Fort Mcmurray: Personal Narrative Analysis

I lied to my family, my friends and myself. Even before I accepted Fort McMurray as my home, the lies I verbally regurgitated became more real to me than the reality that I was participating in. Eventually, the reality I thought I had control over was in fact the reality that I lost control over. Throughout this three part essay I will attempt to explore the following: first, addressing why I began to construct lies that affected my perception of Fort McMurray from the beginning to now; second, how the interconnectedness of my life and the price of a barrel of oil dictated decisions affecting my personal and professional life; third, including alternative perspectives from interviewing local individuals in addition to examining other global
Finally, I will explore the viability of potential solutions that could be utilized by myself and other Fort McMurrayites who are now forced to continue living their lives in what once was Canada’s oil mecca. For those of us, myself included, the realization that for the immediate future, we will continue to experience a reduction in the enjoyment of life due to the inability to obtain financial, housing and employment security. The exploration into my life in Fort McMurray began with a simple need: to have enough money to live for another 30
The vehicle would function as both a car and a home over the next three weeks until we could find suitable accommodations. After living 19 years of my life in Kamloops, whose city slogan was the “Tournament Capital of Canada” and experiencing the convenience of living in the metropolitan port city of Vancouver, Paul cautioned me that Fort McMurray possessed all the characteristics of a boom town: lack of cultural and social amenities; blue-collar tradesman securing wages comparable to that of a medical doctor; and poor infrastructure that created traffic congestion and increased the probability of accidents along the main arterial road, HWY 63 ( TravelBC, 2015; Davidsen, Deacon & Kiff, 2013, p.g 68). Herein was the first lie I began telling myself and others: Fort McMurray could be just as beautiful as Vancouver. After passing the ‘Welcome to Fort McMurray, We have the ENERGY’ sign, I was appalled to see that on Sept 14th 2003, there was so much snow on the ground that it had become a meridian which blocked the view of the oncoming lane of traffic. As we pulled into 7-Eleven for a cup of hot chocolate, I was shocked to observe that the loitering patrons were not my own kind; the everyday teenager. Instead there where prostitutes wearing six inch stiletto heels, men whose recently cashed paycheques were on hand to make a purchase, and intoxicated