MARIANA LAKE, ALTA. — Six a.m. and the dining room is full. The kitchen staff have been up since midnight, prepping food for the hungry and weary evacuees and support workers.
It’s been a long week for staff at Mariana Lake Lodge, still every person working is smiling and eager to show you where to get a coffee. That task was made a little more complicated with a boil water advisory in place.
Mariana Lake Lodge, owned by Civeo Corporation, is about an hours drive south of Fort McMurray. Civeo operates ten lodges in the Fort McMurray region and is normally the home base for highway, oil and utility workers.
Spring has been slow — until now.
On Wednesday, the night after Fort McMurray residents ran for their lives, Civeo found refuge for 3,000 people, including children. In the past week, the camps have provided beds for 6,000 people and served 20,000 meals.
“It’s been pretty hectic,” said Mariana Lake Lodge Camp Manager Rod Pickrell. “We’ve been really lucky, I’ve got the A team.”
Pickrell said half of the rooms were shut down. On a moments notice, Civeo doubled its staff and is now home base for swarms of RCMP and ATCO employees.
As a retired member of the Canadian military, Pickrell is used to setting up camps in the middle of nowhere. His service tours include Kosovo, Bosnia and Afghanistan. This time is different. Military personnel are used to camp life — but last week families showed up.
“We have families, we have kids,” said Pickrell. “You want to treat them different.”
Watch below: Aerial footage shows the devastation in Fort McMurray’s Abasand and Beacon Hill neighbourhoods
Fleeing the flames and nowhere to go, many families showed up with nothing. Staff provided gas, food and anything else that was needed. A hallway table was full of donated clothes, pet food and stuffed animals for the kids.
READ MORE: Fort McMurray wildfire: resident in convoy through community calls scene ‘very Apocalyptic’
Most of the 100 or so families have moved on, but RCMP and support staff could be here for the long haul.
To keep up with the cooking and cleaning, the camps began juggling and swapping out staff that have been evacuated from other northern camps.
“As they shut down they say ‘Hey we have this, can you use it?'”
Like everyone else responding to the wildfire disaster, Mariana Lake Lodge is prepared to help out as long as it can. For families, Pickrell said his camp will do what it can to make them feel comfortable.
“They’re not used to this, they have a loss.”
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