Fort McMurray
Fort McMurray is a city in the northeastern part of Canada's Alberta province. It belongs to the municipality of Wood Buffalo.
Fort McMurray is 435 km northeast of the provincial capital of Edmonton, about 60 km west of the border with the province of Saskatchewan, surrounded by boreal forest at the confluence of the Clearwater River in the Athabasca River. Was founded in 1870 as Fort McMurray Wegposten the Hudson's Bay Company.
The average temperature in Fort McMurray is -19.8 ° C in January and 16.6 ° C in July. The total annual precipitation amounts to 334.5 mm, the annual snowfall is 172.0 cm. The total amount of annual sunshine is 2108 hours in the long-term annual comparison.
Fort McMurray is located in the Athabasca oil sands and is one of the core regions of Alberta's ( and Canada's ) oil production. In recent years the city has experienced through the expansion of oil sands mining an uncommon upswing. The population has doubled in the last ten years. Property prices have skyrocketed and exceed the Toronto or Vancouver, the most expensive cities in Canada (as of 2006). Although 1600 houses per year will be built and set up by the oil companies on container houses, the housing supply can keep up with growth failing to keep pace. The average annual earnings of the oil workers is 100,000 Canadian dollars, twice as much as elsewhere in Canada.
In addition, the city's economy is based on its natural gas reserves, on the forestry and tourism. Near the town is the Fort McMurray Airport.
Sons and daughters of the town
- Tantoo Cardinal ( born 1950 ), actress and Cree ( Métis )
- Tanya Kalmanovitch (born 1970 ), jazz musician
- Aaron Lines ( born 1977 ), country musician
- Colin Murphy ( born 1980 ), ice hockey player
- Chris Phillips (born 1978 ), ice hockey player
- Justin Pogge ( born 1986 ), professional ice hockey goaltender
- Nolan Pratt ( born 1975 ), ice hockey defender
- Scottie Upshall (* 1983), ice hockey player