How to Move Freight Across the Icy Roads of Alaska

Odd Lots

Bloomberg

News, Investing, Business, News Commentary, Business News

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 13 August 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We're interested in trucking here at Odd Lots. It's one of those industries that can tell us a lot about the economy, both in terms of the short-term cycle, and also long-term structural trends. Of course, we know that the industry is prone to big boom and bust cycles. And Alaska itself -- driven so much by oil and natural resource extraction -- is also known for its boom and bust cycles. So on our trip there, we spoke with Josh Norum, the CEO of Sourdough Express, an Alaska based trucking company that's been around for over a century. We talked about how the business works, the history of the company, the current economic environment, tariffs, and the unique challenge (and opportunity) of moving freight in America's northernmost state.

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1:19.4	Music Radio News. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe Wisenthall.
1:24.2	And I'm Tracy Allaway.
1:25.5	So, Tracy, we're here in Alaska. We're still here in Alaska.
2:01.0	We are. It's beautiful. It's stunning. And it's bright. It stays light until like 11 p.m. It's so bright. I couldn't believe it. It's amazing. Alaska in August. It's the best. It's already such a fascinating place to me. What iconic industries will we be talking about while we're in Alaska, Joe? Well, there's many industries that we've hit over and over. Obviously, we like to talk to people in the trucking industry for all kinds of reasons, but also, like, one of the things that I'm aware of is that Alaska has its own distinct trucking culture. I think there was a reality TV show about it, right? Ice Road Truckers? Yeah, right? Wasn't that based here? Yes.
2:05.9	I have questions about how realistic that actually is, but you are absolutely right that trucking in Alaska is the sort of well-known thing, maybe because of the reality TV show.
2:11.0	But when you think about trucking in Alaska, you think like these crazy, like, mud-riddled
2:16.0	roads and people having to cart these, like, huge payloads of, I don't know.
2:20.5	I heard it was mostly dirt in the summertime because people are doing a lot of road construction,
	...

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