A license to drill means big business. But with hostile conditions, a punishing schedule and a high-stakes gamble – costing some operations $250,000 per day – drilling for oil in the Canadian North is only for the toughest of tough.

In the unforgiving winter of the Canadian North, where the sun shines only a few hours a day and temperatures drop to 70 degrees below zero, a special breed of men risk their lives drilling thousands of metres below the ground in search of natural gas. For four hard months, thousands of kilometres from friends and family, they work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. They live in cramped quarters, isolated, cut off from the world. This is one of the coldest, most brutal and dangerous places in the world. Every day pushes men and machines to the breaking point. This is one of the last frontiers on earth. And the job…is not for everyone. Licence to Drill is a fast-paced, terrifying voyage into the wild side of an industry that’s making headlines but whose real inner workings were virtually unknown…until now.