I had never been to Fort McMurray before. It seemed the obvious choice, though, when I decided to do fieldwork for my MA thesis on people’s perceptions of the health risks posed by the oil and gas industry. So, with no personal contacts, I booked a room in a camp and headed up on June 1, 2004.

Desperate prayer convinced my 1980 VW Rabbit that it could handle the 439 km from Edmonton to Alberta’s oil and gas frontier. I set out alone in the morning and took my time on the highway, which I had been warned could get pretty crazy. Fortunately there was little traffic, and those who wanted to pass me could do so without waiting (how fast was I going? I have no idea. My speedometer doesn’t work…). I stopped for lunch in Wandering River, swayed by the ominous “NO GAS OR SERVICE FOR 102 KM” sign. I parked my shiny white Rabbit between muddy pickup trucks, and sat in the corner of the Crossroads Café in an attempt to avoid subjecting myself to the examination of the elderly Ukrainians having the special.

Wlife did not make many appearances on my trip.

Deer tally: 2
Live gophers: 1
Dead gophers: 2
Crows eating dead gopher: 3

I found my camp with no problem, and am amazed at my strength in not crying at the sight of my room. The aroma immediately pronounced me a non-smoker, and I hoped never to sweat so much as to be nauseating to room entrants days after my departure. Not having the foresight to ask, I had come without linens, and could find none in the closet of my smelly 10x10 room. With ingrained blue-collar stoicism, I crammed my luggage and supplies for two months into my new home, opened the window, and dragged my camping blanket out of the trunk. Wal-Mart has made it up here, and the camp manager suggested sheets would be cheap, as well as a bowl and cup for dinners—I hadn’t brought any dishes, either, and the communal kitchen doesn’t supply them.

The women’s washroom is tolerable. The men share a charming little room with rows of toilet stalls next to shower stalls. Somehow, that doesn’t seem like a satisfying cleansing. Our washroom, however, looks like a regular house’s: fuzzy thing on the toilet seat, flowered shower curtain (with a touch more mold than any house I’ve ever lived in—and I once lived with four boys), and best of all, a lock! While the men have no idea who’s lurking outside their stall, I can be assured that nobody is going to be in the room when I open the curtain. Being a single girl in city full of men, I’ve been told by most Edmontonians to watch my back.

The people in the camp, for the most part, seem friendly. “Jimmy” was waiting in the office when I went to check in, and stared at me in a way that made me wish I could gain eighty pounds by blinking. He suggested that I get a room in his trailer. I suggested that I not. Fortunately, fate agreed with me, and there is an entire trailer between us. I found someone with a soccer ball, so on the first night we employed the muddy parking lot as a field and played pass for a bit. Jimmy insinuated himself, and I remembered I needed to use the phone. My best ally so far has been “Rob,” who was sent to show me how to use the internet connection here (dial-up. Boo.). Rob asked what I was doing up here, and seemed interested in the project. Rob is an ex-social worker who moved up here to make some money and get away from human services for a while. He is Metis, and very interested in the history of Western Canada. After just a bit of digging on the internet, he found out for me that I am also Metis; a few generations ago, Caroline Whitford took scrip. With this information, Rob says, I can receive Metis status myself. I think I will have to think about this for a while, and examine what exactly my motivations would be for doing so. Until then, I will “walk proud,” as Rob suggested.

My only planned entry point to the community was the Nistawoyou Native Friendship Centre in Fort McMurray. When I walked in on my first full day in town, Rob was there, and he introduced me to some of the people involved in the Centre. Everyone there has been eager to tell their stories, and I think I’ve been very lucky to come across them. I have offered to help out at the Centre, and will be volunteering at their National Aboriginal Day celebrations on June 21. Having been told I look like I’d be good with technology, I’ve been put in charge of running the videos that will be shown.

Rob was kind enough to take me on a bit of a tour of the region. From the Friendship Centre, we went to a local union office, and they offered to help round up some of their members for interviews. I will be making a visit to them on June 14, when they have a board meeting, and the President has offered me some office space and will shuffle in someone to talk to me every half hour or so. After the union office, we headed out to see Syncrude’s lands.

The landscape here is beautiful. Dense boreal forest covers all the hills, and the rivers carve paths that scream to be photographed; this, of course, only until cresting the hill before Syncrude’s lease. Suncor’s lands are better hidden from the highway. The landscape of oil sand extraction is completely alien. Trucks, open pits, extraction equipment, processing facilities, sulphur blocks and expansion construction have transformed the boreal into something better suited to dystopic movies about the future. The soundscape, as well, is bizarre: constant droning of equipment is punctuated not by birdcalls, but by periodic banging or explosions (at this point I don’t know enough about the process to know what that sound is).

I took a solitary trip to the “Wood Bison Trail,” where the guide map promised I would be welcomed “back to nature.” The trails are on Syncrude’s reclaimed land, and are offered as a testament to Syncrude’s commitment to “developing productive landscapes.” Signs are displayed throughout the trail system that inform the nature enthusiast of what species were planted on that section of land. Visitors are warned to beware of wildlife—by “wildlife,” I must assume that they mean mosquitoes, grasshoppers and bees. Aside from insects, I saw about three birds, a beaver lodge and some dog shit. With the surrounding operations, and the small size of the reclaimed land, I can’t imagine that anything much larger than four inches would choose to make its home at Syncrude. The company has planted 30 wood bison on its reclaimed land, and hopes to produce numbers significant enough to help repopulate the herds in Wood Buffalo National Park. Despite having had 11 years, they do not appear to be close to their goal; despite claims of the animals being healthy, they have spent their winter penned and being fed hay, rather than foraging. Syncrude employs the image of the wood bison at the beginning of their lease, with some huge bison carvings on slabs of siltstone welcoming employees and visitors. While it would be satisfying to believe that Syncrude is genuinely interested in the welfare of the species, the cynic in me suggests that it is simply a convenient marketing tool. Not only does Syncrude use the bison where convenient, but the company also does not hesitate to point out that they used actual Aboriginals to create both the carvings and the trails.

The upper portion of the trail is named the Matcheetawin Discovery Trail. Matcheetawin (which the guide helpfully informs the reader is pronounced “match-eet-a-win”), says Syncrude, is Cree for “beginning place;” my friend Rob tells me that it is a Cree word, but it doesn’t mean beginning place. I wish I could remember what it does mean; next time I see Rob, I’ll ask again.

All cynicism aside, I am pleased with my first week of fieldwork ever. I haven’t cried, I don’t think I’ve offended anyone seriously, I still have some money, I’m learning things, and my only physical harm has been a cold that kept me cranky in bed for all of Sunday. Next week holds promise. I will spend more time at the Friendship Centre, and hopefully get some actual interviews done. So far, the conversations I’ve had indicate that there is much concern about health and environment here, and that my research is timely (although I don’t have the ego to say important, I’d kind of like to think it might be…).