Welcome back to the Spring 2015 term and to my column on the smallest towns in Canada. This past winter, I was able to live in one of the smaller towns in Canada, Fort McMurray. Although Fort McMurray isn’t a “small town”, Fort McMurray is one of the most isolated “urban” service areas in Canada. Fort McMurray is located 435 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, almost a 5 hours drive away connected by one of Canada’s deadliest highway, Highway 63. Edmonton being the closest city to Fort McMurray, highway 63 experiences a lot of traffic from workers travelling down to Edmonton for the weekend or hauler trucks driving up goods for the residents up north. Most of Highway 63 is a two lane undivided highway, but highway twinning projects—where they plan on constructing a two-lane portion of the highway—just south of Fort Murray is under way. Fort McMurray has an official population of 70964 as of 2012, but this number does not include the thousands of people that live in town as temporary foreign workers and contractors from southern cities. Since Fort McMurray is located near the Athabasca Oil Sands, the town is the heart of Alberta’s and Canada’s oil production, and is home to oil sands companies including Syncrude, Suncor, Shell, CNRL, and Nexen.
In the late 18th Century, Fort McMurray was inhabited by the Cree, where the surface deposits of oil sands were used to waterproof their canoes. When the European explorers arrived, a trading post was set up by the Athabasca River. Oil exploration in Fort McMurray played a significant role in the history of the petroleum industry in Canada. The technology to produce oil from the oil sands did not become viable until the 1930s where the company Abasands Oil successfully extracted oil from the oil sands through hot water extraction. In 1967, the Suncor plant known as the Great Canadian Sands, opened and Fort McMurray’s growth began. More oil sands plants opened after 1973 when the oil prices spiked because of political tensions and conflicts in the Middle East. The population grew from almost 7000 in 1971 to 31 000 in 1981. The city continued to grow quickly but after the collapse in world oil process, the population declined from its peak of 37 000 in 1985 to 34 000 in 1989. With the high cost of extracting oil from the oil sands, the low world oil price made oil sands production uneconomical. It would not be until the early 2000s where the oil prices increased enough to make oil extraction profitable again. With the current low oil prices, many contractors and employees of the major oil companies have been laid off and the streets of Fort McMurray have quieted once again.
Fort McMurray, though isolated, is not the most boring place to be. For a town of population sub 100 000, the public transit system is very good. The price for one fare is $1.25 and can get you to major points of interest in a reasonable amount of time. Major tourist destination include: the Oil Sands Discovery Centre, where you can learn about the local history of oil production; and the Giants of Mining display located next to the Syncrude Plant Site, where old mining equipment is put on display for the public to see. If you do live in Fort McMurray, one place to go to for a good lunch is Mitchell’s Chef’s Table where they have fresh made bread and the best sandwich you will ever eat. Other places you can go to are the many bars and pubs, especially the Wood Buffalo Brewing Company that makes the best beer I have ever tasted. There is also MacDonald Island, a community and fitness centre with the best indoor athletic facilities I have ever seen and a giant football stadium for CFL games.
There were a lot of adjustments I had to make to live in Fort McMurray. One was milk that comes in plastic jugs. I could not pour milk without spilling it everywhere with a 4L jug, there is just too much milk. Milk in bags contains 4/3L per bag which makes pouring milk more manageable than a full jug of milk and helps prevent spillage all over the counter. Another thing is that very few retailers had plastic bags available for purchase or for free. If you went to the Peter Pond Mall in downtown Fort McMurray, none of the retailers would be able to provide plastic shopping bags. The only retailers that would provide plastic bags were the many liquor stores. Though the price of food was marginally more expensive than that in southern Ontario, the entire province of Alberta only has the federal sales tax of 5%. One of the best experiences I had in Fort McMurray was discovering the Newfoundland section of the grocery store and seeing foods that were foreign to me but are made for Canadians. For example, Crush Birch Beer, a soft drink that has flavours similar to root beer but not exactly. The Northern Lights appeared quite frequently in that part of Northern Alberta, especially during the solar storm event that had occurred last winter. Many times walking home after a few drinks, there would be bright green lights in the night sky.
Fort McMurray is a great town with a bad reputation. Known for being full of drugs, transient male workers and prostitutes, people avoid visiting due to its reputation and their concern for safety. Like with many towns and cities, there are safe areas and unsafe areas. The suburban areas are quiet and safe to walk through alone at all times of day, where the biggest threat to your safety is not other people but the bears and coyotes in the wooded areas. Fort McMurray has a small town feel and is home to one of Canada’s largest industries. It is a great place to live and work if you avoid the seedier parts of town.
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