A Peace Country filmmaker is set to begin shooting a short documentary titled “Ice and Iron,” in Grande Prairie after a $20,000 funding boost from TELUS Storyhive Editions.
Darryl Haugen was born and raised in the Peace Country and has been a filmmaker since 2016. She says Ice & Iron will examine the long-standing tradition of the Numb Bum 24-hour Endurance Ice Race that has taken place for decades in the Grande Prairie region.
“My husband is a motorcycle enthusiast and his dad actually raced in the early races in the eighties,” she says. “It was always a dream of ours to do a documentary on this and coincidentally enough last year, we were working on another documentary and we found out it was coming back to Grande Prairie so it kind of worked out for us,”
According to Haugen, the race is returning to home ice in February 2024 on Clairmont Lake with the Wapiti Off-Road Association hosting. She explains the main contest for motorcycles runs 24 hours straight, with numerous subcategories for audiences to marvel at.
“You typically have a team of say five, so you can split the day up so you can continuously race for 24 hours out on Clairmont Lake and only stop for fuel and mechanical issues.”
Haugen adds that this year’s race is special for her family as it will be the first time her husband competes, with the race taking place in their hometown.
“I really want to focus on the community aspect of it,” she says. “One of the biggest things I want to focus on is the Peace Country landscape and one of the things that I do enjoy about it is this event really brings people out together during the cold winter months.”
Production on the documentary started in Fall 2023, and is scheduled to wrap after the event on February 17th, and TELUS says the show is scheduled to be available for audiences in 2025.