I'm enjoying the convo on this subject. A good friend of mine is a site supervisor for a majour construction company in BC - though commercial and office structures in and around Vancouver vrs big infrastructure projects in the hinterland.

He is busy. A lot of his work is majour renovations of office towers and commercial buildings. A lot of this renovation work had sat in the sidelines during the construction boom peaking in early 2008. This pent up demand for renovation was seen as the very next phase of their business once the boom cycle rolled over.

He has similar laments about the workforce (i.e. labourers and trades). A lot of the upcoming generation is still expecting their dot.com job with an expresso machine in the lunch room and naps in the afternoon. They don't realize that the dot.com'ers lucky enough to get those 'dream' jobs had huge, unique skill sets and superior education (special, smart, talented and highly trained). A high-school grad or drop-out doesn't have a hope as there are 20 more such people ready to take his/her place at the broom or the job just above the broom level.

I'm just wondering where the workforce for projects like Mount Milligan is coming from. How many are from the north central part of BC. How many Native folks? How many foreign workers with special skills or tasks brought in? I was surprised at the number of Americans working at a run-of-river project at Toba inlet a few years back.

The work schedule sounds a little harsh but not unusual. 3 days off a month if I have that right. The rest of the time in a construction camp in the boonies. Hard on family life, hard on the body and mind.

I know the Mt Milligan area as I worked in that area as a forester around Phillips Creek, Nation River, and Germansen landing about 20 years ago. I'm glad to see that the trees we so carefully re-generated at Mt Milligan are being mowed to create a big hole LOL!