Video summary
The video follows a truck driver navigating the transition from Manitoba into Ontario and subsequently crossing the border into Minnesota on a busy Monday. After successfully loading and securing his freight, he heads toward International Falls, a location he visits frequently enough that it feels like a second home. His primary goal for the day is to unload before evening, though he remains flexible depending on the shipper's schedule. While driving through the region, he keeps an eye out for seasonal campsites near lakes in areas like White Shell or around Lake of the Woods, hoping to purchase a site where he can build a deck and eventually sell his camper as a turnkey package. This plan is driven by the need to generate more value from his current vehicle before potentially upgrading to a larger one later on.
A significant portion of the narrative focuses on a serious accident that occurs shortly after he crosses the border, highlighting the critical importance of proper load securing. The driver witnesses a flatbed truck lose a porta-potty into traffic due to inadequate tie-downs, causing a twelve-minute highway closure and backing up a major artery connecting east and west Canada. The incident resulted in damage to other vehicles and debris scattered on the road, though fortunately, no one was injured. The driver uses this event as a stern reminder to always check straps every fifteen to thirty minutes and never to settle for "good enough" when securing freight. He expresses deep empathy for the negligent driver who will face legal charges and financial trouble, emphasizing that such accidents are the industry's worst nightmare and something he strives daily to avoid by using extra straps whenever there is even a single doubt.
Following the incident, the driver reflects on his own schedule and personal life while making up for lost time caused by a dead truck battery over the weekend. He notes that he will be running tight on his delivery deadline but remains optimistic about completing his tasks before heading north again to pick up another load in Indiana. The video also touches on his aging process, as he humorously discusses the rapid appearance of gray hairs at age thirty-eight, attributing it to a stressful year rather than just genetics. Despite the rush required to make money and keep the wheels turning, he values moments where he can slow down slightly, acknowledging that while constant motion is necessary for survival in his profession, finding balance is important as he continues to grow older.
The day concludes with the driver successfully delivering his freight without encountering a long queue at the dock, allowing him to leave tarps on the deck for immediate reuse the next morning. He inspects his truck's tires and considers installing a lift axle to reduce wear on the front wheels, noting that the trailer has already covered over 116,000 kilometers in just nine months. With the delivery complete and the empty trailer ready for its next load, he prepares to drive back toward Canora, looking forward to having coffee along the way. He thanks his viewers for joining him on this journey through the trucking life, encouraging them to like the video before promising to see them again the next day as he continues his route up to Manitoba.
Read the full video transcript
Good
morning world.
It's good afternoon already. We are just
about to leave the province of Manitoba
going into Ontario.
Got to go pick up some freight. It's
Monday. Got to get these wheels turning.
Put the freight on the trailer, tie it
down, tarp it, and head on into
Minnesota.
We had a pretty good weekend. And we
actually I was in Canora just up the
road here yesterday.
Now I'm back, but this time it's for
work.
So hopefully it's not too busy at the
shipper.
All depends. Sometimes it's busy at this
time. I'm trying to sneak in between the
rushes, right? There's the morning rush
and then there's the afternoon rush. If
you get in there right between, it's
usually pretty quick. It's what I'm
shooting for today. See if we can get
unloaded tonight yet. They're expecting
me there tomorrow, but we'll see.
Sometimes I can get unloaded in the
evening.
If not, that's okay.
Passing by Falcon Lake right now.
Keeping my eye out for uh
different seasonal campsites around
Manitoba. preferably out in like the
White Shell area here, southeast
or in the uh northwest side of Ontario
around Lake of the Woods.
I'd like to find a nice spot where we
can park our camper into a seasonal and
like a permanent spot
be near a lake.
It doesn't have to be on the lake.
That's expensive, but near a lake would
be fine. build it up there real nice,
you know, build a nice deck around
there, develop the site, and then sell
it all as one package in a couple of
years.
Sell the camper with the everything on
the site already built in there, ready
to move in. Whoever wants to go get a
seasonal, they can just buy it all in
one package, right?
