Fort McMurray ( mik-MURR-ee) is a population centre, technically classified as an urban service area, in the Regional Municipality (RM) of Wood Buffalo in Alberta, Canada. It is located in northeast Alberta, in the middle of the Athabasca oil sands, surrounded by boreal forest. It has played a significant role in the development of the national petroleum industry. A severe wildfire in May 2016 led to the evacuation of its residents and caused widespread damage.
Formerly a city, Fort McMurray became an urban service area when it amalgamated with Improvement District No. 143 on April 1, 1995, to create the Municipality of Wood Buffalo (renamed the RM of Wood Buffalo on August 14, 1996). Despite its current official designation of urban service area, many locals, politicians and the media still refer to Fort McMurray as a city. Fort McMurray was known simply as McMurray between 1947 and 1962.
Video Fort McMurray
History
Before the arrival of Europeans in the late 18th Century, the Cree were the dominant First Nations people in the Fort McMurray area. The Athabasca oil sands were known to the locals and the surface deposits were used to waterproof their canoes. In fur trade days the location of Fort McMurray was an important junction on the fur trade route from eastern Canada to the Athabasca country. In 1778, the first European explorer, Peter Pond, came to the region in search of furs, as the European demand for this commodity at the time was strong. Pond explored the region farther south along the Athabasca River and the Clearwater River, but chose to set up a trading post much farther north by the Athabasca River near Lake Athabasca. However, his post closed in 1788 in favour of Fort Chipewyan, now the oldest continuous settlement in Alberta.
In 1790, the explorer Alexander MacKenzie made the first recorded description of the oil sands. By that time, trading between the explorers and the Cree was already occurring at the confluence of the Clearwater and Athabasca Rivers. The Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company were in fierce competition in this region. Fort McMurray was established there as a Hudson's Bay Company post by 1870, named for Factor William McMurray. It continued to operate as a transportation stopover in the decades afterwards. The Alberta and Great Waterways Railway arrived in 1915 complementing existing steamboat service.
The community has played a significant role in the history of the petroleum industry in Canada. Oil exploration is known to have occurred in the early 20th century, but Fort McMurray's population remained small, no more than a few hundred people. By 1921, there was serious interest in developing a refining plant to separate the oil from the sands. Alcan Oil Company was the first outfit to begin bulk tests at Fort McMurray. The nearby community of Waterways was established to provide a terminus for waterborne transportation, until 1925, when the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway reached there.
Abasands Oil was the first company to successfully extract oil from the oil sands through hot water extraction by the 1930s, but production was very low. Fort McMurray's processing output gradually grew to over 1,100 barrels/day by World War II, and Fort McMurray was set up by the US and Canadian forces as staging ground for the Canol project.
Fort McMurray and Waterways amalgamated as the village of McMurray (the "Fort" was dropped until 1962, when it was restored to reflect its heritage) by 1947, and became a town a year later. Fort McMurray was granted the status of new town so it could get more provincial funding. By 1966, the town's population was over 2,000.
In 1967, the Great Canadian Oil Sands (now Suncor) plant opened and Fort McMurray's growth soon took off. More oil sands plants were opened up, especially after 1973 and 1979, when serious political tensions and conflicts in the Middle East triggered oil price spikes. The population of the town reached 6,847 by 1971 and climbed to 31,000 by 1981, a year after its incorporation as a city.
The city continued to grow for a few years even after the oil bust caused by the collapse in world oil prices. The population peaked at almost 37,000 in 1985, then declined to under 34,000 by 1989. Low oil prices since the oil price collapse in 1986 slowed the oil sands production greatly, as oil extraction from the oil sands is a very expensive process and lower world prices made this uneconomical. Oil price increases since 2003 made oil extraction profitable again for around a decade, until another slump in oil prices which began in December 2014 and deepened in 2015 resulted in layoffs and postponement of projects.
On April 1, 1995, the City of Fort McMurray and Improvement District No. 143 were amalgamated to form the Municipality of Wood Buffalo. The new municipality was subsequently renamed the Regional Municipality (RM) of Wood Buffalo on August 14, 1996. As a result, Fort McMurray was no longer officially designated a city. Instead, it was designated an urban service area within a specialized municipality. The amalgamation resulted in the entire RM of Wood Buffalo being under a single government. Its municipal office is located in Fort McMurray.
May 2016 wildfire
On May 3, 2016, a large wildfire burning southwest of Fort McMurray resulted in the mandatory evacuation of the city. Record-breaking temperatures, reaching 32.8 °C (91 °F), low relative humidity and strong winds contributed to the fire's rapid growth in forests affected by "an unusually dry and warm winter".
