Post by Bozur on Mar 21, 2005 18:19:57 GMT -5
FORT MCMURRAY JOURNAL
Looking for Recruits for the Frozen North? Try the Tropics
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Published: March 18, 2005
Ian Jackson for The New York Times
Cesar Mogollon, second left, found the cold painful on arrival from Venezuela, until he and his family discovered the joys of snow tubing.
John Ulan for The New York Times
Mushtaque Ahmed, a Bangladeshi-born engineer for Syncrude Canada, at its facility north of Fort McMurray that extracts oil from tar sands. Some 4,000 immigrants from far to the south now live in Fort McMurray.
FORT McMURRAY, Alberta, March 13 - Forty below zero isn't so bad once you get used to it. At least that was the message of a seminar at Keyano College called "We Love the Winters Here," attended by 30 new immigrants from warm-blooded places like Venezuela and Nigeria, drawn here by the promise of hefty salaries in an oil boomtown.
Of course, the lecturers noted, there are some important things to remember about living in this sub-Arctic town where winters last eight long, blustery months.
For one thing, children must be taught that it is dangerous to stick their tongues on freezing metal poles. There are risks to warming up a car inside the garage, and there are ways to drive out of a skid on an icy road.
It is all part of life in what was once a God-forsaken cowboy outpost until several multinational oil companies ratcheted up their oil sands operations here in recent years. In two decades, the population has nearly doubled, to 60,000 from 35,000. There is a lot of money to be made here, especially with oil prices over $50 a barrel, plenty of high-paying jobs and a real estate boom, which have all helped make just about everyone, blue-collar workers included, feel prosperous.
But few Canadians from relatively balmy places like Vancouver and Toronto have the gumption to live in these frigid climes, so oil company recruiters are looking far and wide. Amazingly, they are finding plenty of hearty, well-trained and highly motivated people from places where 70 degrees Fahrenheit is considered chilly.
"What do you prefer," asked Ligda Massicotte, 38, a lawyer who left the chaos of her native Venezuela four years ago. "A country where there is kidnapping, crime, revolution, political uncertainty or a country that is cold where you have to put a hat on?"
Nevertheless, Ms. Massicotte and her fellow English-language students at Keyano say the constant need to shovel snow and the short, dark days take some getting used to.
"When we first got here, my husband would say 'Let's go out,' " she recalled, "and I'd say, 'Oh honey, we have to dress the kids, two socks on each, then the long underwear, then the long-sleeve shirts, then the snow suit, then the mittens, then the hats, then the scarves.' Then as soon as you're ready one of the kids would pooh, and you'd have to start all over again. We'd always be an hour late."
Venezuela, where President Hugo Chávez fired more than 5,000 employees at the state oil company after a failed general strike, has been particularly fertile recruiting ground for energy companies.
"When you are in Venezuela and you read the word 'cold,' you don't really know what that word means," said Cesar Mogollon, an electrical engineer with Suncor Energy who arrived from Venezuela in November.
"The first time I went out at minus 40 during a safety tour around the plant in early December, I was dying," he said. "I felt pain in my nose and ears that went inside. I looked around at my colleagues and asked myself, 'Do they have different blood than me?' "
But Mr. Mogollon said that once he found that local supermarkets carried the white maize flour dough used to make arepas and empanadas, "I was O.K." He and his wife have adjusted, he said, and his 9-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son are snow tubing and skiing with gusto.
At least 4,000 foreign-born immigrants now live in Fort McMurray, and the number is growing fast. Local supermarkets carry halvah from Saudi Arabia, mango nectar from Egypt, jarred yellow cherries from Guatemala, rice sticks from the Philippines and marinating sauces from South Africa. There are cultural organizations for Latinos, Hindus, Filipinos and Chinese. The first Islamic school opened last year.
Mushtaque Ahmed, a 54-year-old engineer at Syncrude Canada, who was born in Bangladesh, has worked previously in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. He says that 10 families from Bangladesh arrived here in the last three years, and that they now get together to celebrate Bangladeshi holidays with potluck dinners that mix their native cooking with Canadian fare: typically roast turkey and assorted biryanis.
There has already been one marriage in the community, he said, and he is trying to persuade his brother-in-law to come here to open a Bangladeshi restaurant.
"I like the friendliness of the people here," Mr. Ahmed said, although he admitted to one misgiving that has nothing to do with the weather: "I can get uncomfortable with what's on television. There's a lot of tolerance to things I am not accustomed to."
Immigrants here, like immigrants everywhere, get homesick and cling to their native cultures.
Oswald Francis, a 52-year-old Jamaican-born bus driver, still wears a Jamaican flag on a bracelet and on a pin on his lapel. He came here for a three-week holiday in 1977 to visit friends, and never left, in large part because his wife thought this could be a good place to raise their two daughters.
"Canada is the best place in the world to live right now, and Fort McMurray is the best place in Canada to live because of the opportunities, the jobs, the money," he said while shopping for a long-distance calling card in a multicultural supermarket. "As for the cold, I wouldn't call it an adjustment. You never get used to it."
