The air quality was horrible in Edmonton when we woke up on Wednesday morning (looking across the parking lot and a busy street we couldn't make out any details on the buildings across the street. We decided we needed to do two things: 1) Find something to do in Edmonton that was inside, and, 2) Find somewhere else to stay outside of the smokey area. We opted to drive 270 miles north to Fort McMurray which was forecast to have better air quality.
It is interesting that Fort McMurray is the oil sands capital of Canada. They use two methods to extract oil from the oil sands: surface mining, and fracking (they call it "in situ" extraction).
We toured the Oil Sands Discovery Center and learned all about the processes and saw some really huge machinery used in the surface mining.
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| One very large Dump Truck |
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| This bucket excavator can really dig a hole fast. |
We also toured the Heritage Museum which told the stories of the area's early residents including trappers, business men (and women) and the exploits of an heroic pilot named Wop May who flew in World War I and also pioneered medical flights in the icy cold of the Northwest Territories (in those days, the cockpit was open).
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| Trapped furs |
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| Wop May defeats the notorious Red Baron |
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