Our Vicar from church received his call there last week. I was wondering if anyone here is in that area and can tell me something about it. We have all googled it...way up there from southern California!

Hmmmm... about all that comes to my mind is Northern Alberta and that there is oil country.

Tell him to pack some warm clothing, and long underwear. Ooops, and maybe his new hobby should be showshoeing.

Honestly, it's quite a distance from where I am, but that's about all I can add. I added a couple of links, although I'm sure that you've found them as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_McMurray
http://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/
http://www.fortmcmurraytourism.com/
http://www.mymcmurray.com/home/index.php

i used to live there, May 2006-April 2008...now have moved back to my home town in central Alberta....what do you want to know? i can tell you, that 2 years there were two years too many! a lot of....interesting people and behavior up there...

The main thing there is oil and from what I've heard, it's a REALLY expensive place to live. Apparently there are/were coffee shop jobs for $15/hour and the houses were super-expensive. I think it's one of those places lots of workers flock to because they can make a good wage working in the oil sands.

I think it may have slowed down a bit with the touch economic times.

This is all true. Just about every British Columbian or Albertain has either worked there or knows someone who has! It's cold, it's basically a working camp, although not officially. There is not much to do up there, so many young men (and women) will come home with thousands of dollars and either do something responsible like put a down payment on a home or pay for college, or spend their cash on alcohol and other fun pursuits!

It's a huge oil town. A fair number of the large oil companies do their drilling in the area. If I'm not mistaken the male population out numbers the female by quite a bit. As everyone has said it COLD in the winter! Bumbleberry is right, it's a glorified work camp, passing it's self off as a small city.

Chickiegirl, it wasn't just Fort Mac that was offering that kind of wage for coffee shops. As little as 2 years ago burger king here in Calgary was offering $16/hr plus full benefits! Cashiers at safeway were making $15-$17/hr. Even then, things were so understaffed here, because of the money to be made in the oil sands that the local tim horton's only opened their drive through, because they couldn't find enough people to man both the drive through and the interior restaurant!

Thank you all for the info.

I will keep my vicar and his wife in my prayers as they take on their new call in a few months...being in their mid-50's...they are really nervous about being so far away from "home"....even though they have lived in states of Washington, Minnesota, Indiana and California....this will be quite different!