It's not the planet Hoth in a galaxy far, far away, but it could be. The stark landscape of Alberta's famous Oil Sands are frankly unearthly. And for Ken Chekerda, navigating a 240-ton vehicle across oily sand is still a risky mission worthy of a Jedi Knight.

As the senior mining technologist at Syncrude Canada Ltd., in Fort McMurray, Ken supervises a host of equipment, from the giant shovels that scoop up oil sand, to the trucks that transport it to the plant. Knowing the equipment is not enough; he must also know the terrain his crews will be working on when they go out to collect the oil-rich substance.

Unlike crude oil, which rises to the surface in liquid form, Syncrude actually mines oil trapped in the soft asphalt of the Alberta Oil Sands. Approximately one cubic meter of sand will eventually yield a barrel of oil. Ken is one of the people in charge of the process of extracting the oil from the sand.