Making Fort McMurray Home: Space and Place on Canada’s New Frontier of Oil Production

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the city of Fort McMurray, in northern Alberta, has welcomed tens of thousands of newcomers attracted by the high salaries of a booming oil sands industry. In this context, one of the major challenges faced by the municipality and the companies is to retain employees and their families so as to build a sustainable community. In this paper, we will take a closer look at the way this challenge is being met, first by considering how humanistic geographers such as Yi-Fu Tuan and Edward Relph have defined the concepts of space and place so as to elaborate on this idea of “making Fort McMurray home.” Then, relying on field work conducted in October 2014, we will attempt to underline the different approaches the municipality and the oil sands companies have followed to frame the identity of Fort McMurray and promote identification with it. Finally, we will look into the part the non-profit sector plays in fostering a sense of place in this boom town.