Camp and rotation glossary

Camp and rotation terms

FIFO

Fly-in fly-out: living somewhere else (often Edmonton, Calgary, or further away) and flying to site for each rotation instead of relocating near camp. See our rotations page for how the travel itself actually works.

LOA

Living Out Allowance -- a per diem or allowance some employers pay to workers who arrange their own accommodation instead of using company camp housing. Whether it's taxable depends on your specific employer's setup; see our camp tax page for the general framework (not tax advice).

Per diem

Latin for "per day" -- a daily allowance, most often used at camp to mean LOA (see above), but also used more generally for any fixed daily payment covering costs like meals when camp catering isn't provided.

Dry camp

Camp housing with a strict no-alcohol policy -- standard across nearly every major Fort McMurray-area camp, paired with zero-tolerance drug rules and pre-access/random testing. See our rules and wellbeing guide and drug and alcohol testing guide.

Wet camp

The rare opposite of a dry camp -- one that permits alcohol in some form, typically restricted to a licensed common area rather than rooms. Not something to assume: treat every camp as dry (see "Dry camp") unless your employer states otherwise in writing.

Turnaround

A planned, scheduled maintenance shutdown of a plant or process unit -- distinct from an unplanned "outage" or emergency shutdown. Turnarounds are the industry's biggest short-term hiring events and can noticeably swell a camp's population for weeks at a time, changing everything from meal-line lengths to WiFi speed.

Shutdown

Often used interchangeably with "turnaround" for a planned maintenance event, though "shutdown" can also describe an unplanned stoppage depending on context -- ask which is meant if it affects your travel or camp booking.

Bussing

Shorthand for the shuttle system that moves workers between the airport or a muster point, camp, and the plant gate -- most camps run their own bus schedule tied to shift-change times rather than a fixed public timetable.

Muster

The designated assembly point and process for accounting for everyone on site during an emergency or evacuation drill -- a term you'll hear in your first site orientation. See our tickets page for what that first-day orientation generally covers.

Lodge vs. camp

Not a real technical distinction -- both terms describe the same thing (worker accommodation near a site), and operators use "lodge" largely as branding. Civeo and Canadian Natural both call their properties "lodges"; "camp" is the plainer, more common term across the industry and on this site.

Wapasu

Wapasu Creek Lodge, one of the largest work camps in the Fort McMurray oil sands region, operated by Civeo. "Wapasu" gets used loosely by some workers as informal shorthand for camp life in general, even outside that specific lodge -- this site takes its name from that usage.

Hot-bunking

A real industry term (also "hot racking") for two shift-opposite workers sharing one bunk in turn to save space, most associated with ships, submarines, and some offshore installations. We could not find this described as standard practice at any major Fort McMurray-area lodge in our own camp resources research -- every operator we checked describes private or semi-private rooms, not shared bunks. Worth knowing the term; not something to expect here.

Rotation notation (14/7, 20/8, etc.)

"X/Y" means X days on shift at camp followed by Y days off at home -- 14/7 is 14 days on, 7 off; 20/8 is 20 on, 8 off. Different rotations trade off differently between total days worked and how often you get home; see our rotations page for what the routine actually feels like.

Site badge

The physical access credential issued after you've cleared pre-access requirements (tickets, drug and alcohol testing) and completed that specific site's own orientation -- it's what actually gets you through the gate, separate from any third-party ticket you bring with you. See our tickets page.

Brass

Informal camp/industry slang for site management or supervisory staff, used the way "brass" is used in the military -- as in "the brass wants that done by Friday." Not a term any operator uses officially.

Jughound

Older oilfield slang, originally for an entry-level seismic-crew labourer who lays out geophones ("jugs") -- broadened informally over time to mean any entry-level grunt-labour role. You may still hear it used loosely around camp for junior, no-experience-necessary work.

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