Working in the Canadian oil sands: 6 figures in 6 months!

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donnie514 · 2013-11-21 20:24:00 · #1951

Hey anyone know if these two sites are legit to acquire safety tickets??

http://worksitesafety.ca/

http://www.albertatdgtraining.com/

scotian · 2013-11-22 11:06:00 · #1952

(11-21-2013 08:24 PM)donnie514 Wrote: Hey anyone know if these two sites are legit to acquire safety tickets??

http://worksitesafety.ca/

http://www.albertatdgtraining.com/

I've never heard of either of them but there's so many safety training companies out there that its hard to keep track of them. I would call them up and ask if their training is recognized by OSSA (Oil Sands Safety Association), if not, then find one that is. A lot of sites, especially outside of the oil sands, will recognize non-OSSA training, but it makes more sense to get the OSSA tickets, which are recognized by everyone, especially if you're goal is to work up in the Big Dirty.

My Facebook has blown up over the past couple of days with all of my friends posting about how damn cold it is in northern Alberta, apparently it was -32C (without the wind chill!) in Fort McMurray this morning, its not even December yet, brutal!

Kdog · 2013-11-22 12:39:00 · #1953

@Scotian, Been back in Edmonton for 7 days and its snowed 5/7 of them! The -32 caught my company off guard and half the vehicles were too cold to start on Wednesday.

WilliamShatnersEgo · 2013-11-22 13:51:00 · #1954

I'm an electrician from Alberta. I can confirm this info. My advice (that I wish I would have took from my old man but I thought I was smarter than him) is, if you're young (18-28) get a trade (electrical is great) and devote 10 years of your life to working as much as you can in the oil patch. work all the hours you can get, live in camp as much as you can, save and invest all your money, don't worry about owning a vehicle (rent when you need one) and watch your portfolio. You can retire by 35 if you do it properly with almost $2 million if you do it right.

For the record, electricians make $47/hr industrial rate. If you work 10 hr shifts (pretty standard) on a 14 on/7 off shift, (anything over 8 hours is time and a half, Friday is time and a half, weekends are double time)...well...you do the math.

206Fan · 2013-11-22 14:49:00 · #1955

William,

I regret not doing an Electrician Trade a few years back. I ended up doing Brick Laying / Stonework here in Ireland. The money was good a few years back. I'm 27 now and going to Alberta next year on the IEC to hopefully get work as a Lease hand on the drills. I want to save as much as I can over the 2 years, return home and do my Degree in the Engineering area I want to pursue.

I have a HND in Electrical / Electronic Engineering but no work experience. Can't see me getting any Electrical work over in Alberta with zero experience!

WilliamShatnersEgo · 2013-11-22 15:49:00 · #1956

If you can manage to get a job as a starter electrician, get indentured into the apprenticeship program and from there join the IBEW union there are plenty of oil patch jobs for first year apprentices that pay 50% journeyman wage.

206Fan · 2013-11-22 16:40:00 · #1957

Would that still not take 4 years to complete though? I only have 2 years on the Visa!

salmonfella · 2013-11-22 19:44:00 · #1958

Nah lad I am irish to and an electrican I have just been approved to work as an electrician here it took 4months to get approved ya can't do an apprenticeship here on a 2 year visa ya have to be a permantant residant and that's a fact. And as electrical is regulated here no company will take you on as they face huge fines I was a qualified electrician and I could not even got a job till I had this approval.. William great to have you on the forum would you recommend joining the ibew? Can I pm you about electrical red seal and other such questions is that ok? Cheers salmon

WilliamShatnersEgo · 2013-11-22 21:09:00 · #1959

Hell yeah, brother. Shoot me a pm.

salmonfella · 2013-11-22 21:49:00 · #1960

Sent ya one buddy

WesternCancer · 2013-11-22 22:07:00 · #1961

(11-22-2013 11:06 AM)scotian Wrote: My Facebook has blown up over the past couple of days with all of my friends posting about how damn cold it is in northern Alberta, apparently it was -32C (without the wind chill!) in Fort McMurray this morning, its not even December yet, brutal!

