It is plus ten degrees Celsius in Vancouver–balmy weather for mid-winter. It was minus ten degrees Celsius in Fort McMurray–also balmy weather for mid-winter. The temperatures in Fort McMurray are perfect for the field work that took me there: cold enough to keep everything frozen, but not so cold as to impede working outside constructing things.
While in Fort McMurray, I watched TV in the hotel room one evening. Normally I do not watch TV, and I know why when I found myself glued to repeated scenes of Haiti and the Republican win in the USA. It is mesmerizing to watch the flickering images of tragedy interspersed with the bright lights of victory. You have to hit your head against the wall to establish which of the parallel universes you inhabit.
Am I an engineer designing and contributing to tailings pond closure in the brilliant white snow-scape of northern Alberta?
Am I a grandfather of kids and grandkids who have just phoned to remind me that they need more money for something or other?
Am I a citizen of the world who could have and maybe in the future should use my knowledge and experience to design structures in Haiti that would not fall down in an earthquake?
As Hamlet may have asked: is it nobler to mine, design, or in the mind to walk with the dead spirits?
To analyze this dilemma. First let me defend Fort McMurray. It is attacked nastily in some of those books that bewail oil sands as Canada Stupid to the last drop. Personally I like the place. It reminds me of those small, but vital mining towns where I grew up. There is a gritty feel, both emotional and real as the sand on the road grinds beneath your feet. The people walk with a spring in their step; jaunty that they have jobs and income–maybe so different from the place they came from. And even the beggars have a kind of pride–they survive in that amazing cold. Everybody greets you with a smile. People invite me into their homes far more rapidly and more often than in Vancouver. And while the buildings are not pretty, the ridges and river and the snow-covered trees make it beautiful. It is perhaps best I do not describe the site around which we drove or where I worked, but the lights, the steam, the steel all fascinate me. And the construction guys are big and burly but gruff and jovial; they take a genuine pride in their work, as well they should for they are part of oil production and a society & system that can protect itself and raise children and grandchildren sanely and safely. I am proud to be part of that.
Then I look at other places where things are not like this, where a world is torn apart because elementary engineering principles were not put to work. Where people are not interlinked by goals although they may be dependent on family and caste to survive. I must conclude the problem is theirs, not mine.
Thus I conclude this short note, for I must to billable work, with the conclusions that I will henceforth avoid TV, and will continue to mine.
