Pay to play on the ice roads of Alaska

How popular is the History Channel’s Ice Road Truckers? Apparently it’s popular enough to draw fans of the reality show from around the world to our most northern state to experience the sights, sounds and kidney-rattling feel of ice road trucking for themselves. One Alaska tour company has developed this into a ready-made, tourist-friendly quest.

Salmon Berry Tours offers the Big Rig Experience, an adventure that includes a fully-guided tour of the Port of Anchorage to see where cargo arrives before being loaded onto big rigs. From there the tour continues to the Carlile Trucking yard, which is featured in the show (Salmon Berry Tours owner Candice McDonald’s family has owned Carlile for many years). The highlight of the tour is a climb into a Class 8 sleeper truck, followed by a 10-minute haul-road simulator experience, in which fans can try their hand at driving the Dalton Highway across slippery ice and white-out conditions. Cost for the two-hour package is $99.

If this only whets the appetite, Salmon Berry Tours offers the Haul Road Trip to satisfy die-hard fans’ craving for a more real-world adventure. For $850, Ice Road Truckers wannabes make the 520-mile haul road trek from Anchorage to Prudhoe Bay with a real ice road trucker.

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Wonder who finds it a longer trip – the tourist or the driver?