Tuktoyaktuk (Jan 08/07) - It might seem like a peculiar 'fantasy' to someone who lives here, but Joachim Hilmerich always wanted to drive on an ice road.

Thanks to Germany's public broadcaster, the German treasury worker finally got that chance.

Merven Gruben of E. Gruben's Transport let visitor Joachim Hilmerich use one of the company's ice graders. He was also interviewed by a German radio host for an audience of about 900,000. - Philippe Morin/NNSL photo

As part of a contest called "Winter Dreams," hosted by the country's public broadcaster, Hilmerich was offered a trip anywhere in the world to do something unusual.

He chose to visit Tuktoyaktuk and help build an ice road, after seeing a documentary about Tuk on German TV.

He even recognized Merven Gruben from the film.

"I've always been interested in transport and trucking," Hilmerich said, adding his family also owns a transport company.

"At first, I did not believe such a thing was possible."Fabian Raphael, who is a host of Germany's publicly-funded WDR2 radio station, said Hilmerich's request was definitely unique.

However, he said it was also quite interesting, because few Germans have ever seen ice roads.

"Our listeners can wish for whatever they want," he said, adding he'd previously accompanied a woman to India to harvest her own tea and another man to Africa, to shovel hot sand instead of snow.

Since WDR2 is among Germany's largest broadcasters, Fabian said more than 900,000 people might have been listening on Dec. 18. During a live broadcast in German, Hilmerich described his trip to German listeners.

"This is fantastic!" he said, adding "It is cold here."

Across the airwaves in Germany, these words were probably heard by more people than the entire population of the NWT, multiplied 20 times over.