Fort McMurray disc jockey Murray Jordan — ‘I don’t think we have any worse of a situation than any other town’
“Hey, can I have some money? I’m fucking starving.”
Like a creature in a William S. Burroughs tale, a dark-haired woman approaches me awkwardly. Clutched in her thin hand are a lighter and a $10 bill. Her physical appearance betrays any attempt to disguise the telltale signs of drug abuse. Her eyes and body constantly shift, insect-like, as if unable to find a comfortable position.
“I’ve been in Fort Mac for 26 years,” she says in a drawl. The 12 years she’s spent on the streets show in her face. She looks weathered and a full decade older than she claims to be. “My name is Shanti. Why don’t you come stay with me for a week?”
It’s barely past 10 a.m. on Saturday of the August long weekend and it seems like half the population has deserted the northern town. There’s no shadows cast by the municipal building kitty-corner to the 7-11 where Shanti makes her proposition. A cast of souls buzzes around the parking lot like bees in a beehive, darting in and out from behind the garbage bin.
Some sell cocaine, clearly without fear of reprisal. They have nothing to lose. The scene is similar to what you’d see in any other town with drugs and prostitution, but it feels like the participants here act more brazen. The local RCMP drive by and occasionally plant a car in the area, but they can only do so much.
In the background, one of Shanti’s friends calls to her repeatedly from a parked car on the street. She jerks away towards her friend. “You can take pictures of me,” she says to me over her shoulder.
The sidewalks lining the streets of Fort Mac’s utilitarian downtown crumble and crack from neglect. The city’s core is designed for people to get their supplies before heading back to the comfortable family-friendly communities planted in the forested hills above. The downtown is like a ghost town. This, in the middle of the city driving Alberta’s economic boom.
The suburbs, however, thrive with new asphalt and cookie-cutter houses. Flags emblazoned with the words “Big Spirit” — the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo’s slogan — flutter on poles along the streets.
Mayor Melissa Blake says the $500,000 Big Spirit campaign is intended to instill civic pride. “Those who do make the trek [to Fort McMurray] will actually come to the same conclusion that we already have — that it’s actually a pretty cool place to live in,” she says.
Back behind the 7-11, a small building stands across an unused lot. A few homeless people are sitting against the wall. A sign on the back door of the building reads KAOS 91.1 FM. Go through the door and down a single flight of stairs and you’ll discover Fort Mac’s Christian-based music station. The canary yellow walls contrast sharply with the gloomy reality on the other side of the door.
“I don’t think we have any worse of a situation than any other town,” says Murray Jordan, the station’s disc jockey. For 20 years, Jordan has ridden out Fort Mac’s boom-and-bust cycle. The town was only 30,000 strong when he arrived. It now stands closer to 70,000, not counting the workers in campsites.
The radio station opened in the summer of 2007 and while it’s categorized as a religious station, the music doesn’t have to be Christian-based to make it on-air. It just has to be uplifting and have spiritual undertones to help battle the doom and gloom lurking in the shadows, explains Jordan. “I think there are a lot of people who come here with a dream, expectation or vision,” he says. “Sometimes that vision isn’t met. Their expectation was higher than the reality and it can be easy to become disillusioned.”
But many in the city either beat or avoid that disillusionment. On a per capita basis, Fort McMurray residents regularly donate more to charities than any other jurisdiction in Canada. In 2007, the United Way alone raised over $3.9 million in a two-month campaign through corporate and public donations.
“We’re a giving community,” says Blake. “But it’s financial. In a lot of ways we don’t have a lot of time. Everyone’s working so hard, so much, so fast, that we probably hurt a little on the volunteering side.”
