Drive from Smithers to Fort McMurray - The northern Rockies aren’t really all that impressive, but my disappointment is offset by my truck co-pilot, who is in an engineering program that involves rocks. He loves it. After staying the night in Hinton we leave for Fort McMurray in a downpour early the next morning. Our truck has satellite radio and I flip between “The 80s on 8”, and “The 90s on 9”. Our trucks are massive and comfortable and the road east from Hinton is divided and semi-scenic. If a big part of Alberta life is driving in a huge truck with satellite radio, I’m into it. Coming into Fort McMurray was surprising, I am expecting scenes from the alternate 1985 in Back To The Future Part 2. Instead I get scenes from a Canadian town that has gone plastic bag free, people use transit, and the neighbourhoods are sensibly constructed around top notch recreation facilities. Unquestionably, the town’s proximity to such a massive earth scar allow for this kind of development. Some tar sands haters may have a “yeah you better,” response to this progressive city but the bottom line is, if you’re looking for ways to develop a smart sustainable community, look at the one sitting right below what one of our crew members dubbed “one of the seven worst wonders of the world.”
Fire Day 1
In firefighting, day one is always disorganized and often uneventful, the brass are making plans and the minions sit around. We have several words for this in the business: The day one fuck show, rotting, the gong-a-roo, the shitter-ee, the charlie foxtrot (cluster fuck) - it’s inescapable, and in the case of today it was fun. We drove around trying to figure out how to attack only to be backed down by a lot of fire activity. All equipment were evacuated early, a slow moving crowd of machinery crawled down highway 63 while the sky darkened with smoke. We rotted in the trucks for a few more hours until some of the crew went to do a highway side burn off.
Song of the Day: Steve Millier Band - Fly Like An Eagle. The slow paced heat wave sound while we were crawling down the road away from the fire was perfect.
Day 2
Long day journeying through the bush hanging ribbon near the fire edge so that bulldozers can carve out a fire break. Two of the oil camps we pass by on the way home from work have driving ranges. It’s bizarre to see that up north in an oil camp there is a place where men can work on their long game. It reminds me of that part in Apocalypse Now when they are way up the river and there is that theater with the performance by all the Playboy Bunnies - both theater and driving range are relief in a bleak landscape where men are doing questionable things. Back at camp our tents are surrounded by a camper sized generator, a rock crushing plant, a highway, and gun-like sounds to keep the birds off the tailings ponds. They all operate at full noise capacity 24 hours a day.
Day 3
I’m on the end of a hose all day. I’m thinking about capitalism. There are people making big money up here. There are also people that have found a way to separate these big money makers from their cash so that they themselves can become big money makers. For families trying to live in Fort McMurray I hear about $2400 a month rent and $300 000 trailers. For the single men no doubt a lot of money is spent on booze and strippers. The existence of a cheque cashing booth right outside one of the local strip clubs is evidence that somebody is always available to take that money off your hands for you. What if all these people that worked in the oil sands were only interested in literature? The Chapters of Fort Mac would have the most expensive book prices in the world.
Day 4
On the nozzle again. Today I’m upset about how Lebron James faked being hit in order to get a foul called against Chicago. Later in the game he walked by the Chicago bench and winked. In 1994 the Pacers are playing the Knicks in the playoffs. Late in the game as Reggie Miller is picking New York apart and draining unorthodox 3’s he puts his hands around his neck and gives that infamous choke sign to Spike Lee. Seventeen years later Lebron winks after taking a dive. The NBA has gone from hard work giving you the right to rub it in your opponents face to good acting being license to make gestures.
Day 5
I wonder if there was any mother in Northwest B.C. that wasn’t disgusted by Mount Layton Hot Springs. They hated that place, the health hazard and slippery danger from the scum was too much for motherly instincts. Interestingly, I just found out that the addition of the alien themed splash area was purchased from Expo 86. This makes me think “Things in Northern B.C. from Expo 86” would be a great project. Also I think I was at work today.
Song of the Day: Grateful Dead - Touch of Grey. Just because it feels good.
Day 6
We were pumping out of the Athabasca river today. Parts of the river bank were spongy, looking like molasses and smelling like pavement. These were the real tar sands; it was incredible to see. The very stuff that everyone is after, we were touching something important, the raw root of the world’s fuel.
