There is beauty in big rigs, grace in grease, glory in hard work. And all these things are on display in Daniel Francis’ gorgeous hardcover book Trucking in British Columbia, which is a stunning read for truckers and anyone who appreciates striking visuals.
The book is anchored in amazing photographs but it also has lots of history to dive into. Going back in time over the past century, it looks at issues relating to working conditions, changes in technology in the trucking business, and the harsh yet beautiful landscape of British Columbia as seen by the eyes of truckers (the mountains and river valleys of BC conspire to make the province one of North America’s toughest regions for truck driving).
And truckers aren’t just the dudes who bring your… well, everything to the grocery store. They’re the backbone of one of the biggest industries in BC. It’s a $2-billion business with over 20,000 companies and over 50,000 trucks, as the foreword to the book points out. This is no small beans.
And neither are the weather conditions in Canada. Some of the photos literally made my heart race a bit, considering I get frazzled navigating a mall parking lot: windy, wet roads being explored by huge trucks is enough to make anyone’s blood pressure spike. Photos of accidents could make the biggest lumberjack have a moment contemplating mortality, while the shots of the logging trucks carrying trees are amazingly Canadian and, well, just plain amazing (the old shot of a custom-made truck transporting one looong tree down a quiet Vancouver road with a police car leading the way is both quaint and intense).
While the book’s words are gripping, it’s the photos that steal the show. Any of the number of full-page or double-page shots of trucks cruising through mountains, windy logging roads, or urban areas (I just drool over those big bridge shots) are amazing, and say so much about Canada. Really, this is the purest vision of Canadian identity that I’ve seen all year.
And the poem from trucker Charlie Docherty that’s reprinted in this book is incredibly moving, which makes sense: the man never got famous as a poet (he never got famous for anything) but quietly wrote words that could move mountains, just like the truckers featured in this book quietly work away holding up the backbone of this country while asking for no fame.