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Fort Mac is a dirty town. maybe thats just the sand on the roads, because its frigid winter 6 months of the year.
It is in the middle of no where.
The next tiny town is over 100 miles away. The nearest proper city is Edmonton 300 miles away. The land here is fairly flat, and all boreal forest (pine and birch trees as far as you can see)
It's very obvious that this town solely exists for the oil sands. There is lots of money here.
Cashiers at fast food restaurants make 15-$20 and hour. An junior mining engineer fresh out of school starts at 85k per year.
ITs a huge boom town and only getting bigger. The transient population (fly in fly out workers) outnumber the permanent population. u said there were 75000 people here. but there are another 100000 transient.
housing costs are huge. a 2 bedroom appartment cost ~$350,000. House are half million or more. Thats almost as much as it costs to live in Vancouver. the furnished short term 2 bedroom appartment that the company rents for me cost $4500 a month.
Gas is fairly normal priced. There arent any refineries here, so they have to truck it in from Edmonton, so its 10c a litre more. so, $1.30 per litre. so about 5$ a gallon.
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