Surviving Fort Mac - Camp Wapasu

I know that this blog series is called Surviving Fort Mac, but the thing is real estate in Fort Mac no longer makes sense. There is a joke about how a one bedroom apartment overlooking the business district up here In Fort MacMurray costs $800k. Of course the business district up here is actually a Wal-Mart. Because of this, big projects up here are now in the habit having plotting off land and building camps make out of pieced together Atco trailers.

Working up at the Kearl Oil Sands Froth site means that you live at a place called Camp Wapasu. Or Denman camp if you are in the safety department or IT.

Denman is the onsite camp. It is still a twenty minute drive from the main site plot, so it is not all that close really. It is reserved for those that may need to be onsite in cause of an emergency, and don't want to make the long drive to Wapasu (hour and a half round trip). This isn't about Camp Denman though it is about Camp Wapasu.

With these camps, the trailers are dropped on level plots of land, Metal prefabbed trailers are dropped down, bolted together, and furnished. The water is all brought in by truck and loaded into tanks. Same thing with fuel that is trucked in for the generators and heating systems. Communication like tv, phones and internet is via satelite uplink and all the food is trucked in and the waste is trucked out. It's remote location would be great in a zombie apocolpyse other than completely tied off of the grid, and any supply lines.

The rooms are what you would expect, with essentially three different types. We have Craft rooms, with a small bed, basic finish and Jack and Jill bathrooms. What is a Jack and Jill bathroom you ask? It is a bathroom between two rooms shared by both individuals. Wapasu is great in that if your roomie accidently or intentionally locks you out can fix it with a quarter rather then a call to security. Supervisor rooms are similar to craft rooms. Jack and Jill, but with a larger bed and better finishing. Executive rooms are where it is at, an individual bathroom, a mini fridge, leather recliner, but the best part is don't have to sign out of your room after your 2 week shift is done.

I like the craft rooms. More space with the smaller bed off to the side, roomies typically tire and bed earlier and wake up after I do.  Also he room layout makes more sense.

Also every day when you come back to your room, bed is made, towels are folded. That is nice. And if you leave your dirty laundry on the bed with a twenty when you leave to site, when you return it is washed and folded on your bed.

Here are some interesting facts about Wapasu...

It is the 2nd largest occupancy complex in North America... next to the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Camp Wapasu nearly became Town Wapasu. The population was nearly high enough, despite the fact no one is a permit resident, that legally in the province of Alberta the place would have to be declared a town. It would require a mayor and a fire marshall to be elected and everything. Apparently they expanded the next section far enough away to avoid this.

Wapasu is made of three parts and Main, East and West and each are managed differently

Wolves sometimes prowl the perimeter.

It contains the longest damn hallway I have ever seen. From one end to the other, is about a 2-3 minute brisk walk.

Occupancy of the camp is 5000

They make a shitty curry.

Halloween 2011 Pumpkins

Here are all the pumpkins that I carved for halloween. It was a lot of work and I actually had more pumpkins than Trick r Treaters. I think next year I may scale it back, but I had learned from using a wood carving kit on some of the pumpkins to try new things. I also broke a lot of tools the blades especially. The steel seems to be weaker then it was before.

Next year I may have to use a jig saw, especially if I want to do the same volume.

SPLIT

The end of the night, all of them on the front steps