1492
Christopher Columbus strikes out across the Atlantic to prove the theory that the earth is round, to discover new lands and gold and elevate his family from poverty to riches. He does this but then spends the next 10 years living a debauched life fornicating with women and smoking tobacco while eating potatoes some where in San Salvador.
1848
Gold rush! Thousands of easterners head out to California to strike it rich in the gold fields of the west, to make untold riches with an eye on returning east to build mansions and live like kings. Instead most drink themselves to death and spend all their hard earned cash in the opium dens of San Francisco, fornicating with women and getting Shanghaied to the Orient while eating Kung Pow Chicken in Chinatown.
2004
Hundreds exit the foggy shores of the Maritimes heading west to the Alberta Oil sands and strike it rich in the black gold fields of Fort McMurray. In mind is to eventually return home with untold wealth and raise their families from Social Assistance to Easy street. Instead during their 3 on 1 off weekends, they spend all their money smoking crack in cheap motels, fornicating with women, eating hot wings at Hooters and getting lost in West Edmonton mall.
It seems that that since the beginning of time men have left the bosoms’ of their loving families to forge west, only to go crazy and spend all their money on questionable women and drugs.
Hubby and I hear it all the time around Saint John. Young guys crowing about going out to Alberta and living the good life, comparing pay stubs with their poor sucker friends who have not yet dared to make the leap. The reality is that when you go from ‘have not’ to ‘have way too much’ funny things begin to happen to you.
The people of Alberta have had the luxery to make a slow progression from rags to riches. Most of the kids grow up in above average income homes with all the materialism and advantages it offers. They have their homes, families and social support mechanisms in place before going up to no-mans land and oil camps to work the fields. The minute they step off the plane back home in Edmonton their wives, girlfriends or mothers quickly confiscate their riches and head out to the mall to spend it for them. They end up at home with no more money than when they left (which is still a lot of money). But the point is; it is "same old same old" for them.
Many easterners come face to face with a bizarre lifestyle that they could never have imagined and all good intentions go to hell when up against the leeches who wait for payday just as eagerly as they do. What many here in the Maritimes do not realize is that they themselves become an industry. Nothing like a Maritimer with too much money in his pocket and too much time on his hands to boost the Alberta economy.
Here is a typical weekend in Fort Crack.
It's just after 7 p.m. on payday Thursday and downtown Fort McMurray is a gong show.
Inside the a bar, dozens of oil sands workers are poised like bingo dobbers over beers, waiting for their name to be bellowed over the PA system so they can cash their paycheques.
Times are good in this northern Alberta oil-rich boom town, which means drugs and sex are plentiful near the 7-Eleven at the corner of Franklin Avenue and Main Street.
The corner doubles as a drug den. Inside one business, druggies smoke meth in the washroom. A frustrated clerk hangs the Out of Order sign on the door - -- again. Her $11 hourly wage isn't worth the hassle.
The entrance to the nearby Mr. Liquor store is littered with loiterers, as is the parking lot. Some are selling, others buying. "What d'ya want? Coke? I can get you crack, coke, whatever you want," says a dealer to a guy who staggers over from the bar. "I can take you to a crack house the cops don't know about, break in, we can smoke it there. "Meth, how about meth?"
Near the curb, a woman wearing flip flops and a pony tail is asked for sex, twice, by the same man in a Jeep. RCMP insist prostitution is practically unheard of in Fort McMurray.
The phone book features 10 pages of escorts, including low-cost lovers promising cut-rate service within 20 minutes.
When beat police circle the block, drug dealers -- mostly twentysomethings - -- scatter like the infamous oil sands beetles.
By 11 p.m., the arrests start, as lusty drunks spill out of the bars and strip club looking to fight. Druggies scour the block for a fix.
A man in a pickup truck demanding sex screams to a crying woman he's through "negotiating." Thwack, someone is slapped.
"The Grim Reaper lurks on every corner of this town," says Darrell Murphy, a tall, lanky redhead recently arrived from Newfoundland, who says he's struggling to stay clean, the way he lived back home. But with a wad of cash in his jeans from his Syncrude job and his roots out of reach, he's finding it tough.
"There's a lure around every corner, a vice there to grab you," says Murphy. "Whether it's gambling, coke, meth, crack, weed, hookers or drink, there's always something there that's going to try and take you away from your ethics, morals and money."
"This town is awash in cocaine," says longtime Fort McMurrayite Darrell Payne, an auto body shop owner who has watched as friends struggled with drug addictions. "People have more money than they know what to do with. "
Fort McMurray ranks number one in the province for drug abuse, according to the most recent data from the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission.
Drugs such as ecstasy and crack have also surfaced in the northern city, although none is as rampant as cocaine. Unlike other cities, what you won't hear much about is grow-ops or meth labs. The vacancy rate is so low, there simply are no houses available for production. Police say meth and pot are the poor drug user's vices. Cocaine is an expensive one and because there is a high level of income, they can afford to do a more expensive drug. One week in mid-September proved that to be true when Mounties recorded three significant busts, including the largest cocaine haul in the city's history, worth $250,000.
In reality what happens is Johnny Maritimer ends up calling home all messed up needing a one way ticket back and a bed in rehab.
“Where did all the money go?” asks the wife and kiddies as they wait in line for the food bank.
The courts here in Saint John are filled with such sad tales as these. When they get home and the money and job is gone they hit the streets committing crime to find the cash they now so desperately need to support their little friend “addiction” that they brought back with them. It’s the only thing they brought back.
So the “have not” provinces end up paying the tab for the “have too much” province of Alberta.
Do we see a pattern here? STAY HOME!
Til Later
