I started to write this last week as I watched, horrified and concerned at everything that was scrolling across my Facebook newsfeed. When I got to the end it was a bit of an emotional ramble, so I decided to give it another go and to give it a bit of structure. I felt compelled to write. I needed to share and what I ended up with was this:
The last couple of days have been very distracting. Its not often that the little city of Fort McMurray, (or as we and most others who have called the place home call it, Fort Mac.) makes international news. Sadly when it does it doesn't tend to be for the right reasons.
Fort Mac generally gets a bad rap. Its the heart of the oil sands industry. Dirty Oil. Drugs, crime and greed are often the things that visiting journalists are attracted to and write about (if not the reason they go there in the first place). Their not entirely wrong. There is crime in Fort Mac; there are drugs too, but possibly no more so than any other small city with a rich resource and a rapidly growing population (at least when we were there) that pushes the city's infrastructure to its limits.
Mostly the thing that gets focussed on is the Oil Sands though. They say that its destroying the environment. They say that we shouldn't be producing oil from the bitumen-soaked tar sands. Of course they often say so after having flown to town and taking a helicopter tour. Most of those people that criticise the industry and the town at the centre of it still drive their cars though. They still happily take all the benefits that their hydrocarbon sourced lifestyle affords them. Yes, I do mean you, Leo Dicaprio with your luxury yacht holidays and private jets. I often wonder if these people realise just how many products in their day to day life wouldn't exist without an oil industry.
Does this mean that we shouldn't find alternatives? That global warming doesn't exist? That we should ignore it? Of course not. But until we find viable alternatives, we will continue to extract the resources that the earth does have and we'll use them. If anything, it should encourage investment in alternate energy. Now I can't speak for all of the companies that produce oil from the area but I can say that the client that I worked for while we lived there was heavily invested in research, development and production of alternate fuels. To me, they actually cared. They invest in the rehabilitation of the land that they mine and produce from. Was it the exact same environment which they'd started with? No. But it did sustain Bison and other wild life that had previously been almost completely hunted from the area. If we want to continue to breed and populate the world, resources are going to have to come from somewhere and at least from my experience, those companies producing from the Fort Mac area were doing so with a conscience.
Fort Mac was our home for three years and we took a lot away from our time there. We met amazing people that have become life long friends, even if we now live on opposite sides of the world.
Over the last the last two days (over a week now that I am finishing this off!) Fort Mac has once again made international news, though this time not because of its industry, but because of the devastating wild fires that have forced evacuation of the entire town. 80,000 people have had to flee, many of them losing their homes. We're no strangers to bush fires here in Australia. They are unpredictable, hard to control and deadly. When you're in a place like Fort Mac, surrounded by forest and not much else, controlling and beating a wild fire becomes a staggering task. Possibly the most amazing thing to date about the fire in and around Fort Mac is that there hasn't been a loss of life (that was true when I first wrote this, but I have since heard of one life lost in a traffic accident during the evacuation).
As usually happens with a massive tragedy there have been acts of heroism and many people are pulling together to help those in need. I'm far from surprised given our experience in the community.
We found Fort Mac to be an incredibly welcoming and above all, giving community. I learnt a lot about generosity in my time in Fort Mac. Sure, we were there during a booming economic period, but even taking that into account, the money that was raised throughout the community to support local charities, the hospital and anything considered worthwhile blew my mind every time I experienced it.
People worked long, hard hours and still gave up time to volunteer and ensure that the kids of the district had opportunities to learn, play sport, travel and a host of things beside. They came from all walks of life, all corners of the world and in most cases, they brought the best of things with them.
That's not to say Fort Mac wasn't without its problems. There were drugs and homelessness and crime, but that wasn't the day to day experience of living there. Like any place, trouble wasn't hard to find if you wanted to, but it was mostly easily avoidable as well.
So its been with a heavy heart that I've watched the evolving news and the horrifying pictures that have been scrolling through my Facebook feed. Knowing that so many have lost so much in such a small community is devastating, but I also know that the community will pull through. They'll work for each other and will be supported by the enormous numbers of people that have benefitted from the wealth that the industry has generated because that spirit of giving extends through Alberta and beyond, because for all the bad press about dirty oil and and tar sands and environmental destruction, the reality is that the money that flows from the the oil sands supports untold numbers of people. People that have worked FIFO construction from the east coast, people that have managed to find a better, safer life from South Africa and the subcontinent, the Australian contingent of which we were a temporary part, to all of Alberta with their reduced tax rates compared to other parts of Canada.
So my heart goes out to our extended Fort Mac family and everything that they are suffering through. Stay strong and we'll keep you in our prayers.
