From Los Angeles came an e-mail from a recruiter asking me if I knew anyone who would be interested in a job at the Albian Sands in Ft. McMurray as a Mining, Geotechnical, Process (Extraction), Reclamation Engineers, and/or a Construction Manager (Dykes).  

I do not, nor am I personally interested, but the request set me thinking about the income a suitable candidate might expect.   From the 2008 Canadian Mine Salary, Wages & Benefits Survey from CostMine here are some annual lowest, average, and highest salaries for western Canadian mines:

Mine Manager  = $92,000,  $131,400,  $165,000

Mine Superintendant  = $80,600, $114,200, $135,800

Chief/Senior Engineer  = $70,000, $104, 500, $146,600

Mine Engineer = $60,00, $80,400, $91,000

Metallurgist = $66,000, $83,400, $121,000

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The Canadian Mine Salary, Wages & Benefits 2008 Survey Results has just hit my in-box.  This is the eleventh survey from CostMine, formerly Western Mine Engineering and now part of InfoMine.

With the obligatory disclosures out of the way, let us proceed to examine just one category, that of the Shovel/Dragline Operator.  I choose this category because of the almost mystical fascination of the shovel and dragline on a mine.  Every time you see a picture of an open pit, there is this huge beast that is the center of the true mining operation; for example, see the picture besides this text by Gord McKenna, a photographically-accomplished civil engineer with BGC in Vancouver. 

The average wage for the folk who drive these impressive beasts across all of Canada is $32 (I round to the nearest dollar.)  But there are differences:  the range is from a low of $27 to a high of $47 an hour. 

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