JUNE 2010 TRUCKER TALK
NORTH TO ALASKA
BY WRITER & DRIVER KIM GRIMM
Carla Tyree is a lady who has led a very interesting life. Carla is one of the only women hauling oversize loads up to Alaska. Although her first career was in medicine, she got discouraged and started trucking. Back in the day, her father had hauled cattle, and after she made her career change, he didn’t speak to her for a couple months. Today, after some 25 years, she is living her dream, running into Alaska on a regular basis from the lower 48 states. Carla’s son Price Rowe Moore recently sent the magazine an e-mail, telling us about his mom, and we thought that her story was worth looking into.
It only took a few minutes chatting with Price to agree that Carla’s story was well worth telling. I’m only sorry that it is a month too late for Mother’s Day. While Price and I were talking, he told me that one year he actually got his mom a Father’s Day card because she was always there for him – as a mom and as a dad. When I first talked with Carla, she told me that she was humbled by me wanting to write out her story. Well, I would like to tell her that I am honored to be able to do it!
Carla’s oldest son Paul Gleeson is a truck broker in Ashland, Oregon, and Price owns his own truck. Price is leased to the same company his mom is leased to – Watt & Stewart out of San Angelo, Texas. He pulls their trailer and just runs in the lower 48, but would like to go to Alaska with his mom one day. Talking with Carla on the phone while she sat on an overpass in Montana was like taking a little trip of my own down memory lane – we have several things in common and are both looking forward to meeting one day.
Discussing some of the challenges women faced 20+ years ago, we could definitely relate to each other’s story. It’s one thing to be dad driving a truck, but another thing completely being mom. Although much of our stories are similar, there is one big difference – she started out in medicine, and worked her way up to the Head of the Cardio Pulmonary Department at the Alisal Health Center in Salinas, California. Eventually, she became discouraged with medicine, and after one of her patient’s had cardiac surgery and could no longer drive his truck, they worked out a deal for her to buy it.
In its first life, this truck had been a Safeway Bakery daycab cabover Pete with a 250 Cummins. Carla secured a contract with Trans Am and hired an old line operator to drive it. The next month, she got her permit and then paid her driver while she did most of the loading, unloading and driving for a month. When she finally went to take the test to get her license, she passed it with a score of 100%! After that, she began hauling containers from Salinas to Richmond, California. Even then, the guys would help her by dropping her trailers under the light to make it a little safer for her to hook-up late at night.
After spending time in Rancho Cordova, California, Gordon Samelson swept her off her feet. The two got married and then she and her two boys moved to Tulare, South Dakota. Carla gives Gordon a lot of credit for teaching her about hauling produce, running hard and hauling cross-country. Gordon owns Charity Wagon Trucking based out of Huron, South Dakota. Five years later they split up and she moved on to Prescott, Arizona, where she began hauling produce for Claire Bender.
Carla’s next move was to Texas, where she bought an old Kenworth for $6,000 and an end dump, so she could haul dirt. Price was along on her first load, and she had no idea how to dump the trailer. Asking another driver for help, he stood on the running board and told her how to dump the load. Price can remember thinking, “This isn’t how trailers should be unloaded!”
Over time, she bought five trucks and leased five more, which pulled end dumps, belly dumps, flatbed trailers and reefers. Some drivers wanted to just haul dirt, but when it got slow, the others could haul hay on their flatbeds or pull a reefer. The kids were in school, and Carla was able to run all of the other trucks using her cellular phone while driving her truck. Later, she decided to sell all the trucks and move to Sutherlin, Oregon, where she took an office job at Cliff Smalley Trucking. But, still really loving trucks, she always kept an eye on the rigs coming and going through the company’s gate.
When she couldn’t stay in an office anymore, Carla called Watt & Stewart in San Angelo, Texas, and they told her to come on down. She drove one of their company trucks for eight months before becoming an owner operator again. I was pretty impressed when I visited their website (there are not a lot of companies left out there with their kind of philosophy). I then talked with one of the owners, Neil Watt, in Claresholm, Alberta (the company’s main terminal is located up there in Western Canada). I asked Neil if he had any other women driving for the company and he told me that there was a husband-and-wife team, but that was it. Neil told me that they are cautious about hiring woman drivers because of the strenuous work required, but, obviously, Carla is one of the few who can handle it.