That's what I've been thinking of doing
lately because right now the camper is
just sitting in our shop and we want to
sell it eventually, possibly get a
bigger one day,
but we can make more money with it if we
and use it actually until that day. We
put it into a spot where we can
get more value out of it. Okay,
now we're sort of thinking about that.
Sort of on our mind or on my mind
anyway,
keeping our eyes peeled. Any of you know
of any good available seasonal campsites
out in western Manitoba? South uh sorry,
southeast Manitoba or just into Ontario
from Manitoba and around Canora or west
of Canora would be prop would be better,
but it's very expensive in that area, I
realize. But we'd like a site that's
treed in some level of privacy. You
know, we don't want just an open pad.
We'd like a site, our own little like
getaway near a lake.
We'll see. We'll just keep our eyes
open. You know,
something's going on up here. I don't
know if there was an accident, but I
think they just closed the highway
or they're just
cleaning up an accident. I don't know.
But there's a cop
right there coming up to talk to that
driver, that truck there.
Oh man,
I don't have too much time to wait here.
Hopefully this will just be short.
I'm not sure what is going on, but I see
some debris on the road up ahead there.
It must have been something that got
hit.
Oh, they're talking about it right
beside me here.
This guy's hauling the portaotties on
this trailer right here. He didn't tie
him down properly and one flew off into
traffic by the sounds of it.
Whoops.
Always secure your load proper.
Yeah, there they are. They're walking
away over there. And this is the guy
here.
He lost the portaotti on the front. See
the straps laying down there?
So, he was explaining to the officer
there how he had it tied down.
Look at that. Even those back ones only
have one 2-in strap over each of them.
Trying not to be a judgmental flatbed
driver right now, but
holy smokes, bud. That's what happens.
Tie your load down, man. Tie it down
correctly.
Yeah, he lost one into traffic and
someone obviously it must have caused
damage. I can see the debris over there
on the road. They're starting to let
traffic through now. So maybe we'll see
more as we uh pass by. But yeah, that's
a big whoops. That's why we're always
adamant about tie your load down and
about 15 to 30 minutes down the road,
check your straps. Make sure
everything's tight. You don't want to
lose your load.
You don't want to be that guy. That's
embarrassing. And he's probably going to
get charged for that. I don't know what
the charges would be, but
It won't be pretty.
All right, we're moving. That was uh
only a 12minute closure. Not bad.
Got some firefighters over here.
See what happened. There's a damaged car
off to the right. There's the portaotti
off to the left that got destroyed.
Oh yeah,
dude.
Yeah.
Another car up here.
Oh, it took out some of that sign there,
too.
Yikes.
Oh man.
Such a perfect example of why it's so
important to tie down your freight
properly and stop and check on it.
Accidents happen. I get that. But
come on now. You don't want to be that
person. You don't want to be that
person. That guy's in a lot of trouble.
Look at all this traffic that he backed
up. He backed up the one artery that
connects east and west in Canada.
That's a lot of money right there. He
had the police called. Fire department.
They all showed up. It's a big deal.
It's a big deal.
Looks like nobody got hurt thankfully,
but there's damage to those vehicles.
It looked like it was an older couple
standing there. They may have been one
of the ones that was struck by it. So,
uh,
you know, that that probably scared
them.
Getting hit by a porta potty. Can you
imagine?
They just wanted to go to the lake. They
got hit by a flying toilet.
It's not very nice. All because somebody
didn't tie their load down properly. And
I know I keep saying that, but it's so
important. It's so important. If you
look at it and you think, "Ah, that
should hold. That's not good enough.
that should hold is not good enough. You
want to look at that and look at it from
all angles and be like, no matter what
happens, that is not going anywhere. You
want to give it the old slap of
approval. You know, that ain't going
nowhere.
If you have one single doubt in your
mind, should I add another strap? Yes.
Yes. Yes, you should. The answer is yes.
