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The Canadian Outback

  • 13-01-2020 9:33pm
    #1
    Elite Woad Raider
    Closed Accounts Posts: 77 ✭✭


    Has anyone here experience working in the Canadian outback?

    I spent the last year working in Victoria. It was expensive and jobs didn't pay that much.

    I was told if I wanted to make money I should consider Fort McMurray.

    I'm not sure what it's like though?


Comments

  • #2
    the_syco
    Registered Users Posts: 37,295 ✭✭✭✭the_syco


    Have always been advised to avoid anything that has Forts & Ports in its name by other Canadians, and from people who lived in Canada.

    A quick Google says that Fort McMurray got fcuked badly when the oil prices dropped 5 years ago, and that a load of houses got burnt in a wildfire in 2016. You may get cheap rent, but only as people are leaving.

    =-=

    Went to Calgary for a week about two years ago. Expensive, not very lively (as it also got fcuked by the oil price drop). Went to Banff just to the west. For a small town, it seemed to be pretty busy. I went in September, as it was "cooler" then, and enjoyed it there. Maybe look at that, if that's what you mean by "outback"?


  • #3
    coinop
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 315 ✭✭coinop


    Many Irish youngsters fresh out of college with their Arts degrees have dreams of heading to Canada to make their fortune. The USA is their first choice but with no visa options easily available they settle for Canada. They invariably head for the big cities - Toronto and Vancouver - but get a huge shock when they realize the cost of living is worse than Ireland with lower wages. Most of these Irish end up working in minimum wage bar work, fast food. or retail jobs for a year before heading back to Ireland penniless. They'll kid themselves that they did it "for the experience" but the reality is you can't have much fun without a bit of cash to fund it.

    If you have a trade then you may fair better up North in cities like Fort McMurray but it's definitely not for Gender Studies graduates from UCD. Research on how to get your Irish qualifications recognised in Canada. Days are short at those high latitudes and it'll be dark and cold. You will grind hard but get paid well for working in a harsh environment. The flip side of the high pay is extortionate prices in the grocery store. Expect to pay over $7 for a gallon milk, $5 for a lb of apples, $80 a month for internet. There are not a lot of options entertainment-wise so most workers end up blowing their wages in the bars (complete sausage fest btw. No woman would hang around Fort McMurray for long unless she's a hooker looking to make a quick buck from desperate, lonely men, and there are plenty of them). I'd advise staying away from the drinking scene personally. To summarise, you go to Fort McMurray for a few months to stash some cash before getting the hell out of dodge. You do not go there for "the experience" that so many naive Irish youngsters are in search of.


  • #4
    Ardillaun
    Registered Users Posts: 2,535 ✭✭✭Ardillaun


    The oil sector has really taken a hit. Post-Covid, rural BC or Ontario might be worth a look. In both provinces, most people live in one tiny corner and the rest is well worth exploring. Atlantic Canada is great to see at least once but the employment opportunities are more limited.


  • #5
    Ardillaun
    Registered Users Posts: 2,535 ✭✭✭Ardillaun


    Fort McMurray is cold in winter but it’s not too far north. I think in latitude terms it’s between Dundee and Aberdeen? Like most Canadians, I have yet to go to the real north up in Nunavut, the Yukon and NWT.


  • #6
    coinop
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 315 ✭✭coinop


    Ardillaun wrote: »
    Nunavut, the Yukon and NWT.

    I've never been either but I hear it's quite boring. Not even decent scenery to look at. Bland, boring tundra with not even a tree in sight. Sparsely populated with only a few Inuit hanging around. A population about the same as Drogheda spread out over a massive 2 million square km. No roads so the only way in and out is by place meaning even the basics will cost a fortune. Only reason why a tourist would go there is for bragging rights, just to say they've been there.


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  • #7
    Ardillaun
    Registered Users Posts: 2,535 ✭✭✭Ardillaun


    coinop wrote: »
    I've never been either but I hear it's quite boring. Not even decent scenery to look at. Bland, boring tundra with not even a tree in sight. Sparsely populated with only a few Inuit hanging around. A population about the same as Drogheda spread out over a massive 2 million square km. No roads so the only way in and out is by place meaning even the basics will cost a fortune. Only reason why a tourist would go there is for bragging rights, just to say they've been there.

    I think that’s part of the reason why tourists go anywhere.

    The Yukon has impressive scenery, lots of trees and Canada’s tallest mountains, while NWT’s Nahanni River is spectacular by any standards:

    https://nahanni.com/blog/nahanni-river-guide/

    Hardy man stuff canoeing down here:

    https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nahanni+river+

    Even before Covid arrived, my whitewater escapades were confined to YouTube.

    However, I’d really like to see Baffin and do some dog-sledding on the sea ice. By and large, we Canadians live in a scrawny, Chile-shaped strip of our own country beside the US border. We should see more of it if we get the chance.


  • #8
    Ardillaun
    Registered Users Posts: 2,535 ✭✭✭Ardillaun


    On the weekends, I get a mild dose of the Canadian outback - a cabin in the woods beside a lake near where I live. There are just dirt roads in that some of the neighbours keep ploughed of snow in the winter. We have a generator for electricity.


  • #9
    Ardillaun
    Registered Users Posts: 2,535 ✭✭✭Ardillaun


    Victoria is faux Canada, a place they used to say worthy of the newly wed and the nearly dead. An embarrassing number of Irish people mean Toronto or Vancouver when they talk about the vast Canadian subcontinent. Use Google Maps to view the magnificence that could be yours.



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