Fort McMurray,Google Earthed it
 

Hi peeps,
Hubby just applied for a job in Fort McMurray... we have just got it up on google earth and it looks an amazing place with lots of development going on.
can anyone give us a thumbs up :thumbsup: sort of place to consider or :thumbdown:?
any feedback is appreciated

lilpuddin and co:wub:

Re: Fort McMurray,Google Earthed it
 

:thumbdown:
lots of Drugs, Alcohol Abuse and Prostitution. Kinda like dodge for the 21st Century.

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Although McMurry is bristling with money due to the oil, you get paid well due to the isolation. I am looking for a position within the Industry, however, I am looking for the Edmonton, Red Deer and Calgary areas as there is more civilisation there.

There have been a few people who have mentioned drugs and violence, even ones that I have talked to who have worked there 30 years. The message I had from a local welder here who was there, if you are single it's ok - but don't take a young family there to emigrate.

The only point to consider for us all is the fact that McMurry is where a lot of work is. What does your husband do ?

JET:)

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Red Deer? Civilised?? I guess you've never been. :sneaky:

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Hubby is an IT computing consultant, can do pretty much everything from build you a new pc from scratch to building, networking, troubleshoot and reprograming whole systems for huge companies. I just call him my very own pc nerd, he is also a huge gamer.

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We have also looked into Edmonton, we like the look of it there.

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It seems fine every time I go there. Guess it depends on what you compare it to.

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Sorry I forgot to edit to add civilised is not a word that springs to mind about Western Canada in general.:o
(and yes I live in western Canada and with the possible exception of Montreal wouldnt live anywhere else in 'The True North')

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Again, I guess it depends on what your expectations are. Groceries come from a store, we have running water (out of a tap) and phones, civilised enough for me. Would not give a thank you for the city life, if you can call it civilised, fighting traffic to go anywhere & the only greenery is the TD bank sign.

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Where are you currenly living? I think it totally depends on what you are expecting when you get there - when i was there last year it seemed really nice, i know people there who dont like it but stay anyway, pretty much the same as in england...

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We currently live 50 miles north of London in Milton Keynes, most folk from the UK call it the concrete jungle. its..ok.. ive lived here all my life (on and off) and i hate it with a passion... ive lived all over the UK apart from Scotland, but hubby comes from Thurso far north of jock land. We like peace and quiet, we're very sociable people but we dont like noise, hence the reason for not going to a big city, We think Edmonton is at the top of the list at the mo. We know from research its big, but not Vancouver or Toronto big.

The only thing i dont like about where McMurray is, is its miles and miles away from anything, not like you can nip to Edmonton for the day for shopping trip unless you leave at 2am :blink:

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HEY!:mad:

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Hi sweetie:p

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Hi I am a bit slow in replying to this one but I can definitely give Fort McMurray the thumbs up. I've lived here for eight years and yes it has it's problems because of the stunning growth but the bottom line is it has still been a great place to live and bring up two boys (one ninteen and the other one six - I guess the six year old is a testament to the really cold winters but you get used to it!!).

If you have any specific questions please feel free to ask!

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And so you think that makes it a good place....?

Go there. Move. Right now. You'll be very happy :unsure:

R.

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You mean it doesnt?
Shouldnt we be concreting over all the 'green' space we can find?
Denegrating the history of our individual provinces (and before anyone bites my head off I know Alberta WASNT built on rodeos)?
On the one hand complaining that the UK isnt\what it used to be, all the traditions have been lost blahdy bloody blah and then in the next knocking Canadians for trying to maintain what few they have.

Yes I am getting on my high horse and yes I do have mixed feelings on:
1) The oil sands
2) The stampede\rodeo circuit
3) Canadas involvement in Afghanistan
4) Development within the national parks

BUT lets remember that bigotry has many forms. If 'we' are going to complain about immigrants not assimilating into UK life then we shouldnt be mocking Canadians who (genuinely) try to maintain the lifestyles and activities their forefathers followed.

