crude thoughts: part 1

i have to do some journal writing for my oil class, but i'm bad at journaling, so i'm just gonna blog about it all, and then copy and paste it for my class. here goes:

i'm in fort mcmurray. my CSL 350 class ("oil and community: struggles over labour and learning") is here for a 9-day field trip, during which we will be "participant observers" and learn about the oil industry. another major part of our week will be participating in volunteer projects. the 12 people in the class are divided into partnerships of 2 people each, with the last two people working individually. my partner is a lady named jill, who works as a teacher in northwestern alberta. our project involves attending and working with the aboriginal studies 10/20/30 class at a local high school. i'm pretty stoked about the project. i'll write about it later, though.

we drove up to fort mac yesterday morning. we met at CSL house on saskatchewan drive at 8:00, and loaded up into a 15 passenger van. one of our instructors drove the van, while the two other instructors drove up in a car. jill also chose to take her own car. i think that that was a really good decision, because it means that we can easily get to our placement (it would have been pretty difficult to get to without a vehicle). the ride took about 5 hours. when we started the trip, we realized that the van had a cd player, but none of us had brought cds. i was going to joke to my friend meaghan that we didn't need to worry, because we could totally pick up a used copy of alan jackson's greatest hits or something from some sketchy small-town gas station along the way. two hours later, we stopped in grassland at a sketchy gas station, and there was TOTALLY a rack of used cds, INCLUDING an alan jackson's greatest hits album. i rule! i SO know this scene. this scene = rural northern alberta. anyways... i spent most of the trip listening to weezer and dave matthews band on my ipod, and crocheting some lime green/forest green striped mittens. my lunch consisted of some hawkins cheezies and a big bag o' m'n'ms. we passed through a big area of burned forest that looked a lot like the burned forest that's just outside of slave lake. i wonder if it was part of the same forest fire. i really love the way that burned forest looks, a few years after the fire. there's so much new growth. it's just a really beautiful reminder of the importance of cycles and death and dependence and beginnings.

i've been to fort mac about five times before, but every time, i really love coming into the city. it's set in the river valley, and there is boreal forest surrounding the city, so coming into the treed valley is pretty beautiful. unfortunately, the deciduous trees up here are still like the ones in edmonton were last week - no leaves or blossoms yet. hopefully they'll get a little greener over the next week while we're here. a lot of people complain about fort mac, but quite honestly, i've always liked it. i think that the trees and the river valley have a lot to do with it, but maybe it's the isolation and the distance too. i know it's a small city, but it still feels like a small town to me. it feels a lot like the south side of lesser slave lake, where all the little communities along that side of the lake (high prairie, east prairie, sucker creek, grouard, driftpile, joussard, slave lake, etc.) make up one big community of rurally/industrially-minded people. my classmates keep commenting on the number of pick-up trucks around the city, but it doesn't seem too out of the ordinary to me.

the reasons for me coming to fort mac in the past have been for ukrainian dance, soccer, and high school and university leadership conferences. therefore, i think i have been able to see the sustainable community side of the city that many people don't get to see or don't believe exists. i'd like to learn more about developing community here, partly because i love the idea of developing community anywhere, and partly because i love northern alberta and want to contribute to keeping its people and land healthy.

when we got into the city, most of my classmates went to meet with their community partners, but my and jill's partner was busy, so i got to nap/unpack during that time. our hotel is pretty swank. we each get our own beds (or, in my case, a hide-a-bed), each room has a kitchenette, there are laundry facilities in each suite, and the free junk you get in the bathroom is bath and body works stuff. exciting! for real. and INCREDIBLY expensive. thankfully, the university got some kind of grant for us to go on this trip, so everything is basically paid for my that grant. good deal. after my nap, people started coming back, and we all walked over to a nearby church, where we met the deputy mayor of the city and ate pizza for supper. the meeting was so interesting! the thing i found most interesting was that only 17% of eligible voters voted in the last municipal election, and 21% voted in the last provincial election. eek! the deputy mayor told us that his friend once told him, "i pay more for my cell phone coverage than for my municipal tax," and as a result, people really don't care what is going in politics. the population is so transient that it doesn't really matter to them how decisions impacting the future turn out. yikes! i was also really fascinated that we met in a church. i guess the deputy mayor is quite christian. i wanted to ask him what role the churches played in creating community for permanent and temporary residents, but i didn't get a chance because our meeting ended after only an hour. i am thinking about going to their youth group next friday to just see what happens. church life is just so fascinating to me.

after our meeting with the deputy mayor, meaghan, julia and i went to zellers (which is right next to our hotel) and bought some crochet hooks and yarn. we got back to the hotel and went to our instructors' room to celebrate one instructor's birthday. then meaghan, julia and i came back to my and meaghan's room, and i taught them how to crochet. they are both working on making a crocheted shoulder bag. adorable! we crocheted and watched t.v. and talked about boys, and then went to bed around 10:30.