Yellowknife, NWT – Ice Pilots NWT’s sixth season will also be its last.
Show star and Buffalo Airways general manager Mikey McBryan confirmed the news to Moose FM on Monday – while offering an unlikely comparison with another TV classic.
“It’s hugely emotional,” said McBryan by phone from Calgary. “It’s just like a relationship, Ice Pilots is like a person to me.
“It’s huge to move on from it – but you never move on from it. Imagine the cast of Saved by the Bell, they’ll live with it for the rest of their lives. It’s not quite saying goodbye, it’s something that’ll always be a part of me.”
Asked to clarify which Saved by the Bell cast member he most closely represents, McBryan immediately answered: “Oh, 100% Zack Morris, man.”
Since first airing in 2009, Ice Pilots NWT has been broadcast worldwide as it follows the fortunes of Yellowknife-based airline Buffalo Airways.
“I’ve lived with Ice Pilots for the past six years, every day it’s been part of my life – working on such a huge project, getting to share it with the world,” said McBryan.
“It being successful has been amazing, but everything good must come to an end at some point.
“There are hundreds and hundreds of people involved – it’s not just Buffalo Airways, it’s behind-the-scenes production companies, networks and stuff like that. With all the craziness of that, even lasting six seasons in Canadian television is amazing.
“Ultimately, it came down to the simple fact that we want to end it on a high point.”
McBryan says that high point will come with the series’ finale, which features a parachute jump in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of D-Day. “I’m not allowed to say too much about it, but it’s probably one of the scariest things I’ve ever done in my life.”
The sixth season is also “the coldest” in the show’s history, according to McBryan, as it documents operations during the unusually cold winter of 2013-14 in the Northwest Territories, including an ice storm of unprecedented size in Hay River.
The season debuts on History TV from 8pm MST on October 29. Read more in Shaw Media’s press release.
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