As it turns out, as long as you don't have to stay at the prison, Cuba's Guantanamo province is definitely the better choice (great beaches and music). Fort McMurray, on the other hand, is a tough industrial city in Northern Alberta. And "Fort Mac," as they call it out Alberta way, is where all of the Tar Sands oil extraction activity is happening.
Now, unless you have been living under a rock, you will probably have heard something about the environmentally destructive aspects of the Tar Sands (or, as the oil companies prefer, the "Oil Sands") project. Not only does it produce five times the greenhouse gases per barrel of conventional oil, it also requires ripping up the land. The photo that you see below is the outcome of tar sands mining activity.
As one might expect, the fact that Fort McMurray has now replaced Sudbury as Canada's man-made moonscape capital has not exactly made it a top tourist destination. But there is one demographic that can't wait to sign up for trips out to Fort Mac: Alberta teachers. That's because Inside Education, an oil-company sponsored educational outfit, has been offering them all-expenses-paid "professional development" Tar Sands tours.