If you're looking at your load after you
tied it down, you're like, "Wow, that
kind of looks like overkill." You did it
right. Like, I don't think I need that
many straps. Said, "No one ever."
Put the extra straps on. Who cares what
other people say? Do you want to be that
guy? Like, he's I don't know what kind
of charges they're going to put on him,
but he's definitely going to be facing
some some problems.
Oh, man. I feel bad for him in a way. I
mean, it's his fault, but
just sucks seeing that. That's that's
the kind of stuff I deal with every day,
right? I'm always tying freight down.
That's our worst nightmare. Something
going wrong and something falling off
the truck and hitting somebody else,
hitting another vehicle, damaging other
people's property. That's
having all the traffic, everyone staring
at you, talking about you on YouTube.
That's the nightmare, right?
So, I feel for the guy. Like I I would
hate to be in that position, but I make
it my mission every day to not ever put
myself in that position. Just put the
extra strap on, guys. Come on. Put the
extra strap on there. Save yourself a
world of headache.
But anyways, yeah, we're just around the
corner right now. I'm still going to
make it on time.
We're cutting a little close now. I'm
supposed to be there before 3:00 and
we're going to be getting there at4 to 3
now. I wanted to be there at 2:30.
Actually, I wanted to be there earlier,
but my truck wouldn't start this
morning.
I left my coolers on in the truck over
the weekend and my batteries couldn't
handle it. Drained the batteries and so
I had to boost it. And what do you know?
I had the truck parked at home. I didn't
have my booster at home. I had to go to
my shop to get it. So, that was a big
old runaround, waste of time. But, I got
it running and here we are. And we're
going to make it.
Heat.
In 2 km, continue straight ahead.
I took all of these bugs on my
windshield with me over the border.
No time to get rid of them today.
This is International Falls. Those of
you who watch me know I'm always here.
It's almost like a second home already.
I'm just passing through.
Even the guys at the border recognize my
truck already.
Yes, it's this guy again. This weirdo
from Manitoba.
This weirdo. He's going down to
Minnesota again.
That's me.
I'm back.
I'll be back again. What? Tomorrow or
the day after? Day after. I think
I don't have a reload tomorrow. It's the
day after. I'm going to see if I can get
that bumped up to tomorrow, though. I
don't know. I don't know. I'll see what
happens.
Well, we made it back. Well, made it
down here late last night
and it's morning time now. I'm going to
get this freight off my trailer. There's
one big cube. I'm going to go up get
another one. And then after that, we're
heading down to northern Indiana. Pick
up a load there in a couple of days.
Bring that back up to Winnipeg. So, we
got a busy couple of days ahead of us.
But it's not a big rush, but it is, you
know, the normal rush. It's a rush. It's
not a rush rush rush. Sometimes
you got to run, run, run, run, run. And
other times it sort of works out that
you can sort of take your time. And I
don't want to say just take your time
cuz you never want to do that. You're
always in a rush. But I always say it's
nice when you can sort of breathe along
the way, right? I'm I'm not one of those
guys that likes to just like go go go
non-stop. I can do that for a while.
Like for a good long while I can do
that. But then, you know, after a while
I'm like, "Okay, all right. We need to
slow the wheels down here a little bit."
But I need money. That's the problem.
But I need money. So, we can't slow the
wheels down.
Maybe I'm just getting old. I mean, you
know, it's all these gray hairs. That's
what I'm talking about. Gray hairs. I'm
38 years old. Is this when gray hairs
usually start coming in?
I don't mind them. I wear them with
pride. These are mine. I'm a silver fox.
But uh maybe not. But this all just
happened in the last year. If I grew my
hair out long enough for you to see,
they'd probably be in my hair, too. It's
just crazy how quickly that happened.
All in the last year. It was a pretty
stressful year altogether. But I mean,
everybody's going through stress. It's
not just us. I guess it's just that
period of my life where I start uh
showing my age a little bit more, right?
