Tow Canada Magazine

10/31/2026

Cary Quiring Grew Up in the Towing Business. So When Did It Actually Become His?

Cary Quiring never had to discover the towing business. He grew up inside it. But Highway Thru Hell has quietly shown that being raised around heavy wreckers and being trusted to carry the family name are two very different things.

Back in 2018, the show still introduced Cary largely through Al — the 24-year-old son of Al Quiring suddenly thrown into a dire situation during a multi-vehicle crash. It was the kind of call where growing up around the equipment could only prepare him so far. At some point, the decisions had to become his.

And the show gradually stopped treating that as a one-time test. By 2022, Cary was being put under pressure to control a hazardous situation and get the highway cleared. He was no longer simply the younger Quiring learning beside the established one. The responsibility itself was beginning to identify him.

That progression became almost strangely ordinary in the 2026 season. Cary says his dad wanted a day off from towing and had him take Big Green instead. There was no dramatic ceremony announcing that a generation had changed. Al took a day off. Cary took the wrecker and went to work.

Even more telling was where that work took him: to Jamie Davis, whose family had competed with the Quirings for decades. Cary acknowledged that history — “Our families have been competition since birth.” Yet instead of protecting an old rivalry, he worked alongside Jamie to solve the job and openly appreciated the help.

Maybe that answers the question. Cary did not truly inherit the Quiring name simply because he grew up in Al’s truck. He began making it his own when the cameras could show Al stepping away, Cary taking the keys, and the work continuing without needing his father beside him.

10/31/2026

Ken Duperon Spent His Life Running Toward Other People’s Emergencies. What Happened When His Own Body Forced Him to Stop?

Ken Duperon was barely a teenager when towing became part of his working life. He started at 13 in the family business, back when Mission Towing was connected to a Texaco station, an auto-wrecking operation and a body shop. The company itself stretched back another generation, to the business his grandfather Ambrose began in 1953. By adulthood, Ken wasn’t simply working around tow trucks anymore — he was helping carry a family operation that eventually grew to a fleet of roughly two dozen trucks.

That history makes one of his Highway Thru Hell storylines feel very different from an ordinary recovery.

During Season 8, Ken suffered a heart attack. At 63, the man who had spent decades being called when somebody else was in trouble suddenly had to step away while his son-in-law and lead driver Dylan Greenwood took on more responsibility at Mission Towing.

For someone whose working life had begun at 13, stopping was not just about leaving a truck parked.

The show eventually followed Ken back. Season 9’s “Jailhouse Wreck” was specifically built around his first job after the heart attack. Roughly a year after being forced out of the driver’s seat, he was behind the wheel again.

And that return says something about why Ken’s story has lasted beyond the individual wrecks. Mission Towing had already survived major disruption before. A fire had destroyed the company’s autobody operation years earlier, yet the Duperons continued with towing. Later, Highway Thru Hell would even show Ken racing back toward the Mission yard when black smoke appeared there again.

That is the contradiction at the center of Ken Duperon.

For most of his life, trouble was something he drove toward because somebody needed him there. A heart attack briefly reversed those roles and forced other people to carry the weight.

But when Ken was physically able to return, he did.

Maybe that is why his first job back feels more revealing than any spectacular recovery. The trucks were never simply a career he picked up later in life. He had been doing this since he was 13. When something becomes that deeply connected to who you are, stepping away can be harder than any tow.

10/31/2026

In the towing and recovery industry, strength isn't just about the equipment we operate or the challenges we face.
It's about the people standing beside us through it all.

Long hours, difficult calls, and unpredictable days are part of the job. But no one should have to carry the weight of it all alone.

Sometimes the strongest thing we can do is check in, start a conversation, or simply remind someone that they've got a crew behind them.

We want to hear from you!
What's one thing your crew does to keep morale high and support each other during tough days?

At the end of the day, we're more than an industry.
We're a community.
We're stronger together.

10/31/2026

Protect your team and reduce roadside risk. Establish clear tow operator safety standards and fleet recovery protocols that shield your business from liability.

10/30/2026

Mark your calendars!

WHY WE DO IT????
The Tow Truck Toy Run that is ;)

For us, the annual Toy Run has always been about more than just tow trucks.

It's about bringing our community together, giving back, and helping make Christmas a little brighter for local families who may be going through a difficult time.

Every year, we're reminded of just how generous our community is. From the drivers who show up with their trucks to the families, businesses, and volunteers who contribute, everyone plays a part in making this event possible.

We're proud to continue this tradition alongside the Salvation Army and other affiliates and we look forward to seeing everyone come together again this year.

December 12, 2026 11:00am - 4:00pm
Cascade Community Church, 31590 Delair Road, Abbotsford, B.C.

Because at the end of the day, it's not about the trucks. It's about what we can accomplish together for our community!

Comment below will you be there??? let us know!!!

10/30/2026

10/30/2026

Our condolences to Bill’s family and community.

10/29/2026

Colin McLean Kept Walking Away From Heavy Rescue. So Why Did Jamie Davis Keep Trying to Bring Him Back?

Most workers who leave a job can eventually be replaced.

Colin McLean’s story on Highway Thru Hell suggests something more complicated.

When Colin first appeared with Jamie Davis’s Alberta operation, he was hardly presented as the finished product. He was a city driver from Vancouver entering the remote oil patch, where the cold could fall below -40 and the recoveries were far larger than what he was accustomed to. The show framed him as a rookie who still had to earn Adam Gazzola’s respect.

A few seasons later, the language around Colin had completely changed.

Discovery was calling him the man Jamie was “counting on… more than anyone.” Colin had left the company, then unexpectedly returned. By the following season he was Jamie’s lead driver on the Coquihalla, operating in conditions where one mistake with tens of thousands of pounds could turn a recovery into another accident.

