Northern Alberta's shadow population
Every welder, pipefitter and engineer has a mathematical equation. One side has time and family, the other has money. Some tinker with the formula for a year or two, leave and never return. Others keep coming back, year after year.
Work camps are everywhere in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, the 68,000- square- kilometre region surrounding Fort McMurray. A 2012 census found 40,000 mobile workers working at nearly 100 projects here, rivalling Fort McMurray`s 73,000 residents.
The number of mobile workers is likely closer to 60,000, officials suggest, since the census tally is based on a low season and camp capacity was recently estimated at 92,000 beds.
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