Damn I thought I was hard as nails for doing a shift at -5 in a tshirt!!!

How the hell do you guys stay warm?

salmonfella · 2013-11-22 22:22:00 · #1962

Wrap up well mate wear layers. I have been working outside this week in -26 it's not nice at first but I have gotten use to it. Today was warm though -10:-)

Temm · 2013-11-22 22:48:00 · #1963

Here in Edson it was -35 with the wind chill on Wednesday--brutal. Tomorrow is supposed to be plus 2, talk about a yo-yo!

MiddleEastern · 2013-11-22 22:58:00 · #1964

Here in Surmont (close to Fox Creek) we had 15" (33 cm's) of snow last night. Today the weather was pretty warm though

theking · 2013-11-23 02:32:00 · #1965

ya, pretty chilly atm. Was minus 43 or 44 with the wind chill last night in the mac

206Fan · 2013-11-23 05:42:00 · #1966

Cheers Salmon. Drills it is for me then!

MicTyson · 2013-11-23 10:32:00 · #1967

(11-22-2013 01:51 PM)WilliamShatnersEgo Wrote: I'm an electrician from Alberta. I can confirm this info. My advice (that I wish I would have took from my old man but I thought I was smarter than him) is, if you're young (18-28) get a trade (electrical is great) and devote 10 years of your life to working as much as you can in the oil patch. work all the hours you can get, live in camp as much as you can, save and invest all your money, don't worry about owning a vehicle (rent when you need one) and watch your portfolio. You can retire by 35 if you do it properly with almost $2 million if you do it right.

For the record, electricians make $47/hr industrial rate. If you work 10 hr shifts (pretty standard) on a 14 on/7 off shift, (anything over 8 hours is time and a half, Friday is time and a half, weekends are double time)...well...you do the math.

Is it difficult to land an apprenticeship in Alberta? Electrician has actually been my goal for a bit but noone in Ontario will take me on

buko · 2013-11-23 12:30:00 · #1968

(11-22-2013 10:58 PM)MiddleEastern Wrote: Here in Surmont (close to Fox Creek) we had 15" (33 cm's) of snow last night. Today the weather was pretty warm though

But you stay the whole day in a warm trailer watching movies so don't complain

and it's called Simonette haha

buko · 2013-11-23 12:34:00 · #1969

(11-23-2013 12:30 PM)buko Wrote:
(11-22-2013 10:58 PM)MiddleEastern Wrote: Here in Surmont (close to Fox Creek) we had 15" (33 cm's) of snow last night. Today the weather was pretty warm though

But you stay the whole day in a warm trailer watching movies so don't complain. The rig out tomorrow won't be that hard hopefully.

btw it's called Simonette
it's a nice camp eh, how do you like the food?

buko · 2013-11-23 12:35:00 · #1970

(11-22-2013 10:58 PM)MiddleEastern Wrote: Here in Surmont (close to Fox Creek) we had 15" (33 cm's) of snow last night. Today the weather was pretty warm though

But you stay the whole day in a warm trailer watching movies so don't complain Dodgy

. The rig out tomorrow won't be that hard hopefully.

btw it's called Simonette
it's a nice camp eh, how do you like the food?

buko · 2013-11-23 12:37:00 · #1971

sorry for the doubleposts the internet sucks here

WilliamShatnersEgo · 2013-11-23 13:01:00 · #1972

MicTyson, It can be challenging breaking into the trade as a starter. You need a job before you can become indentured into the apprenticeship program. There is a lot of work if you're motivated.

scotian · 2013-11-23 15:12:00 · #1973

(11-23-2013 10:32 AM)MicTyson Wrote:
(11-22-2013 01:51 PM)WilliamShatnersEgo Wrote: I'm an electrician from Alberta. I can confirm this info. My advice (that I wish I would have took from my old man but I thought I was smarter than him) is, if you're young (18-28) get a trade (electrical is great) and devote 10 years of your life to working as much as you can in the oil patch. work all the hours you can get, live in camp as much as you can, save and invest all your money, don't worry about owning a vehicle (rent when you need one) and watch your portfolio. You can retire by 35 if you do it properly with almost $2 million if you do it right.

