who risk peril every day to deliver goods and supplies in Alaska and across Canada's frozen north. Alex shares tales of his adventures-and misadventures-in the north, and explain, in his own entertaining voice, how he got to where he is today-working class hero, bona-fide celebrity, and the improbable star of a smash-hit television show. Alex is a natural storyteller who knows how to spin tales about his colorful life growing up in the backwoods. Whether he's recounting tales about his hair-raising confrontations with bears, calculating the strength of newly formed ice, divulging the secrets of providing security in a bar room full of combative, drunken miners, or saving the life of another trucker, he keeps you wanting more.

• The first inside look at industry legend and fan favorite Alex Debogorski, a devout Christian, father of 11 children, and the world's best known truck driver
• Includes thrilling adventures and behind-the-scenes insights that you won't find on the show
• Features sidebars that explain the facts about ice roads, from how they're made to when and why they splinter and break

King of the Road gives fans of Ice Road Truckers a deep look inside the life and times of the show's biggest rising star.

Front Jacket

Nighttime is when truckers get talkative. It's lonely out here. Guys get on the radio and start telling each other stories. They're like little kids in a bunkhouse after the adults have put out the lights. Everybody is keeping each other company. I'm one of the most devoted storytellers on the ice road, and I'll keep the other truckers entertained for hours. I used to think that I should write down my life story one day--because I've had so many scrapes and almost been killed so many times that I can't believe I'm still here. I'm sure the other truckers would enjoy hearing about some of my hair-raising adventures. There are so many stories that I hardly know where to begin. But I guess the best way is to just imagine that it's nighttime and we're rolling along on the ice road. The headlights are poking through the darkness. The heater is purring away. I've got a hot cup of coffee in my hand, and I'm going to start where all stories start--at the beginning.

If you ask Alex Debogorski how he made it from Alberta farm boy to star of "Ice Road Truckers," he won't tell you a long story. He'll tell you dozens of wild, hair-raising tales that make you realize he's not lucky to be on TV--he's lucky to be alive.

Working-class hero and bona-fide celebrity, Alex takes you for a ride through his lifetime of adventures in "King of the Road." He's been stabbed and burned, hit by a train, run over by a truck the size of a house; he's broken his nose eight times and almost frozen to death. Before a harrowing career driving across frozen lakes, Alex tried his hand at everything from club bouncer and taxi driver to coal miner and oil rigger.

When he wasn't working, young Alex was either trick driving one of a string of beat-up junkers or pulling off some outlandish prank with his buddies or chasing thirty bears at the town dump.

Alex tells the breathtaking story of his epic battle with a Ford Bronco whose driver seemed bent on turning him into a hood ornament and reveals how a guy he nearly drowned in a bathtub got his revenge. Alex could never leave behind a damsel in distress and tells the tale of how he helped a girl escape from the back of a speeding car--in true Hollywood style--without stopping. Before you think these are tall tales, Alex's friends and family drop in to give their own versions of some of his most outrageous stories.

Finally, Alex spins amazing yarns from his twenty-two years as an ice road trucker, both in Canada and Alaska. You'll find out how he saved a rookie driver who was trapped inside a wrecked truck as diesel fuel poured from its ruptured tank, how a road grader almost crushed him to death, and why he's still here to tell the tale. You'll never meet a trucker with more amazing stories to tell than Alex Debogorski, and you'll never find a book more packed with them than "King of the Road."

Back Jacket

King of the Road

Riveting tales from TV's favorite ice road trucker

Between bear hunting, drag racing, doughnut spinning, cattle rustling, gold prospecting, and too many near-death experiences, it's amazing that Alex Debogorski ever found time (or lived long enough) to spend twenty-five years hauling freight over frozen lakes to the most remote outposts in the arctic. In "King of the Road," Alex jams his storytelling into overdrive for a memoir that's equal parts action-packed, outrageous, tender, and hilarious. You'll find out how he once caught fire in the middle of a brawl, how easy it is to get killed driving a coal truck, how the sound of cracking ice is something you can never get accustomed to, hearing, and what it's like being the improbable star of a hit TV show. The true tales of this larger-than-life ice road trucker are not to be missed.

Author Biography

Alex Debogorski is the larger-than-life costar of HISTORY's #1-rated show, "Ice Road Truckers," and of "IRT Deadliest Roads." He's the father of eleven children and the grandfather of ten grandchildren, married to his childhood sweetheart for thirty-eight years, and brimming with stories to tell.