More than 100,000 people in the city and surrounding region were evacuated. It was Canada's largest recorded wildfire evacuation in history and third-largest recorded environmental disaster evacuation behind the 1979 Mississauga train derailment and the 1950 Red River flood.
About one-fifth of homes in the city were reported to be destroyed in the fire.
Maps Fort McMurray
Geography
Fort McMurray is 435 kilometres (270 mi) northeast of Edmonton on Highway 63, about 60 kilometres (37 mi) west of the Saskatchewan border, nestled in the boreal forest at the confluence of the Athabasca River, the Clearwater River, the Hangingstone River, and the Horse River. It sits at 370 metres (1,210 ft) above sea level. Fort McMurray is the largest community in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.
White spruce, trembling aspen, balsam poplar and white birch are the most prominent native trees in and around town. Black spruce and tamarack occur in poorly drained areas and jack pine may be seen on the driest sites. European aspen, blue spruce and sand cherry are among the exotic trees occasionally seen.
Climate
With severe winters except during periods of warming chinook winds, mild to warm summers and only three months whose average temperature is higher than 10 °C (50 °F), Fort McMurray has a borderline subarctic climate (Köppen climate classification Dfc), very slightly below to be considered a humid continental climate as May averages 9.9 °C (49.8 °F); and falls into the NRC Plant Hardiness Zone 3a.
The community lies at a lower elevation than most other parts of Alberta, so under the right conditions it can be a "hot spot" for Alberta, or even all of Canada (as in April 1980 when its daily mean temperature of 10 °C (50 °F) was unsurpassed by any other Canadian station).
Temperatures range from an average of -17.4 °C (0.7 °F) in January, to 17.1 °C (62.8 °F) in July. The average annual precipitation is 418.6 millimetres (16.48 in) and falls mainly in the summer months. Average annual snowfall is 133.8 centimetres (52.7 in), most of which falls between October and April.
The highest temperature ever recorded in Fort McMurray was 38.9 °C (102 °F) on July 18, 1941. The lowest temperature ever recorded was -53.3 °C (-64 °F) on February 1, 1917 and December 31, 1933.
Neighbourhoods
Neighbourhoods in Fort McMurray include Abasand Heights, Beacon Hill, Eagle Ridge, Grayling Terrace, Gregoire, Lower Townsite, Parsons Creek, Prairie Creek, Saline Creek, Stone Creek, Thickwood Heights, Timberlea, Waterways.
Demographics
Federal census
In the 2011 Census, Fort McMurray had a population of 61,374 living in 21,729 of its 26,401 total dwellings, a 28.7% change from its 2006 population of 47,705. With a land area of 59.89 km2 (23.12 sq mi), it had a population density of 1,024.8/km2 (2,654.2/sq mi) in 2011.
In the Canada 2006 Census, Statistics Canada recorded a population of 47,705 in Fort McMurray living in 19,021 dwellings, a 23.4% increase from its 2001 population of 38,667. It had a land area of 59.89 km2 (23.12 sq mi) and a population density of 796.5/km2 (2,063/sq mi). The same year however, the RM of Wood Buffalo counted a population of 64,444 in its municipal census, which included a shadow population of 2,301 living in hotel/motel and campground accommodations. The discrepancy in the results was attributed to differences in census methodologies where Statistics Canada used a de jure method while the municipality used a de facto method.
Municipal census
Fort McMurray's permanent population in 2015 was 78,382 as counted by the RM of Wood Buffalo's 2015 municipal census. In addition, the census counted a shadow population of 4,342 non-permanent residents for a combined population of 82,724.
The RM of Wood Buffalo's 2012 municipal census reported a population of 72,944 in Fort McMurray, which included permanent and shadow (non-permanent) populations of 70,964 and 1,980 residents. The 2012 census also indicated that Fort McMurray had 22,386 dwelling units, of which 47.4% were single detached houses (10,604), 27.7% were apartments (6,206), 9.6% were manufactured homes (2,141), 9.2% were townhouses (2,070) and 6.1% were semi-detached houses (1,365).
The population of Fort McMurray was 76,797 according to the RM of Wood Buffalo's 2010 municipal census, which included a shadow population of 1,539 residents respectively. However, the 2011 Municipal Affairs Population List published by Alberta Municipal Affairs presents Fort McMurray's population as 64,773, which includes a non-permanent (shadow) population of 2,184 and its 2007 permanent population of 62,589.
This is the second time that Alberta Municipal Affairs did not recognize the latest municipal census results published by the RM of Wood Buffalo. In 2008, the municipality's municipal census presented Fort McMurray's population as 72,363 (70,304 permanent and 2,059 non-permanent residents). However, the 2008 municipal census population was not accepted as an official population by Alberta Municipal Affairs due to the use of statistical extrapolation instead of 100% door-to-door enumeration. Therefore, the 2008 Official Population List published Fort McMurray's 2007 population, instead of its 2008 population, as the urban service area's official population for 2008.
