A Greed to Which We Agreed?

Representations of the Oil Industry in Canadian Petro-Literature

Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades des Instituts für Anglistik der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz

vorgelegt von Mag. Melanie Braunecker

Betreuerin: Ao. Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. phil. Maria Löschnigg

Graz, 2020

Acknowledgement

I would like to express my special appreciation and thanks to my supervisor Professor Dr. Maria Löschnigg for her tremendous support in all stages of my project. Her invaluable assistance and highly motivating comments helped me to realize this project while also allowing me to grow as a scholar.

I would also like to thank all the people whose assistance was a milestone in the completion of this project. In particular, I wish to acknowledge the support of my family and friends. They kept me going on and never stopped believing in me.

My research and my learning process would never have been possible without the unconditional support of strangers who became friends during my research stay in Fort McMurray and Fort McKay. I would like to express my deepest appreciation to Bori, who went out of his way to enable my research on site. I am deeply grateful to Jean, who has been a great source of inspiration, and every other member of the Fort McKay First Nation for unbiasedly accepting me in their community and homes, for sharing their stories and answering my numerous questions. I am indebted to Lara for her warm encouragement and her effort to open the doors in Fort McMurray, both literally and metaphorically speaking. Special thanks also go to Leo whose critical and insightful comments on my project have opened new possibilities of thinking. I also wish to thank Sylvia and Mike, for their constructive feedback and years of transatlantic friendship.

For the planetary tragedy plays on, and it is well into its third act. As the principle players strut and fret, the land, the water, the air, the entire non-human host, are also taking their turns, and they can no longer be mistaken for mere stage dressings or props in the human pageant. We see them now as the primary personae they have always been, made all the more poignant because their appearance at center stage is underscored by their imminent parture out the wings. That exeunt will bring the final curtain on what we’d foolishly thought was our production.

(William Major and Andrew McMurry 2012: “Introduction: The Function of Ecocriticism; or, Ecocriticism, What Is It Good For?”)

The most appealing feature of the oil sands was the fact that they were there to be taken. Instead of cruising the world in search of oil hidden beneath ground and drilling ten dry wells for every one that proved successful, why not focus on the largest known source of oil? (Rick George, Former President of Suncor Energy Inc., In: Beautiful Destruction 2014: 67)

Current industrialization of our traditional territories has led to the cumulative removal of lands, wildlife and fish habitat, as well as the destruction of ecological, aesthetic and sensory systems. This reality for our people is not only unacceptable but unconstitutional and illegal. (Chief Allan Adam, Chief of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in: Beautiful Destruction 2014: 15)

We are a nation of wind and waves and tides, and we must begin to tap into that potential. We cannot rely solely on fossil fuels and non-renewable fuel sources until it is too late, or we will miss the critical changes that are the building blocks of our children’s opportunity. (Megan Leslie, in: Beautiful Destruction 2014: 157)

The choice between pipelines and wind turbines is a false one. We need both to reach our goal. (Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Huffington Post)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ...... 1 2. Background Information on the Alberta Oil/Tar Sands ...... 13 3. Theoretical Framework ...... 22 3.1. Ecocriticism and the Need for Ecological Genres ...... 22 3.2. Petrocultures and Petroliterature ...... 30 4. Generic Manifestations of Canadian Petro-Literature ...... 37 4.1. Ecopoetry ...... 37 4.1.1.“Tar Swan” (2014) by David Martin ...... 40 4.1.2. “In the Tar Sands, Going Down” (2009) by Mari-Lou Rowley ...... 49 4.1.3. “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands” (2015) by Stephen S. Collis ...... 63 4.1.4. “J28” (2013) by Rita Wong ...... 74 4.1.5. “Night gift” (2015) by Rita Wong ...... 81 4.1.6. The Thematic and Aesthetic Impact of Canadian Petro-Poetry – A Résumé ...... 85 4.2. Short Fiction ...... 89 4.2.1. “An Athabasca Story” (2012) by Warren Cariou...... 94 4.2.2. “The Angel of the Tar Sands” (1982) by Rudy Wiebe ...... 105 4.2.3. “Leo: A Fairytale” (2011) by Robi Smith ...... 112 4.2.4 The Thematic and Aesthetic Impact of Petro-Short Fiction – A Résumé ...... 115 4.3. Petro-Novels ...... 118 4.3.1. Long Change (2015) by Don Gillmor ...... 121 4.3.2. The Bears (2012) by Katie Welch ...... 132 4.3.3. Hawk (2016) by Jennifer Dance ...... 145 4.3.4. The Thematic and Aesthetic Impact of Canadian Petro-Novels – A Résumé ...... 160 4.4. Drama ...... 166 4.4.1. Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: A Tar Sands Myth (1978) by Gordon Pengilly and Leslie Sanders...... 171 4.4.2. