For many people in the construction trades, some or all of your career will involve out of town work. Some jobs will involve lodging in hotels and taking care of your own meals, while others will involve staying in a work camp.
LNG Canada Work Camp
What is a Work Camp?
Remote construction work camps are temporary settlements established in isolated areas to accommodate workers engaged in large-scale construction projects. These camps serve as hubs for laborers, engineers, trades, and other professionals involved in building infrastructures like roads, bridges, mines, dams, and oil rigs in distant and often challenging terrains.
There are no tents in a work camp.
Life in a remote construction work camp is a unique experience that comes with its own set of challenges, rewards, and a strong sense of camaraderie among the workers.
There are many large Canadian construction projects in remote locations that require large amounts of labour. If there’s even a city nearby it won’t be equipped to handle an influx of thousands of temporary workers.
In the situation where accomodations for a large number of temporary workers is required, many times the project will build temporary housing for those workers. Typically this comes in for form of temporary modular living quarters. These modular living quarters are constructed offsite, transported to site, then placed.
Facilities and Services
Work camps are like temporary full service hotels and can contain living quarters, dining facilities, medical services, laundry facilities, movie theatres, licensed lounges, gymnasiums, physiotherapy, massage, and even hairdressers.
Additional services that are included in many camps can include in-room satellite or digital TV services, WiFi, and shared social rooms for watching the big game with a crowd.
Not every camp is the same or will have the same services available, but it’s getting more common for the company to provide as many services as possible to attract and keep a quality workforce.
Are Work Camps for Me?
The first question would be, why would anyone want to work in a remote work camp? The number one answer would be money. When you’re in a work camp, your work shifts will typically be longer with longer days than a regular Monday to Friday, eight hours per day job. Typical shifts could be 14 days on then 7 days off, 21 days on then 7 days off, with each work day being 10 hours or more.
Another good thing about working in a camp is that all your expenses are paid for. You don’t pay for any lodging and all your food is not only made for you, but paid for.
What are the Rooms Like?
Over time, we’ve gone from bunk beds with multiple people in the same room and gang showers down the hall, to single person rooms with private bathrooms.
How are Meals Done?
Meals in a work camp are done cafeteria style in a dining hall. If the camp you’re staying in is large enough, there may be more than one dining hall.
When entering a dining hall, you’ll usually have to swipe an id badge to ensure that you’re supposed to be there.
In a smaller camp, there may only be one station, but there will always be more than one selection for your meal. Those tasked with providing the meals are professionals and will do all they can within reason to ensure that everyone can get a meal that they’ll enjoy.
In larger camps you may have multiple stations along with specialized stations, like a “Diner” station that will have burgers, fries, etc.
How Do I Get There?
Depending on the size and location of the job, you may need to drive to the site using your own transportation. In this case, you travel expenses should be paid for.
If the company you’re working for is supplying flights, they will arrange for the flight for you as well as make arrangements to get you from the airport to the jobsite/camp. Travel arrangements to get to the airport are usually up to you and may or may not be paid for. Some contractors will pay for your long term parking and some will not.
Ride Sharing
Whether your travelling all the way from your home to the jobsite or just to the airport, you can save money by ride sharing. The Canadian Electrical Worker website has a feature that allows you to post ride share requests. You’ll find all the information on the Ride Share Page.
Website members can post requests to find someone to drive, passengers, or people to switch off with.
