Upon visiting a work camp Fort Mcmurray, the stark surroundings might strike you as something similar to a sort of prison yard or boot camp set-up. Trailers clustered around the common work site make up something akin to a tract housing town; everything the same, everything uniform. Inside each of these trailers is anywhere between 30 and 50 men, with about 2,000 workers living in any given work camp.

Here at Fort Mcmurray workers are stripped of almost all of their personal belongings in exchange for a job, food, and a roof over their head. The workers of Fort Mcmurray must adhere to a strict schedule, what time to rise, when to report to work, when meals are served, as well as enforced quiet hours.

Outside of the work camp, those living and working in Fort Mcmurray have few options to spend their off hours. Nights are usually spent ducking it and out at the bar, gambling at the local casino, or heading to the strip club. Yes, it seems that everyday life working in one of the work camps around Fort Mcmurray is nothing short of monotonous, but perhaps this sort of regulated and regimented environment is what makes it so successful from the oil companies' standpoint.

There are few distractions for the workers, and with food and lodgings paid for in addition to lofty wages, this is perhaps the reason the workers are so willing to give up their freedom. Take for instance Josh Lichti, currently working in Fort Mcmurray and on track to be pulling in $120,000 a year when he hits the ripe old age of 22!

Despite the high demand for oil, and the abundance found in Fort Mcmurray's camps, oil companies are still needing to fill some 100,000 positions. Strapped for labor, these oil companies are willing to shell out top dollar to those workers willing to live in the work camps. The workers are expected to fulfill their rotation, generally about six weeks, and then they are allowed to return home before their next round.

With the comings and goings of workers, the work camp towns operate on the expectation that one picks up after themselves after leaving, so the next man has a clean bed to come into. Friendships are forged and loyalties are fierce, as working side by side and then living with their co-workers, unspoken bonds are built. For all of the seemingly cold and torturous surroundings, to those working and living in the Fort Mcmurray work camps, the benefits of these strict conditions is well worth the subsequent pay-off from the big oil companies; the loss of freedom does not come cheap.