Long-haul trucker Josh Giesbrecht lives a strange and solitary life, spending weeks on the road at a time while hauling cargo from point A to point B, covering vast distances on seemingly endless stretches of pavement. The 27-year-old native of Manitoba, Canada documents his trials and tribulations on YouTube, showing off his adorable dogs (Diesel and Sergeant) and his long and lonely hours on the road. Giesbrecht spoke with us via Skype from somewhere in the middle of North Dakota while en route to Iowa. He couldn't talk about what he was delivering — oddly, that's verboten — but he was happy to discuss getting paid by the mile, why Canadian fuel is superior to the stuff sold in the United States, and how not to plunge over an icy cliff in the depths of winter.

I entered the industry in the way many do: with a sense of complete personal abandon and lack of direction. No one enters out of high school, because they can't, so everyone goes in because something else didn't work out. Layoffs, breakups, and prison stints are popular notes of inspiration. I graduated journalism school tens of thousands in debt, and I needed fast cash with minimum expenditures. Craigslist, I noticed, was overrun with trucking companies making desperate pleas. So I spent three grand, earned a commercial driver's license at a community college, and applied to nine trucking jobs. ... The American Trucking Association famously claims that the trucking industry is forty-eight thousand drivers short of demand. Then again, there are 1.7 million large truck drivers, which makes the shortage sound less impressive. What is impressive is the industry's 87 percent turnover rate. The average driver age is in the upper forties. Poaching is rampant, and companies are constantly trying to replace drivers as fast as they're leaving. ... The day after applying, seven companies hired me.

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In recent years, nut theft has ­exploded into a statewide problem. More than 35 loads, worth at least $10 million, have gone missing since 2013. The number and style of the thefts—quick and professional, as if the characters from Ocean’s Eleven had descended on the Central Valley—have drawn the attention of federal organized-crime investigators and prompted the creation of a regional task force. ... California grows the majority of the world’s almonds and is the second-largest producer of pistachios and walnuts. Many environmentalists blame their cultivation for exacerbating California’s drought—nut trees are thirsty plants. ... The man tasked with finding missing nuts in Tulare County is sheriff Mike Boudreaux, and in 2015 he faced a growing problem. That year, thieves had stolen six shipments, valued at $1.6 million, from area processors ... food and beverages overtook electronics as the most commonly stolen cargo in 2010. ... food is the easiest target in an ocean of easy targets. A private investigator and transit-company owner from California named Sam Wadhwani said that he had tracked cargo thefts of tires, Xboxes, computer equipment earmarked for the military, baby formula, tampons, and iPhones. Inventing a fake trucking company is easy, he said, as is impersonating a legitimate one. The only people in the shipping industry responsible for verifying truckers are brokers, who connect customers with trucking companies. ... the situation is further complicated by the fact that many nut processors have avoided contacting the police, worried that reporting thefts could jeopardize future business.