According to historic municipal census data, Fort McMurray experienced an average annual growth rate of 6.1% between 2000 and 2010. The RM of Wood Buffalo estimates the population of Fort McMurray to increase to 133,000 by 2028.
Migration
Fort McMurray is a multicultural community, attracting people from all corners of Canada and the world. Generally, moves to Fort McMurray have increased in the last decade. Still, Albertans make up almost half the number of migrants to Fort McMurray, followed by 17% of people originating from the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. A report in 1986 noted that 13.8% of Fort McMurray's population was from Newfoundland.
Economy
Fort McMurray is considered the heart of one of Alberta's (and Canada's) hubs of oil production, located near the Athabasca Oil Sands. Besides the oil sands, the economy also relies on natural gas and oil pipelines, forestry and tourism. Oil sand companies include Syncrude, Suncor Energy, CNRL, Shell, and Nexen. Fort McMurray's growth is characteristic of a boomtown. Housing prices and rents are far higher in Fort McMurray than one would expect in such a remote area. In 2006, Fort McMurray had the highest prices in Alberta. The Alberta government has promised to release more Crown land for residential construction, particularly in Timberlea on the north side.
Infrastructure
- Air
Fort McMurray International Airport (ICAO Code CYMM, IATA Code YMM) is serviced by Air Canada, Air Canada Express, Integra Air, McMurray Aviation, Sunjet, Northwestern Air, WestJet and WestJet Encore, with scheduled flights to Calgary, Edmonton, Fort Chipewyan, Fort Smith, Lethbridge, Peace River, Saskatoon, Toronto and Vancouver. The airport is also serviced by various oil companies with corporate and charter flights. Flights are frequently booked to capacity because of the high transient worker population and people unwilling to drive on Highway 63.
- Public transit
Wood Buffalo Transit operates in the community, with routes that extend to all subdivisions on the south side and subdivisions on the north side. Recently Wood Buffalo Transit has expanded their service to the Fort McMurray International Airport and the northern industrial park, Taiga Nova.
- Bus
Greyhound Canada and Red Arrow operate scheduled passenger bus services to Edmonton and other communities along Highway 63, as well as other destinations farther south.
- Highways and roads
Highway 63 is the only highway between Fort McMurray and Edmonton. Due to the industrial demands of the oilsands, Highway 63 boasts some of the highest tonnage per kilometer in Canada, and the largest and heaviest loads that trucks have ever carried. Highway 63 was fully twinned in May 2016. Highway 881 also provides access to the region from Lac La Biche.
- Rail
Canadian National discontinued the Muskeg Mixed (mixed train) to Fort McMurray in 1989, and there has been no passenger rail service since. CN continues to operate freight service on its line to Lac La Biche and points beyond.
Canada Post identified Fort McMurray as "having a particularly high cost to serve" in January 2014, and planned to institute a surcharge of $5.00 for all parcels shipped to the area. However, the postal service retracted this decision before the rate change went into effect.
Education
The Fort McMurray Public and Catholic School Districts both serve the Primary, Elementary, and Secondary Education needs of students in Fort McMurray. Each school district offers diverse programs like French immersion, performing arts or a dedicated technology and science lab, however only FMPSD offers the Advanced Placement program at one of their schools, being Westwood Community High School.
On Abasand Drive, École Boréal is the only francophone school in the area and goes from pre-kindergarten to Grade 12.
Keyano College is a publicly funded college and vocational institute based in the area and plays a role in training workers for the oil sands. Known as the cultural hub of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, Keyano College contains both a state-of-the-art theatre and recital hall, hosting a variety of musical and theatrical events that attract upwards of 50,000 visitors each season.
Media
Notable people
- Kate Beaton, cartoonist, who has written about her experiences living in the oilfields
- Tantoo Cardinal, actress
- Natasha Henstridge, actress
- Brian Jean, politician
- Aaron Lines, singer
- Colin Murphy, professional ice hockey player
- Chris Phillips, professional ice hockey player
- Justin Pogge, professional ice hockey player
- Nolan Pratt, professional ice hockey player
- Tony Sampson, television/voice actor
- Scottie Upshall, professional ice hockey player
- Mark Hartigan, professional ice hockey player; two time Stanley Cup winner
See also
- Petrolia, Ontario, Canada's first oil town
- Shell Place
Notes
References
External links
- Fort McMurray travel guide from Wikivoyage
- Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo
Source of article : Wikipedia
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