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Ok then, I didn’t mean to stir up a political debate in any way shape or form but it look like its happened anyway, and yes the UK is rapidly going downhill, where else in the civilised world can you listen to the radio first thing in the morning to discover that a body was found 8 doors down from where you are sleeping and a 16 yr old boy has been arrested , where else can you buy fuel for your car to get you to work because a bus doesn’t go to where you work and it costs £10 for 8 litres of said fuel, who wants take your child to a play park to find needles, broken beer bottles, dog mess and discover you’re the only one in the park who speaks English out of all the mums and feel the odd one out! and that’s just for starters, those of you who have already left the UK and are loving it in your new country, can you honestly say you would come back to the UK?, can you blame me for asking about a country where i want to live and raise my daughter? A simple "humm, some like it but it is a bit rough", or "whoa, don’t even go there", or "it’s a great place to live." that would have been great! But as for saying things like...

And so you think that makes it a good place....?

Go there. Move. Right now. You'll be very happy
Rich_007

That really fills a girl with confidence thank you for your input :blink:

And if we are getting on our high horses...
Every country around the world is going to grow, industries are going to appear over night, the fossil fuels are going to disappear the ice caps are going to eventually melt, that beautiful open country will be filled with yet another city in the making and there’s nothing you can do about it but try to help by doing your bit to help the environment that we all love so much and to teach our children that it’s got to stop, and it’s unfortunate that it will be up to them and our grandchildren to stop it because our generation now can only start the ball rolling!!! And if I didn’t love the environment I wouldn’t even think about moving to Canada!!! I recycle, I grow food, I compost everything I can, I buy second-hand clothing, I run an economical car, I walk when I can to the shop or school, we ride bikes, every light bulb in the house is an energy saver, my washer is on a timer so it comes on at night to save energy, I don’t have a dishwasher, I don’t have a tumble dryer, I use rain water for the garden, the list goes on, I know very few people round here who do what we do. The Canadians at least damm well try to look after their beautiful country even if the population is expanding and the industry is growing!

So yes Butch cassidy, I agree with you that you should stick to your values and way of life, why the heck should way of life change for others that are not used to it. That’s the start of why I’m leaving the UK with my family!

Lilpuddin has now got off her horse and has finished having a rant...

And thankyou to tperkz for the info, i might have to pick your brain for a bit more at a later stage if thats ok with you.

Lilpuddin and co:wub:

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Toronto's like that.

I think this might be the biggest set of misconceptions about Canada I've read in one sentence. Most of Canada isn't beautiful, I think the population is stable or falling slightly, industry as a whole is in trouble due to overseas competition and NAFTA. Fort McMoney and Sydney NS are World Heritage eyesores, clear cutting of forests is ugly and destructive, overall the resource based industries are about profit at the expense of the landscape, there's no element of looking after the country.

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Now you see dbd33 thats the sort of feedback i was looking for, thankyou.

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On the other hand, there aren't many people in Canada so it'll take a very long time to make it all look ugly.

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Well at the moment there is nowhere else in the world we would want to be, we can honestly say we hate it here in the UK, Australia is too far from the UK to pop back for a week’s visit, forget the rest of Europe, We have family in New Zealand and been once didn’t like it, as far as America goes... I can’t think of any good reason for going to America.:unsure: And if in a year or so down the line we hate it in Canada we can come back and only hope and pray that the UK is in better shape than when we left it... I very much doubt it will but one can only hope and only time can tell from this moment on.

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When I emigrated I had pretty much that idea, I thought America violent and free of healthcare, Canada seemed like America-Light. As it happened I wound up mostly working in the US and now that view seems very odd; I can't tell the difference between Canada and the USA and would go to whichever one offered me a job.

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I heard from friend that Americans are not so keen on britts taking jobs though, even though as in Canada there is none else to do said job... Friend is a Game developer and had a lot of trouble at his place of work with the natives so to speak. Plus the fact most of them all thought he came from Australia to start with...is this a common misconception? :blink:

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In the computer field in either country they're more worried about jobs going overseas then people coming to take them.

Yes, that's usual in either country.

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North Americans are not good at identifying anglophone accents. I am routinely asked by both anglophone and francophone Canadians if I'm British, Australian, Kiwi, South African.............

Australian is the most common guess. I'm from Sussex.

The confusion has its advantages. There are bits of Quebec where being English is a crime. I can claim to be Scottish (half true) and be allowed to live.

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There is a couple of points of interest here.

Most importantly everyone has different reasons for emigrating. Yes, I don't like what this country has become and fear in the future for my children. This is not only based on law, space, religion and education, but also that the culture predominently is a drink culture. Canada, Oz, and the US seem to have a culture where the Great Outdoors features heavily - if you want it.

