[ScizzMoney]

I live up here in Fort McMurray.

A lot of what some people are saying isn't true:
- The ratio of men to women is more like 55/45 or 60/40 at the worst. The ratio does get skewed when you go to the 'poorer' areas of town though. Then it is nothing but dudes (Waterways & Downtown. Women generally don't like those areas)
- "nothing to do except work and meth" is borderline retarded. If you want drugs, you can find it in any town you want in the country. It's all about the company you keep. My friends and I never touch drugs and are never exposed to it.
- People don't shun you for not doing drugs. To the guy that said they did probably had a sketchy group of friends.
- As for people coming back more introverted and awkward, I don't think that has anything to do with location. If people change when they move to another City within Canada, they were probably just weak people to begin with and very impressionable.


Now to the good or factual.

- If you are planning to rent a place on your own, expect to pay anywhere from 1800-2400 a month for something decent in a 1 bedroom configuration.
- Being a general manager I would imagine would be very difficult in this city. Simply because turnover is very high here with the average income sits around $90k a year and people are always jumping ship from job to job. Especially those who work in town and know people or get jobs on one of the sites close by.
- Not sure who you are working with, but I would try to negotiate them renting you a small SUV or something to drive while you are up here. Put company decals or some shit on it. This year we had a 6 month winter and having AWD or 4x4 in my opinion is almost a necessity.
- Food at grocery stores is very competitive as the big stores like Walmart keep it that way. The food cost increase comes at Restaurants and fast food joints.
- Expect to wait in line when going to restaurants too. They are always packed, and it is only going to get busier up here.
- I can see this place getting back to how it was before where you'd walk into a grocery store or Walmart and the aisles would just have pallets of products plunked down and not put out due to staffing being so low. I literally had to dig through boxes to find deodorant one day. This doesn't happen often, but it does happen.
- If the living allowance they are paying is less than $1000 a month, ask for it increased.
- You will probably be surprised by the amount of good looking women up here too.
- You might not see it at first, but this town is very generous and has a good sense of community (Provided you get involved too). There are lots of good people out here who are trying to make this place home.
- The theater here sucks.
- You will probably do a lot more online shopping with the selection here being pretty minimal.




If you can afford to, I would suggest buying a place right away. I 100% think you can't go wrong buying in this town right now if you plan to leave in 3 years.

OP. If you want, you can feel free to shoot me a pm if you have any questions or anything.


This place is a lot better than most people think.