Nurse faces gruelling culture shock of mine camp life

Five a.m. Twenty-eight stifling degrees and climbing. I reach for my cumbersome CSA-approved, steel-toed work boots, and wonder, “How did I come to be here?”

“Here” is a remote mining construction camp in the wilds of northwestern Ontario — a place where men are men and women have to be tough to survive. “Here” is not a place for the faint of heart, nor for those seeking a cushy lifestyle.

I came across the job on the Internet, finding that this mine was undergoing a major expansion. As a nurse, I had arrived at a crossroads where I had outgrown the hospital scenario, and was searching for something different. In the process, I learned some things about mining camp life.

I have learned that life in a construction camp is reduced to a work-eat-sleep cycle, with the emphasis placed on sleep. Mining bush camps have a unique way of levelling the playing field in the mining hierarchy. CEO? You live in a bunkhouse. Janitor? You live in a bunkhouse. Rock truck driver? You live in a bunkhouse. Honour-roll geology student? You live in a bunkhouse. Nurse? You also live in a bunkhouse, but you get preferential treatment. Preferential means you get called out in the middle of the night for anything from an eyeflush to patching lacerations to arranging ambulance transfers, and still show up for a 10-hour shift the next day.

Facilities are communal, including washrooms, showers, dining — and the two cherished telephones on-site. I quickly learned there are no long, drawn-out hours of whispering sweet nothings on this company phone, because the big bruiser behind you has two weeks of sweet nothings stored up and ready to explode if you don’t hurry. As he drums his beefy paws on the doorframe, you hurriedly mumble your goodbyes and realize how much you took the phone for granted at home. Transportation is also shared. Busses and company vehicles shuttle us from pillar to post, buggy whips waving and beacons flashing like so many June fireflies.

A typical day at the health centre begins around 4:30 a.m., lining up for showers. Jeans, T-shirt, work socks and boots, reflective vest and white hard hat sporting the red cross of the first aid station complete my new uniform. Off to 5 a.m. breakfast, a lunch-making frenzy, and then stumble out to a waiting van. After a day of patching and giving safety talks to eliminate the need for patching, we head home. Home is a wee place, utilitarian, a place to dress and sleep, no more. I snicker at how I planned to truck a Lazy Boy and a writing desk, maybe even a loveseat and a coffee table to this little nest. I’d have to hang them from the ceiling!

The combined long hours of work and the fresh air have a sedative effect, not to mention the haunting cry of the loon at dusk. Gentle breezes rustle the poplars surrounding the camp, and many nights, rain patters on the metal roof of the bunkhouse, lulling us into the sleep of the dead. Dead that is, until the unwelcome buzz and jangles of 42 alarms going off at dawn.

I think of how, a few short weeks ago, I was buckling up dainty black dress pumps, moussing and teasing my salon coif, donning a smart business suit, grabbing a briefcase and sliding into the family sedan, late for an important board meeting. Now I ride about the property in a three-quarter-ton Dodge Ram, stiff standard transmission and all, no fancy hairdo, en route to a safety meeting with men and women in dusty workclothes, none of us exuding Chanel No 5.

It is a great life — hard work, but free from the constrictive trappings of traditional workplaces, meeting with a whole new breed of co-workers. I could become very comfortable here. . .

— The author is a community nurse/musician/freelance writer from Thunder Bay, Ont., who did eventually leave this workplace, but not before making many new friends in the industry.