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In this documentary from the BBC World Service, we travel alongside long-haul truck drivers.

These workers are often seen as symbols of freedom and independence.

But how free is life on the road today when the watchful eye of the system is always upon them.

I am Ellie Salo and this is the last cowboys.

Finnish truck driver, Tia Rajala, has dreamed of the open road since childhood.

As we follow her across Europe, she masters her powerful machine and reflects on the stereotype surrounding truckers.

And what they reveal about masculinity, class and identity. I think I was five or six.

I think I was five or six. We are driving from my home

towards the lake to the ice road

I had to see whiteness, sun, sparkling snow.

Some islands, even as a hint from the other shoreline and the forests over there.

Ice everywhere.

The roads are made for mainly to get the logs out of the islands in the lakes because there is a lot of forests and it's thick ice.

It's like, well, it needs to be thick to carry us with a car.

I'm sitting on the side of my dad on the passenger seat

and then he just gets me on his lap

and tells me to steer

and uses the gas and the brakes and clutch and gear

and stuff like that.

I remember the feeling of like the weird feeling of freedom.

I'm doing like in a child's mind massive thing.

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