Interview with Fort McMurray resident Brad Karp

"I found myself out of work in Montreal, the start-up company I was working for went belly up, so I reached out to my friend Pete Potipcoe. I told him that I was looking for any possibilities in radio and if he was looking for a news guy. Turns out that they had someone leave 2 days prior, so the timing worked out perfectly. 

I flew from Montreal to Edmonton then I got off the plane in Edmonton to find my connecting flight. I had done a lot of research on Fort McMurray and I'd heard the stereotypical, glorified, it’s all men there's no women, it's a big camp city. I was sitting at the gate waiting for the flight to board and I noticed it was 98% men waiting alongside me. I think there was maybe 2 women on the flight. It was a packed flight. At that time oil was well over $120.00 a barrel. 

​As we were boarding, the ticket agent was saying to people, ‘oh first time to Fort McMoney.’ I was coming here for radio, so it was not Fort McMoney to me. I landed on December 2nd, 2014 at 11:30 PM in Fort McMurray and it was -35 degrees outside, it was a great way to get acclimatized. 

I had an apartment with Pete Potipcoe above Mitchells when I first moved here, it was good and bad. When you wake up every morning and it smells like pulled pork it's fantastic. However, when you wake up every morning and it smells like pulled pork it's terrible. The best part was long weekends, whatever soup they didn't sell they’d bring it up to us, oh and easy access to sunshine bread."
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