I’ve come to accept it’s harder to do certain things without a truck, like haul rocks and lumber and gear of all sorts, travel wash-board logging roads and pull trailers. Not that I do all that all the time, but the little red 1987 S15 Jimmy SUV has come in handy to do most of it for the past 15 years.

It had an engine rebuild at 234,000 km. At 267,000, it’s in the shop again. Had a new fuel pump two weeks ago. Then the fuel filter got wet and froze. Now it needs a new clutch.

You’d think it was time to replace it, but not until something else comes along that is affordable, economical and doesn’t pollute. It may be awhile.

A lot of guys would be lost without their trucks. Friend Veryl had a long-box Chevy with a front plate that read “I ♥ My Truck” until it just cost too much to keep running. I think he misses it about as much as the two knees and hip he’s also had to replace.

Frank Pawlak recently gave up on the ’92 Ford 4-wheel drive short box he’d driven for a dozen years or so. He’d drive the crazy-purple-maroon-pink (hot pink if his Lethbridge College carpentry students were really teasing him) up any old logging road to its end in the hunt for animals.

“It would go down a slope of 60 degrees and back up the other side 45 degrees easy,” to say nothing of a foot and a half of snow, says Frank.

“I’ve been through some pretty good hell holes with it.”

At 330,000 km, Frank figured he’d pushed his luck far enough.

“I didn’t want to get into the back country and have it stop.” He recalled a student several years ago expressing an interest in it, so he called.

“He wanted it to pack the local race car track. I asked him what he would offer. He told me. I said, ‘Offer less.’”

Frank still has his Jeep to get him through the wilderness.

Guys in particular seem attracted to trucks, especially in Alberta. Has something to do with power “and power is why one out of every three new vehicles sold in Alberta is a pickup,” the president of the Motor Vehicle Dealers Association of Alberta said in a Financial Post Magazine article earlier this year.

Despite the recent gloom and doom recession talk elsewhere, it seems truck sales here belie the problems of the Big Three automakers. And any angst that came with lofty summer gasoline prices has eased.

Trouble is, gas prices will no doubt rise again and when that affects decisions on driving even to places close to home to enjoy the outdoors, one can hope truck makers will improve on fuel efficiency and controlling emissions. The ideal would be to eliminate emissions altogether.

Still, the day may come when I leave trucks to trades people and find a small car to get me to the mountains.

Or, convert to vegetable oil as fuel.