She straddles the old native and new industrial worlds, saying, “I try to strike a balance.” She has a son, Osborne, who still makes a significant part of his family’s living as a fur trapper. As owner and manager of Quintal Contracting Ltd., she generates livelihoods for 24 neighbors in janitorial, security and water services for oil sands developers.

“It’s an advantage and a disadvantage,” agrees Edward Adby, a senior Métis leader. “The disadvantage is the possibility of pollution of the land and water and emissions in the air. The advantage is employment opportunities.”
To the community, the fishing resort’s conversion into a work camp foreshadows an unavoidable economic destiny. Old Conklin mainstays – trapping, berry picking and forest firefighting – are increasingly haphazard ways to make a living, Adby says. Even firefighting, formerly the main local source of cash income, has become harder because provincial authorities introduced formal safety and proficiency training requirements.

Adby has done all the traditional activities. But he has also built EA Consulting Services Inc. as a contractor providing oil sands developers with van and bus transportation, labor crews, and equipment and personnel for plant maintenance and spill cleanups.

He expects Conklin’s development advisory committee to keep industry accountable for clean operations and sharing benefits. There are encouraging early signs. Oil companies are footing the bill, for instance, for a new public safety program that for the first time gives Métis settlements south of Fort McMurray full-time RCMP policing. The cost, $780,000, is about 10 times more than the annual budget that Conklin receives for local services as part of the Fort McMurray-based Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo. There is more friction with the big oil sands city than the industry in Conklin, where local leaders say fledgling bitumen plants already generate $15 million a year in municipal taxes and that the Métis hamlet deserves a bigger share of the wealth.

Unlike the mega-mines north of Fort McMurray, the in-situ extraction projects of the Conklin area mostly proceed in unspectacular stages of wells and heat injection systems. But activity is poised to accelerate. Among project owners in the Christina Lake region, StatOil Hydro hired native community relations specialists for a planned megaproject while corporate headquarters in Norway fended off protests by Greenpeace International. Petrobank Energy and Resources Ltd. is seeking regulatory approval for a commercial version of its Whitesands experiment with a new underground combustion technology for thermal bitumen extraction. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., EnCana Corp., ConocoPhillips Canada, Devon Canada, MEG Energy Corp., Enerplus Resources and Korea National Oil Corp. are in varying stages of advancing in-situ extraction projects to be built in phases. Enbridge Inc. plans to make a start this year on building new local landmarks – two jumbo tanks, and a pipeline – to keep up with gradually growing Conklin production.

At the lakeside worker housing, tradesmen make it plain that quality accommodation will be a must-have for employers needing to attract skilled personnel as industry activity picks up. “A good or bad camp would make the difference between taking one job or another,” Garcia says. “When you finish work for the day, you want to feel you are at home.”

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