Documentary
Behind the scene of Canadian’s Oil Patch
Considering all the controversy regarding the oil and gas industry in the world’s current affairs, the timing of producing a documentary on the life of the workers in the oil patch could not be more appropriate.
The idea of filming and covering the oil patch from a perspective concerned, more with private matters than political or social reality is new. It is an artistic point of view aimed at disclosing the human side of the industry and its interaction with the elements of nature and its heavy machinery. This is a dimension of the petroleum industry, which is rarely, if ever seen. The project intent is to unveil and describe the existence of a micro society living in camps, in remote areas of northern Canada.
The drilling sites are usually situated in remote areas. In these far off lands, nature confronted in its state of wilderness is breathe taken, but could also be at times cruel for its harsh climatic conditions. In such isolated locations, which imply hours of driving on narrow roads in the forest or muskeg, a base camp provides services for sleeping, eating and entertainment facilities for hundreds of hard workers and is a “must” to cover the basic needs. Often ice roads and ice bridges have to be built in order to accommodate the regular traffic of heavy machinery.
Every year, hundreds of people work in the oil patch. Long hours, hard work, difficult weather conditions, isolation, added to a melting pot of workers from different background, all set the daily pace in the oil patch. For many it’s a way of life, a life dedicated to the industry from generation to generation. Every year also, men loose their life in the oil fields. Working on the rigs can be dangerous. The days are long and tough but the money is good and for many it’s a passion, a passion for hard work and the challenge brought by the unusual life-style in a no men’s land. It’s a similar excitement brought by the gold rush from a century ago and it makes it all worthy.
Outside of the drilling crew formed by drillers, derrick-hands, motor-hands, roughnecks, lease hands etc…there are also a multitude of specialists such as consultants, engineers, geologists, safety inspector, environmental expert, cementers etc…. Every season, the services industry providing trucking, logging, pipeline, catering, water hauling, cat operator, first- aid etc…contribute to this micro society in order to create a base on which the oil company can rely on. All this, is critical to efficient operations and the well being of its workers.
Life in the oil patch means working 12 to 15 hours a day, for some even 24 hour shifts are common, on a seven days a week base and for an undetermined period of time. Up in these remote sites, one encounters a different kind of human being, the kind of individual who can spend up to 10 months out of a year in camp or hotels, away from home and living a life out of the ordinary. Oil and gas industry workers demonstrate a certain mentality, courage, strength, unusual wit, and certain madness. This micro-society forms a gathering of people coming from Newfoundland to B.C. including native people, some Eastern European, French and British as well.
Page 1 / Marie France Leroyer, March 18 2003
December 2005
For Immediate Release
Oil and art mix images in photo essay
Edmonton AB - Life in the drilling camps is the backdrop for Le Pétrole: Humanity in Canada’s Drilling Camps, a photo essay that defies the stereotypes of workers who toil on the oilrigs. In a stunning series of black and white photographs, Alberta-based artist Marie-France Leroyer captures the camaraderie, the loneliness, the raw interaction between muscle and machine, and the unforgiving and starkly beautiful landscape surrounding drilling operations in Canada’s north.
Leroyer, an artist and freelance photographer, has often ventured into the male-dominated camps laboring side by side with her workmates. By working in and around the oil patch, she was inspired to visually interpret the energy industry versus the energy of mankind. With her finger constantly on the shutter, Leroyer found something poetic about workers spinning chains, pulling levers and maneuvering huge rigs against a desolate natural backdrop. Despite backbreaking labor, constant loneliness and at times minus-40-degree temperatures, most of her subjects in Le Pétrole: Humanity in Canada’s Drilling Camps, are seen smiling, laughing and being laid-back, a dramatic contrast to the sometimes inhospitable conditions.
“I found the people to be so refreshing, witty and colorful, I wanted to document them,” said Leroyer. In some ways, many of Leroyer’s photo subjects reflected her own artistic inclinations. “There’s something bohemian about them,” she says.”
Le Pétrole: Humanity in Canada’s Drilling Camps, published by Bayeux Arts, is available at bookstores across Canada..
Media Contact:
Digital images from the book available upon request.
Brenda Knight, Fat Cat Media Relations
Ph: (780) 413-9440 Email: fatcat@planet.eon.net
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