Maritimers have a long-shared history with Alberta, and the recent wildfires hit close to home for many who have spent years living and working in Fort McMurray.
As a result, many are looking to give back to the city that gave them so much.
“Out there was like a sanctuary,” said Lennie O’Toole, a former oil sands worker who spent 30 years working in Fort McMurray. “It gave us hope.”
O’Toole was among the first wave of labourers recruited to the west by building trade unions in the 1980s and 1990s.
However, the “Alberta-bound” phenomenon really began in earnest shortly after the turn of the millennium.
“After 2000-2001, it really just exploded,” said Doug Lionais, professor of community economic development at Cape Breton University. “That’s the result of significant investment that started going into the oil sands around 1997.”
Soon after, the economic effects of that investment began to boomerang back east.
“It was a tremendous influx of cash into the economy, that we desperately needed at a time when steel and coal were pretty much wrapping up,” said Adrian White, president of the Sydney and Area Chamber of Commerce.
Generations of people left their homes on the water for the vast oil sands where they wouldn’t smell the salt air for weeks, or even years.
Some, like Lennie O’Toole, have been able to return home and, thanks to Fort McMurray money, were able to afford a waterfront view of their own.
“I owe McMurray my life, if you want to put it that way,” said O’Toole. “What I got in my life, I owe to them.”
Now, at age 71, O’Toole is determined to go back to Fort McMurray to help any way he can.
It’s a sentiment he shares with many Maritimers.
“I think in tragedy, there’s always opportunity,” said White. “We’re going to see more people come out of this community to Alberta to help with the rebuilding effort, and that’s going to be a stimulator not only for that economy, but for ours as well.”
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Ryan MacDonald.