I got a long way to go in life yet. I'm
guessing one day I'll be completely all
white, maybe. My dad doesn't have
completely all white hair. He's got a
lot of white in his beard and hair, but
not it's not like completely white like
some people. But
I don't know. Off topic. Doesn't matter.
I don't care about this.
It's all right. I'll uh I just got to
keep it trimmed and uh wear them with
pride. Right.
Let's go deliver this freight. Sorry,
I'm just waking myself up. I haven't had
a coffee yet in my defense.
No coffee.
But I'm going to go deliver this freight
first without coffee because I'm going
to use the uh physical activity to wake
me up and then I'm going to have my
first coffee as I leave and drive back
towards Canora. That'll be nice. It's
something to look forward to.
All right.
I think we're all ready to go.
I did the whole pre-trip here. I got to
deliver like just right over here.
just got to roll into their yard. And
hopefully there's no lineup. I can't see
the dock from here or the back area
where they would have all the trucks.
This time of day,
it might be a bit of a lineup. It's
usually not too bad, but uh
we'll see. I mean, it is what it is,
right?
We'll go and check it out.
All right, I'm going to know in a second
what the lineup looks like.
If I'm lucky,
there will be no lineup.
Are you feeling lucky?
I don't know how I feel. Oh, that's a
van. Okay. I don't have to line up
behind the the vans. Sorry, there's a
I don't have to line up behind him cuz
I'm a flatbed.
Let's see. Is there any other flatbeds
back here?
Mhm. The docks are full, but we don't
need a dock.
Oh, there's nobody here.
Nice.
Nice. Nice and nice.
Oh, and there's nobody inside either.
Oh, I might be able to just go straight
in.
Oh, it's a lucky day. It's a lucky Oh,
no. There's the Brainer industrial guy.
That guy's going to want to go in front
of me. Ah, they have a local truck that
uh takes priority. He just pulled in
behind me. That's okay. I got to take my
tarps off anyway. He's going to roll
tight.
I'll just park back here cuz they're
going to want to let him go in.
I guarantee you. I guarantee you.
Ready for another one.
I'm up here in Cass Lake already. So, we
emptied Brainard. We're on our way back
up. I got a load tomorrow. Like I was
telling you earlier, I think I've
explained this all to you already.
Trying my mic up here. If you're
wondering what this fuzzy thing is here,
it's just my mic. It's just an easier
place to Looks a little funny though,
whatever. I don't care. I don't care.
It's just an easier place to hold it cuz
it keeps like falling off of my shirt or
I keep bumping it off up here. It just
seems I don't care. I don't care if it
looks weird. Whatever. Just explaining
that to you what that is. So, here we
are. Empty trailer. I left my tarps up
on my deck instead of putting it away in
my tool boxes because I'm going to need
them first thing tomorrow morning. So, I
didn't want to just easier to leave them
there. Work smarter, not harder, right?
We're going to get this load put on here
again. Pretty much identical to the one
I just brought down about 21 ft up high.
Two tarps. We'll tie it down. We'll tarp
it. Yeah, I'm gonna have to start
thinking about tires soon for this
truck. I mean, this trailer
probably 6 months or so. I think they're
doing pretty good still. These back ones
are doing much better cuz I never use
them. But they're there just in case.
Just in case. I want to get a lift axle
for the front yet, too, so that the
front lifts up. Just then I have to put
my hawometer in the center axle just so
that when I'm empty like this, I can
lift both and just run on the center.
Save these tires as much as possible,
too.
The hub odometer says 116,224
km.
Been around the block a few times
already. Can you believe it? It feels
like I just bought this thing. I haven't
even had it for a year yet.
I've had it for what? 6 months.
November, November, December, January,
February, March, April, May, June, July.
Okay, so I've had it for 9 months.
Not bad. I like it. Anyways guys, thanks
for joining me today. Thanks for hanging
out with me. I always appreciate when
you tune into my videos and when you
click on them. Please give the thumbs up
if you like my videos and I'll see you
right here tomorrow as we head up to
Canora again.