Looking for Recruits for the Frozen North? Try the Tropics
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Published: March 18, 2005
Ian Jackson for The New York Times
Cesar Mogollon, second left, found the cold painful on arrival from Venezuela, until he and his family discovered the joys of snow tubing.
John Ulan for The New York Times
Mushtaque Ahmed, a Bangladeshi-born engineer for Syncrude Canada, at its facility north of Fort McMurray that extracts oil from tar sands. Some 4,000 immigrants from far to the south now live in Fort McMurray.
FORT McMURRAY, Alberta, March 13 - Forty below zero isn't so bad once you get used to it. At least that was the message of a seminar at Keyano College called "We Love the Winters Here," attended by 30 new immigrants from warm-blooded places like Venezuela and Nigeria, drawn here by the promise of hefty salaries in an oil boomtown.
Of course, the lecturers noted, there are some important things to remember about living in this sub-Arctic town where winters last eight long, blustery months.
For one thing, children must be taught that it is dangerous to stick their tongues on freezing metal poles. There are risks to warming up a car inside the garage, and there are ways to drive out of a skid on an icy road.
It is all part of life in what was once a God-forsaken cowboy outpost until several multinational oil companies ratcheted up their oil sands operations here in recent years. In two decades, the population has nearly doubled, to 60,000 from 35,000. There is a lot of money to be made here, especially with oil prices over $50 a barrel, plenty of high-paying jobs and a real estate boom, which have all helped make just about everyone, blue-collar workers included, feel prosperous.
But few Canadians from relatively balmy places like Vancouver and Toronto have the gumption to live in these frigid climes, so oil company recruiters are looking far and wide. Amazingly, they are finding plenty of hearty, well-trained and highly motivated people from places where 70 degrees Fahrenheit is considered chilly.
"What do you prefer," asked Ligda Massicotte, 38, a lawyer who left the chaos of her native Venezuela four years ago. "A country where there is kidnapping, crime, revolution, political uncertainty or a country that is cold where you have to put a hat on?"
Nevertheless, Ms. Massicotte and her fellow English-language students at Keyano say the constant need to shovel snow and the short, dark days take some getting used to.
"When we first got here, my husband would say 'Let's go out,' " she recalled, "and I'd say, 'Oh honey, we have to dress the kids, two socks on each, then the long underwear, then the long-sleeve shirts, then the snow suit, then the mittens, then the hats, then the scarves.' Then as soon as you're ready one of the kids would pooh, and you'd have to start all over again. We'd always be an hour late."
Venezuela, where President Hugo Chávez fired more than 5,000 employees at the state oil company after a failed general strike, has been particularly fertile recruiting ground for energy companies.
"When you are in Venezuela and you read the word 'cold,' you don't really know what that word means," said Cesar Mogollon, an electrical engineer with Suncor Energy who arrived from Venezuela in November.
"The first time I went out at minus 40 during a safety tour around the plant in early December, I was dying," he said. "I felt pain in my nose and ears that went inside. I looked around at my colleagues and asked myself, 'Do they have different blood than me?' "
But Mr. Mogollon said that once he found that local supermarkets carried the white maize flour dough used to make arepas and empanadas, "I was O.K." He and his wife have adjusted, he said, and his 9-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son are snow tubing and skiing with gusto.
At least 4,000 foreign-born immigrants now live in Fort McMurray, and the number is growing fast. Local supermarkets carry halvah from Saudi Arabia, mango nectar from Egypt, jarred yellow cherries from Guatemala, rice sticks from the Philippines and marinating sauces from South Africa. There are cultural organizations for Latinos, Hindus, Filipinos and Chinese. The first Islamic school opened last year.
Mushtaque Ahmed, a 54-year-old engineer at Syncrude Canada, who was born in Bangladesh, has worked previously in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. He says that 10 families from Bangladesh arrived here in the last three years, and that they now get together to celebrate Bangladeshi holidays with potluck dinners that mix their native cooking with Canadian fare: typically roast turkey and assorted biryanis.
There has already been one marriage in the community, he said, and he is trying to persuade his brother-in-law to come here to open a Bangladeshi restaurant.
"I like the friendliness of the people here," Mr. Ahmed said, although he admitted to one misgiving that has nothing to do with the weather: "I can get uncomfortable with what's on television. There's a lot of tolerance to things I am not accustomed to."
Immigrants here, like immigrants everywhere, get homesick and cling to their native cultures.
Oswald Francis, a 52-year-old Jamaican-born bus driver, still wears a Jamaican flag on a bracelet and on a pin on his lapel. He came here for a three-week holiday in 1977 to visit friends, and never left, in large part because his wife thought this could be a good place to raise their two daughters.
"Canada is the best place in the world to live right now, and Fort McMurray is the best place in Canada to live because of the opportunities, the jobs, the money," he said while shopping for a long-distance calling card in a multicultural supermarket. "As for the cold, I wouldn't call it an adjustment. You never get used to it."