Song of the Day: The Police - Synchronicity II. It’s very rare when a song that has no obvious chorus can sound so good.
Day 7
We flew into our spot this morning, the helicopter landed in an open field of muskeg. We were up over our ankles right away in “the ‘skeg,” sloshing around looking for a void of water deep enough to run a pump and supply the crew with water. A group of us ended up having to dig out a water site, taking the water from ankle height to waist height in about an hour. The bugs were getting bad and we were deep in a self-created swamp. You know those nature video shots of some miserable looking moose being attacked by 8 trillion black flies? You feel way more sympathy when this is happening to your own species.
Song of the Day: Talking Heads - Psycho Killer. From the live album Stop Making Sense, getting some morning yells out.
Day 8
Back into the ‘skeg, it’s one degree and lightly snowing this morning. People are wearing everything they own. Inevitably one rookie will do something goofy in an attempt to stay warm and dry. This year one of our new guys fastened his five dollar rain pants to his boots with electricians tape. By the end of the day he had a basketball sized hole in the ass of his pants and the tape job had slipped off his boots and was sitting about mid-calf exposing a few inches of muddy leg.
Song of the Day: Savage Garden - I Want You. A lot of people on this crew remember the 90s.
Day 9
Final kick on the wet boots spot fire. After work our truck stopped at a Tim Hortons in one of the oil camps. I waited in the truck while the guys went in to get cold drinks. A bunch of workers were smoking cigarettes and lounging at some picnic tables. I turned off the truck, but it made me uncomfortable, going idle-free is not the way in a region where people leave their trucks running all night in the winter. I turned the truck back on. Respect the locals.
Day 10
Moved out of the make shift tent camp into a 10 000 person oil camp. The camp includes a Tim Hortons, physiotherapy clinic, and Karaoke Tuesdays (alcohol free!) I asked for a Globe and Mail at the camp store, they only carry the National Post here. This oil sand project currently produces 100 000 barrels a day, that number will increase to 300 000 when it is operating at full capacity.
Song of the Day: MGMT - Electric Feel. It was playing while we were driving through the mine at the end of the day, sharing the road with dump trucks whose tires were taller than our vehicles. There was a huge fire on one side and a construction project that looked like a war time effort in both scope and urgency. Electric Feel provided more psychedelia to both dull and enliven the senses.
Day 11
The new spot that we are flying into is beautiful, our chopper lands on a river sand bar and we have constructed a mini bridge into a wide spaced forest. It’s good to be out here, life feels like Black Water by The Doobie Brothers. Back at camp it doesn’t take long to realize that you can dress the place up any way you want, call it a lodge not a camp, add a coffee chain, it doesn’t matter. In the end it’s still a camp, you are away from family and civilization, many people are here because they have no other option.
Day 12
There is a group of us flying to work in a chopper that is half full of people, half full of stinky fire hose. Looking down from the helicopter (we’re flying about 500 feet in the air) the mine equipment still looks big. The construction of the refinery is so big it looks like they are building a Disneyland sized theme park. I mention this to the pilot, “oh yeah” he says, “they’re building a theme park alright - and the theme is oil.”
Song of the Day: Was (Not Was) - Walk The Dinosaur. Never heard thi song before. It sounds like the theme of a terrible 80s sitcom, possible precursor to The Macarena, only worse.
Day 13
We are driving home tomorrow, one last day on what is now the second biggest fire in Alberta’s history. I called my dad after work, usually when I’m somewhere new and exciting I tend to get into a loud yelling match with him on the phone about how wild and fresh everything is, he uses his half of the conversation to be my hype man and I go on about the steepness of this, the largeness of that, and the newness of it all. Tonight it is difficult, borderline frustrating to describe to him what things are like here. After numerous attempts (I can see the truck’s lugnuts from 500 feet, it looks like they’re building the vegas strip in one shot, complete with surrounding fake desert!) I still can’t quite make my point. Finally I settle with, “Dad, it’s like nothing else.” This is the simple truth, I wasn’t surprised at what I saw up there, the whole thing had been built up in my head for years. Working in the area has given me a new archetype to work with when trying to describe something big and bizarre and lucrative. The northern Alberta oil sands aren’t like things, things are like the northern Alberta oil sands.