Aida Edemariam; 11/11/07
You’ve only got to stroll down Hardin Street to the main drag, then hang a left and walk a couple more short blocks, to see what Fort McMurray is about. It wouldn’t be the whole story, but you would catch the drift.You’d pass the Boomtown Casino, strip malls, and a club called Cowboys proudly advertising “naughty schoolgirl nights”. Then the Royal Canadian Mounted Police station, the municipal offices, the Oil Sands Hotel and Diggers bar, with its advertisement for exotic dancers. You would be passed by Humvees and countless pick-up trucks, each more souped up than the next, many covered in dried mud, many carrying further four-wheel-drives – in winter, snowmobiles; in summer, all-terrain vehicles on which to go chasing through the bush, which is visible from the main street.