Yet the show never really turned Colin into the fearless superhero that description might suggest.

One episode specifically showed him facing a fear while working on a semi. He also had to adjust from sophisticated modern hydraulic wreckers to Jamie’s temperamental collection of “old iron.” That may actually explain part of Colin’s value: competence in heavy rescue was not presented as the absence of hesitation. It was the ability to keep working when the equipment, weather and situation were uncomfortable.

Then something more important than machinery entered the story.

By Season 8, Discovery said changes in Colin’s personal life had caused him to question whether he even had a future in towing. The season eventually brought him to a decision about that future. The show did not need a giant wreck to create tension anymore. It had reached the point where the question was whether one of Jamie’s most trusted operators still wanted the life that came with being one of the best.

And what happened afterward probably says more about Colin than another spectacular recovery could.

When Colin was gone again, Jamie did not simply move on.

In Season 9, he tried to entice his former lead operator back by ordering what the episode itself called Colin’s “dream truck.” The next episode brought the familiar face back just as Jamie was facing one of the season’s difficult recoveries.

That changes the way Colin’s story can be read.

Maybe his importance to Highway Thru Hell was never simply that he could run a tow truck.

Colin began as the rookie who needed to prove that he belonged. Eventually, the situation reversed: Jamie was the one trying to prove that there was still a reason for Colin to come back.

And years later, Colin was still connected to that world. In a 2025 episode, he visited Jamie as Jamie revealed a passion project that had been more than eight seasons in the making.

For someone whose story repeatedly involved leaving, returning and reconsidering the work, perhaps that is the most revealing part.

Colin McLean didn’t become valuable because he never walked away.

He became valuable enough that every time he did, people noticed the space he left behind.

10/29/2026

Jamie Davis Became Famous for Saving Wrecked Trucks. What Happens When the Highway Gets Safer?

For years, Jamie Davis built his life around something most people desperately hope never happens.

A transport truck slides off a mountain highway. Traffic stops. Snow keeps falling. Somewhere in the middle of the night, the phone rings — and Jamie goes to work.

That life began long before Highway Thru Hell. Jamie grew up around towing, learning the business from his father, and was already working around tow trucks as a teenager. He eventually established his operation in Hope, British Columbia, in 2007, raising his family there while building the heavy-recovery company that television would later make famous. Three of his children have since become involved in the business themselves.

Then Highway Thru Hell arrived in 2012, and a job performed mostly in freezing darkness suddenly had an international audience.

But television created an unusual contradiction around Jamie Davis.

The more viewers understood how dangerous the Coquihalla could be, the more attention was being paid to highway safety. By 2016, Jamie said accidents on the Coquihalla had fallen 36 percent since the show began. That was obviously good news for the people driving it.

For a company specializing in major wrecks, however, fewer crashes also meant the business had to change.

Jamie tried expanding into Alberta. He later described that decision in remarkably simple terms:

“Do or die.”

He admitted at the time that the gamble had not really paid off yet — they were surviving. Eventually, the Alberta operation was closed.

Then came another adjustment that said even more about him.

Jamie began selling expensive modern equipment and relying more heavily on older trucks that could be rebuilt and operated at lower cost. When asked why, the answer was not nostalgia or television style.

It was about keeping the business afloat.

And that may be the most interesting part of Jamie Davis’s story.

On television, his skill is making an impossible recovery look possible: study what went wrong, change the approach, use whatever equipment still works, and keep pulling until something finally moves.

Away from the wreck scene, he appears to have spent years doing essentially the same thing with his own company.

Expand when necessary. Retreat when it doesn't work. Sell equipment. Rebuild older machines. Change the business model. Keep going.

Even fame never seemed to alter what he believed the job actually was. During the early success of Highway Thru Hell, Jamie dismissed the idea that becoming television personalities was the point.

“That isn’t our business. Our business is towing.”

Perhaps that explains why Jamie Davis has lasted longer than the spectacle that first made him famous.

A wreck can be dramatic.

But knowing when to pull harder, when to change direction — and when to let something go — is what actually keeps a recovery alive.

10/29/2026

He Started With the Smallest Tow Trucks. So Why Is Merv Now the Guy They Trust With the Biggest Problems?

Chris “Merv” Mervyn’s story on Highway Thru Hell becomes more interesting when you look at where he started.

He didn’t begin behind the controls of a massive rotator. Merv started on Aggressive Towing’s smaller wreckers, learning the work from the bottom and gradually moving through different parts of the operation until the jobs in front of him became much bigger than the trucks he had started with.

Years later, viewers were watching him arrive in a 50-ton rotator when ordinary towing equipment simply wasn’t enough.

But the size of the machine only tells half the story.

As the equipment got heavier, so did the decisions. Merv was increasingly being put into recoveries where weight, balance and timing could decide whether a difficult job became an even bigger problem. A tractor-trailer hanging near an edge, a loaded B-train that had to be brought back under control, a flipped crane truck — none of those situations could be solved simply by showing up with the strongest truck.

Someone still had to know exactly what to do with it.

Over time, that increasingly became Merv.

And perhaps the clearest sign of how far he had come arrived without one of those giant recoveries at all. When the show later paired him with a younger operator on a difficult back-road job, Merv was no longer simply the man learning his way through the equipment.

He was now the experienced hand beside someone else who was still doing that.

The progression is almost perfectly circular.

Merv started with the smallest wreckers, worked his way toward the biggest recoveries, and eventually reached the point where the most valuable thing he brought to a scene was no longer just the machine behind him.

It was everything he had learned before he ever got there.

He didn’t just earn a bigger truck. He became the guy they trusted when the problem got bigger too.