Camp

Below are a couple pictures of the Coker stands being built. These were taken last fall long before the actual cokers were constructed in Edmonton and hauled up Hwy 63 to the CNRL site where the second largest crane in the world has now lifted them onto the stands.





This is the first camp of 3 being constructed at the CNRL Horizon Project site, about 100km north of Fort McMurray. This photo was taken last fall when construction of the site was just starting to accelerate. The camp now houses over a thousand men and women!

Most of the mine sites surrounding Fort McMurray are such a long drive from town that companies provide housing right at their work site. They have to build camps big enough to house often thousands of workers. To many people, the idea of working in a place so remote that it's beyond the distance of a tolerable commute, may seem out of this world. Well, if you saw what an open pit mine looks like, you might think that it does look like the surface of another planet.

The truth is, this town of 60 thousand or so people, could not possibly provide enough housing for the thousands of workers that are pouring into the mines every day to work. Even with camps on all the major work sites, there is still such an inflated demand for housing right in town that it's almost impossible to find an apartment to rent, or even a hotel room! Housing developments are going up, but with limited availability of labour and materials, it's impossible to keep up with the demand of such rapid growth. The result? Houses that would sell for $250,000 in Edmonton are selling for almost double that here, a town only one tenth the size!

It can be a pretty sweet deal living right on the site where you work, no long drives every day, meals all prepared, room cleaning service, tv, etc. But, it's not always such a sweet deal for the nearby town almost buckling under the pressures of Fort McMurray's own population alone. If people wonder why there's a 30min line up at Tim Hortons, or why it's hard to get service at Canadian Tire, you don't have to look much further than the steady stream of pickup trucks coming into town from the mine sites every weekend and evening. The workers who are out there for 10, 14, even 24 days straight living in camp, eventually need to come into town for banking, entertainment, medical needs, shopping, everything. It would be hard enough for any normal town to meet its own needs during a period of rapid growth, but add to that the demands of a ghost population in the tens of thousands, and you've got serious problems. Even worse is the fact that places like McDonalds and Safeway can't possibly compete with the wages of oil sands mining companies, so they simply aren't retaining employees! Everywhere you go in town there are help wanted signs and long lineups. But, you can't blame the transient workers either. Can you really knock a guy for sluggin his guts out day after day in the mud, snow, rain, the darkness of endless nightshifts, so that he can send money back to his family, put his kids through school, get out of debt? Whatever the motivation, everyone has to make a living, and there is certainly money to be made up here, lots of it, but the opportunities haven't come without a price being paid, by the town, by the young victims of highway accidents marked by white crosses and hard hats along that long highway snaking its way to the plant sites, by the wives and children of men working so hard that they barely get to see them... There's definitely a human side to the boom town phenomenon, it's not just big machines, oil exports and shiny SUVs.

The human story of Fort McMurray is not purely doom and gloom either, don't get me wrong. There is also a lot of good that comes out of and goes into this place. People may tell you about the out of control drug and alcohol abuse, the rampant levels of homelessness and prostitution in this town, and those social issues are present, but let me tell you what I've experienced. In the last year I have not locked my house door once, nor have I ever felt in danger walking anywhere alone, day or night. I have never met so many friendly Newfies in my life! However, I dare say that I would likely not meet such a proliferation of them even if I were to travel to the Rock itself. But it's not just the number of them. There are a lot of people here who have moved west for work or higher wages, from struggling communities in the maritimes or elsewhere, and the resulting multi-cultural blend has created a place where I think almost anyone can feel welcome, not like an outsider stealing a piece of the pie that rightfully belongs to one group or another. I've met people from all over Canada, and immigrants from all over the world. Doctors and cab drivers from Africa, engineers from Russia, you name it. But still, my favourite people are definitely the Newfies.

I hereby declare my favourite Newfie of the week:

Hazel Reid

And then there's this really strange character I've worked a lot with at TBG:
After making a stellar first impression by keeping the project manager and director of the company waiting at a restaurant, missing his first interview, he was eventually hired in the capacity of a quality control technician, and then moved his way into other positions, such as surveyor, "techy", and "enginerd". He is most famous for his ability to sleep through the bumpy ride to work, along with his tolerance of short people jokes and his incredible knowledge of potatoes.



In closing, I hope that my tales of the Fort do not depict only the bad and the ugly, but also some of the good. It's a different kind of place for sure, full of challenges and opportunities, but like any place in the world, I guess you get out what you put in, and there's always lots to learn. I'd say I've probably learned more and grown more in the last year here than I have in any other year of my life anywhere. I've grown closer to God, I've learned valuable skills that will stay with me for the rest of my life, and I've solidified a clearer vision of what I want for my future, not to mention securing myself a financial position with which to pursue it. What more can a guy ask?