I don't know about you, but over the past months I've acquired a newfound obsession with our once-quiet neighbors to the north. I've wasted countless hours watching YouTube videos of MP (Member of Parliament) Candice Bergen excoriating PM (Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau in the House of Commons. (Never really knew what all these letters stood for until things got interesting up there.) Literal days' worth, too, consuming all things Jordan Peterson, including his erudite commentary on the Canadian convoy.
[Related: On the 'Freedom Convoy' protests, with Canadian cross-border owner-operator Mike Murchison]
But among the most interesting voices on it all emerged within the trucking community itself to help me gain some perspective -- that of Gord Magill. A few weeks ago, readers who watch Fox News may have chanced upon Laura Ingraham's interview with the third-generation Canadian trucker and ice road veteran. In recent weeks, three of Magill's essays on the "Freedom Convoy" to our north were published in Newsweek, which landed him invitations to be a commentator on multiple platforms.
I wanted to know who he was as a trucker, long before his newly-minted micro-celebrity status was conferred. During one of our pre-interview conversations, I told him it seemed to me he had become the de facto spokesman for the Canadian convoy protests. Magill, the father of two daughters who now resides in Upstate New York with his American wife, Jenna, guffawed.
"That's a distinction I would run from with my hair on fire!" he said. "Let's just say I'm one of their biggest cheerleaders."
I caught up by phone with him a few days after he got back from Ottawa. For someone who has been jamming gears since high school, this cat is no average truck driver.
Gord Magill
Occupation: Log hauler
Age: 43
CB handle: Gordo
Past Jobs: Ice road trucker, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories; Road train driver, Australia; Log hauler, New Zealand; Ice delivery man, Burning Man
