INTERVIEW: Lisa Kelly from ‘Ice Road Truckers’ on finding her ‘me’ time

Lisa Kelly, star of History Channel’s Ice Road Truckers, has been driving her way into the heart of a cutthroat industry where the open road provides money and a license for independence. On the edge of the world, along the Arctic Circle, Kelly and her fellow truckers on the reality series make their way north of Fairbanks, Alaska. Treacherous, remote, solitude — all words experienced before lunchtime.

For Kelly, who returns to IRT after a one-year hiatus, watching the series has less to do with her celebrity status in the industry and more to do with remembering the good times with “cool people.”

“I watched the first season pretty vaguely, and I haven’t really seen it since then,” Kelly said recently on a phone interview. “It’s not really the watching myself on TV that I enjoy, it’s just hanging out with cool people, and making friends, and traveling around, and driving different trucks and just having the experience that I enjoy so much. And it’s really cool too when you get those inspirational stories that they’re like, ‘Oh, you inspired me to do this and that, and this and that.’ It’s like really cool that you can make a difference in someone’s life, you know. That’s what’s really neat about it.”

She receives feedback on her inspiration as a woman in a largely male-dominated industry. Whether on fanpages or Twitter, the audience has grown to enjoy Kelly’s presence on the show. “And they say, ‘Oh, if Lisa can do it, I can back this thing, or I can go get my CDL [commercial driver’s license] or something.’ And that’s just really cool to hear, and I hear it from men and women alike.”

The trucker found herself in the industry not by chance but simply as the end result of some wandering. She didn’t know what to do with her life at a young age, so she tried different jobs, including a stint at a gas station. After some trial and error, she settled on trucking. She said there are many perks to the job: working in pajamas, listening to music all day, the wonderful views, time to think, podcasts, books on tape.

“It’s me time,” she said.

Not everything is beautiful or easy. The dangers of the open road in Alaska are real. “In the winter time, it’s slippery,” Kelly said. “Nobody tells us what to do, and everything you see that happens, happens. The parts that you don’t see are the boring parts because you wouldn’t want to watch that on TV. I mean there’s a lot of miles in between, and we do a lot of sleeping on our time off and stuff. But if they put that in, that would be so stinking boring.”

She characterized trucking as a “different kind of lifestyle.” If it’s not in a driver’s blood, it might be difficult to stick with the profession. Kelly said she looks at her colleagues on the road as a “family.” “We all stop and help each other, so it’s a family that way. But for the most part I just keep to myself. I mean you can get into the politics, and you can do that, or you can just stay out of it and do your job. But you still have that, you know, family obligation to help someone when they’re stuck or something because then you want to be helped when you’re stuck.”

Keeping to oneself can be difficult with a camera crew, but Kelly said she’s grown used to the friendship of the production staff. “When, of course, things are going bad, that’s when you wish they weren’t around,” she said. “But when things are going good, you know, it helps having someone to talk to and hang out with and be friends with. It just makes the ride more interesting. It definitely takes away from that me time, but that’s why we only film a couple of months a year. I’ve got all summer to be alone.”

The constant filming can take its toll. Last year, she took off a season to rest. As she put it, the show was becoming crazy and hectic. In addition to her IRT duties, she also filmed Ice Road Truckers: Deadliest Roads. As a solitary trucker, she wanted to drive, do her job, go home, sit on the couch and watch TV like a normal person. After one year away from the cameras, she’s back, ready to go again.

Kelly said she’s the type of person who one day may move on to another profession that interests her. She may continue to be a trailblazer. “I think there’s a lot of jobs like that where, you know, a man trying to be a hairdresser or a woman trying to drive a truck or whatever it may be … You’ve got to kind of prove that you can do it. And it’s not all about proving that you can do it. You know you’ve got to show the guys that you can hang with them, otherwise, you know, you’re not really fit to do the job.”

At this point, Kelly said her “proving” days are over. She’s either won people over with her trucking skills, or she’ll never convince them. “I’m not trying to impress anybody,” she added. “It won’t work.”

Fitting in with the trucking industry has been a challenge Kelly has seemingly enjoyed … but perhaps not as much as enjoying those off days with family and friends.

“I have a very, very, very small group of friends, probably for that reason that I’m gone all the time,” she said. “Other than that, all the family and friends that I have now have only known me since I’ve driven trucks. So that’s all they really know, and they know I’ve got to work just like everybody else. So when I’m home, we play hard. When I’m gone, they just wait, I guess, or play hard without me and make me wish I was home.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• New episodes of Ice Road Truckers air on Sundays at 10 p.m. on History Channel.