Fort McMurry is isolated - without question. However this may be what you want. Personally by choice I would rather Edmonton or Calgary where they are two major cities not too far apart from one another and a lot more on offer - work wise I may not end up with that choice ???.

There is another important point raised and this is regarding the Oil Sands, pollution, raping the landscape etc. I don't totally believe in climate change - it's just another reason to higher taxes although pollution is not good in general. The scientific world is split, with the top ones now casting a lot of doubt saying that it is cyclic. If you dont extract the oil and energy from natural resources where else are you going to do it ?

Wind turbines are a complete waste of time. Hydro is only good in the mountains and then you flood some habitat. If humans want their electricity, which life would be so different without, and their cars, planes trains etc then there has got to be places like the oil sands to fuel the 21st centuary world lifestyle. Canada is self sufficient where here we are relying more on Russia and the middle east for oil, gas etc. This means that we can be held over a barrel for our energy and future. You need energy.

Failing this let us go back to horses, candles and a world without computers - which everything runs off now. I guess if you want to live somewhere like that then you would be looking at large parts of China, Africa or the amazon.

Places like Fort McMurry are needed and therefore we need to thank the people who live in these places for the contribution they make to what we take for granted !!

JET:)

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Forgot to add. Regarding our US friends - the Brits in General are less likely to talk a good job and are far more disciplined - and therefore go there and do a lot better than the yanks themselves.

JET:)

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I don't see how this is the case, what do people do in the named countries that has to do with the outdoors that they don't in the UK?

Is this so? Do you have a link? My impression is that while Canada produces a lot of certain types of oil and gas, as well as selling electricity, it imports others, it may have a net financial gain from energy trading but that only works in conjunction with other countries, Canada couldn't do without the other countries.

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They actually have some of it around their houses???

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True, more people in Canada can look at the outdoors through the window than people in the UK. There's also the fishing channel.

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True, we need energy,and we are already over a barrel, we gave up our chance of being self sufficient years ago, and i am a firm believer that the earth has its own cycle, but adding to it with the UK's nappy mountain and plastic bags killing seals and fish and god knows what else is not called for and is most defiantly not helping matters. We can still have all the fab things that the earth has to give us, but just dont take her for granted...I like trees to much, and this rare thing called fresh air.

And what happened to the Fort McMurray discussion anyway :blink:. Besides the fact that hubby is insisting after he read this thread that we got to Edmonton/Calgary :thumbsup:

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Do you think babies don't shit in Canada? These sorts of things are not any different here.

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With respect, JET, I think that's bollocks.

What may be true is that a migrant of any nationality has more get up go than many of the people around him/her.

But, if you compare migrants from one country with the general population of another country, you're comparing apples and oranges.
x

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Aye, and Canada is not exactly renowned for its seal welfare program either:D

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Do plastic bags really "kill seals and fish"? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle3508263.ece

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Brits in America have the advantage of a novelty accent, that's good for selling stuff.

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Ohh thanks for that Biiiink... i been looking for that artical for hours :D

and as for dbd telling me that babies shit in Canada too...well, im gobsmacked:eek:

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Agreed, thats how both myself and Mrs C have been so 'successful' here

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So why did you all leave the UK to go to Canada...the same reason as most here that the UK is going downhill with no sign of slowing?

I asked about Fort McMurray and got my answer...some love it some hate it.

When we tell people what we are doing and we are going to Canada they all say the same 2 things...are you mad and go for it! we say yes to both as you never know until you try, and I for one cannot live with "what if" if I did I wouldn’t have met my husband, had my daughter and I wouldn’t be here discussing Canada with any of you. And the advice is greatly appreciated.
:thumbsup:

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And what happened to the Fort McMurray discussion anyway :blink:. Besides the fact that hubby is insisting after he read this thread that we got to Edmonton/Calgary :thumbsup:[/QUOTE]

Sorry to transgress earlier, I just got up from 3 nightshifts and maybe talking bollocks as Judy suggests:o. I guess you made up your mind. What I feel is disappointing is the lack of people coming forward to give McMurry a good view point. We have had a couple but on the whole there is more negative comments.

Good luck in your pursuit.

JET:)