SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Ice Road Truckers is a brash character-driven reality show set on the NWT ice roads. Yellowknife's Alex Debogorski is the brash character who drives it.

Alex Debogorski sits on the fender of a 1952 U.S. military Mack truck that used to operate on the DEW line. The ice road trucker and reality TV star is restoring vintage vehicles in his junk yard in Kam Lake, including a historic 1937 Pontiac that lived almost all its life in Yellowknife, a 1962 Cadillac with tall sharp fins, a sleek black 1963 Parisienne, a 1975 fire engine that served in Inuvik and Dettah and a two-tone 1958 Pathfinder that needs some body work. - Daron Letts/NNSL photo

"You never know what will end up on your plate," said the reality TV star. "I didn't expect this to happen. I was basically just doing my job. I guess the biggest reason it did happen is because I'm a character."

After the hit show's season two finale airs on the History Channel in the U.S. in a couple of weeks, the series will be syndicated in 22 countries from Israel to Thailand.

"There's actors who spend their life developing their character," Debogorski said.

"Well, individuals should be developing their character. My character developed because that's how I've worked at it, I guess.

"I have no television in the house. I've argued all my life.

"If I've got an opinion and you've got an opinion, the chances are you're not going to change my opinion and I'm going to follow my opinion.

"Unless you can prove that I'm wrong, I'm right.

"As I got older and older I realize that most people are wrong so I guess I must be right."

Next month Debogorski plans to discuss season three with representatives from Original Productions, the production company responsible for the show.

The producers are familiar with Debogorski's strong character development.

"They decided I had a bad attitude because we had a run-in," he said, referring to a promotional shoot staged in rural Ontario following the end of the first season.

"I just didn't feel we were getting paid for what we were doing. I expressed my feelings about not being loved to 'em and I think they were a little surprised. I was pretty loud and boisterous and not politically-correct in my wording.

"They ended up giving us more money but I don't think they were very happy about it."

That dispute is just water under the ice now.

Debogorski and his son Curtis travelled to Los Angeles earlier this summer to continue communication with the producers and to assuage any concerns they may have had about his health.

In March, during filming of episode nine of the current season, Debogorski was medevaced from Inuvik to Stanton Hospital for atrial fibrillation.

"That wasn't great because it impacted my income because they didn't want to pay me after," he said.

Seven years ago, at age 48, Debogorski discovered he had hypothyroidism following open heart surgery to repair a bad valve.

He upped his dosage of medication during filming of the series last winter to clear up his itchy back, an annoying symptom of the condition, and that resulted in his irregular heartbeat.

"My heart was going 135 and I was making blood clots and putting them in my lungs," he said. "I was short of breath. I worked like that for a month and then I started coughing up a little bit of blood."

He spent ten days in Stanton Hospital in March and that ended his TV appearances for the season.

The melodramatic episode in which physicians shipped Debogorski off to hospital aired a few weeks ago, months after he'd been discharged.

All over the internet bloggers began fretting about the trucker's health.

"We had 125 e-mails the next day," Debogorski said.

The incident didn't put Debogorski's television career on ice, or rather, it won't take him off the ice in 2009.

Details of next year's shoot are not worked out, yet, but Debogorski said there is talk about setting the show on the Dalton Highway between Fairbanks and Prudhoe Bay.

"It's basically something like the Ingraham Trail but gravel and it goes for 500 miles," he said.

"It's a pretty skinny, steep challenge, but it's not ice. They want us on the ice roads because that's what really interests people.

"I'm not sure if they even know themselves (where season three will be set). They seem to operate on a really shoe-string budget and they really don't seem to know what they'll be doing a month from now."

Even after his premature departure from the second season of the show, fans around the world are keeping tabs on Debogorski.

He receives e-mails and phone calls every week.

One recent e-mail suggested he should become a U.S. citizen and run for president.

On Monday, the host of an online talk radio blog out of Atlanta, The Georgia Road Geek, ended a half-hour interview with Debogorski by frantically exclaiming "In your face Barbara Walters - I got Alex Debogorski."

Often fans will seek out their hard-working hero in person.

A couple of pilots from Florida who flew some businessmen up to Plumber's Lodge on a charter flight last week stopped by Debogorski's lot for a handshake, a photo and an autograph while they waited to fly their passengers home.

"People really connect with the show and they think it's real," he said. "Some people feel touched by it and it actually makes their own lives more bearable, for whatever reason. It's a big deal for 'em. I have my miserable days, too, but if you can give somebody a perk just because you're you, well, that's great."

While many of his co-stars toured the NASCAR circuit in the U.S. on promotional junkets this summer, Debogorski opted to remain in Yellowknife.

The promoters weren't paying enough to make the journey worthwhile, he said.

"Somebody must be making a dollar off (the show), that's for sure," he said. "I don't know who."