For the record, electricians make $47/hr industrial rate. If you work 10 hr shifts (pretty standard) on a 14 on/7 off shift, (anything over 8 hours is time and a half, Friday is time and a half, weekends are double time)...well...you do the math.

Is it difficult to land an apprenticeship in Alberta? Electrician has actually been my goal for a bit but noone in Ontario will take me on

Don't start an apprecticeship in Ontario if you plan on moving to Alberta, as not all provincial apprenticeship boards will recognize training and hours accumulated in other province. My friends from Nova Scotia have run into this, they worked for months or years in northern Alberta and the NS government wouldn't count the hours, its insane.

MicTyson · 2013-11-23 19:25:00 · #1974

(11-23-2013 03:12 PM)scotian Wrote:
(11-23-2013 10:32 AM)MicTyson Wrote:
(11-22-2013 01:51 PM)WilliamShatnersEgo Wrote: I'm an electrician from Alberta. I can confirm this info. My advice (that I wish I would have took from my old man but I thought I was smarter than him) is, if you're young (18-28) get a trade (electrical is great) and devote 10 years of your life to working as much as you can in the oil patch. work all the hours you can get, live in camp as much as you can, save and invest all your money, don't worry about owning a vehicle (rent when you need one) and watch your portfolio. You can retire by 35 if you do it properly with almost $2 million if you do it right.

For the record, electricians make $47/hr industrial rate. If you work 10 hr shifts (pretty standard) on a 14 on/7 off shift, (anything over 8 hours is time and a half, Friday is time and a half, weekends are double time)...well...you do the math.

Is it difficult to land an apprenticeship in Alberta? Electrician has actually been my goal for a bit but noone in Ontario will take me on

Don't start an apprecticeship in Ontario if you plan on moving to Alberta, as not all provincial apprenticeship boards will recognize training and hours accumulated in other province. My friends from Nova Scotia have run into this, they worked for months or years in northern Alberta and the NS government wouldn't count the hours, its insane.

Yeah I'm all too familiar with inter provincial apprentice hours. You need a red seal to be able to work Canada wide, if not that 2 years of knowledge and hard work is basically worthless. I'm pretty open to which trade I get into especially after my job here in Ontario is training me as a fitter. I just kind of figured that actually getting indentured would be difficult. In about 2 weeks I'll have enough cash for a new car and I can finally get out of the flatlands.

WesternCancer · 2013-11-24 06:00:00 · #1975

(11-22-2013 10:22 PM)salmonfella Wrote: Wrap up well mate wear layers. I have been working outside this week in -26 it's not nice at first but I have gotten use to it. Today was warm though -10:-)

Damn I've never been good at wrapping up, ha.

I put this whole thing off for the last bit as I couldn't really do much but day-dream during that time.

The past few days I've been making a solid plan/checklist for what I can do from now until I leave.

if all goes well I'll let my employer know this week I'm leaving just before christmas. I'll sell what I can around christmas, get anything I need come boxing day and ship out mid January.

The only thing that's worrying me is transportation. I can't drive from where I am (relatively little experience with winter driving, I'd probably die going thru the rockies).

Right now I'm thinking a rental car for the first week or two and then buying a beater car once I get some kind of income. Money won't be an issue, but I want to spend as little as possible.

edit: gat dayum. Its like $600 to rent a car for 2weeks. I might as well just rent a van, sleep in the back and hope I dont freeze my nuts off.

Is there car2go in Edmonton? or any kind of similar rental car service?

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