ReturnToTheTarSands

By the time we reached Fort McMurray, it had been built-up so much that we were bound to be underwhelmed. After countless warnings about how dangerous and extreme the town was, I was expecting to be welcomed by bar brawls spilling out onto the streets, homeless in every doorway, and prostitutes and fiery car crashes [...]

Filed under: Fort McMurray, TTTS on September 12th, 2007 | 6 Comments »

I’m sitting here in a moss bed in the progressive beautiful For Mackay. I made it. Its hard to be mindful of the fact that we are here. A handful of random youth. Now greater minds that agree on something and disagree on others. We rode hard and well. Learned people we depart. The stories [...]

Filed under: Fort McMurray, TTTS on September 11th, 2007 | 3 Comments »

The Bad
Fort Muck: place of sex, drugs, violence, homelessness, massive trucks, polluted air and contaminated water. This is what we were told we would find at the end of deadly Highway 63, or in our case Secondary Highway 881. The city of 70 000 has been growing at a most alarming rate. In response, city [...]

Filed under: Fort McMurray, TTTS on September 11th, 2007 | 3 Comments »

Having returned home, I have had a few days to process all that I saw on my culminating summer trip through Alberta. Many topics and themes continue to thrive in my mind, and I hope to visit these over the next several days/weeks, as I had not the time over the course of the trip [...]

Filed under: Fort McMurray, TTTS on September 11th, 2007 | 3 Comments »

Now that I am back in Toronto after a short, but powerful, experience with the bikers, I am seeing everything through the lens of energy use.
I am back at the University of Toronto for frosh week, and the extent to which resources are wasted and thoughtful discussions avoided by a horde of incoming students seem [...]

Filed under: Commentary, TTTS on September 3rd, 2007 | 2 Comments »