Here is where she got to fulfill her childhood dream of going to Alaska. About three years ago, Carla started hauling huge tires to the gold mines in Alaska. At first, people warned her, saying things like, “You don’t want to go there,” and, “It will be too hard for you,” but Carla didn’t listen. And once she went, she kept going back. Last year, Carla took about ten loads of tires (that range from 10’ to 13’ in diameter) to Alaska. The tires, which are for the huge dump trucks that work at the mines, come out of the Michelin tire plant in Lexington, South Carolina, and go to the mining towns north of Fairbanks. The trips, which are over 4,300 miles each way, take up to two weeks to complete. But Carla loves it, saying, “The people are polite and the views are awesome!” Colleen at H & H Smith always makes sure her paperwork is done right, and the escorts she uses up there are real good, too.
In the summer, along with all of the wildlife, there are plenty of motor homes to watch out for along the way. The drivers of these RVs often just stop in the middle of a two-lane road to take pictures of the caribou, bears, bison, moose and mountain goats (or the truck with the oversize load of tires parked behind them, waiting for them to move). In the winter, Mother Nature humbles you up there. The drivers in Alaska still operate the way they did 30 years ago by looking out for each other and helping each other chain-up. Most of the drivers use VH radios, with about a 24 mile range, to stay in touch.
In Canada, they have a high-grade diesel fuel for the winter months, and in all the years Carla has been going up there, even when it gets down to 60 degrees below zero, she has never gelled up. Stopping at the terminal in Alberta, Doug and Wally go over her truck and belly wrap (insulate) everything on the engine. There aren’t truck stops every 20 or 30 miles when you get into that neighborhood, so your equipment has to be ready for the extreme conditions. Carla says that she would rather run up north in the winter because the rivers freeze and because they take better care of the roads then.
On her way to Alaska, Carla always tries to stop at the Muncho Lake Café in Muncho Lake, just south of the Yukon Territory in northern British Columbia. Ed, the owner, looks out for the drivers and still bakes his own bread every morning. If you are a tourist there, you will wait for the truckers to be served. With only three tables, everyone shares. In the winter, he has the radio on so that the drivers can listen to the snow plows and know when the road is clear and open before heading out towards the Yukon. Ed always knows what all the drivers are doing, and he helps them to look out for each other. Looking out for each other is the way it is up there.
One of Carla’s backhauls out of Alaska is the tires that she hauled up new. Once they have been used, the tires are hauled back to the states where ranchers across the west cut them in half and use them as troughs for the horses and cattle. She said it’s pretty funny to see four cowboys ride up on their horses, look at the load on her trailer and ask, “How are we going to get them off?” Since most big ranches have a hay squeeze or equivalent, they use it to push the tires off the trailer, hoping that they don’t bounce back and bang-up the truck or trailer.
Carla drives a tan-colored Peterbilt with maroon fenders. The truck has the typical Watt & Stewart specs, and, along with the trailer, has an empty weight of about 26,500 pounds. The company, Watt & Stewart, is very customer-oriented and driver-friendly (you are not a number – you are a person). Although Carla and Price own a home in Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee, home is usually her Peterbilt. Price said that his mom keeps her “toys” – a cool 50th Anniversary Corvette and a Harley Davidson Sportster – in storage in St. Angelo, Texas, and every few months she gets to take them out and play.
Naturally, we talked a lot about being a lady and driving a truck. Carla gets up and puts on her makeup every morning, and even though she’s not going to the hospital to work, she is still a woman (she still prefers a little black dress and pumps over steel-toed boots, a hard hat and coveralls). Carla is very fit and tan from the “workouts” she gets loading, unloading and tarping. One day, while wearing a dress, a woman looked at her and said, “You must go to the spa at least two or three times a week to look like that!” Carla just laughed, knowing that her “spa” is her work. When I asked her how old she is, she proudly told me that she would be turning 60 on November 21st, and that she can still fit into a 31” waist pair of Wrangler jeans!
Carla wanted to thank everyone who has helped her, whether through encouragement or guidance, over the years. There are too many names to mention, but she wanted each of them to know how much she appreciates their love and support. Every time Price tells his mom to be safe, she always comes back with the same answer – “Always.” I hope all of her driving trips are always safe. I can’t wait to finally meet Carla Tyree face-to-face and talk more about her exciting trips to the north!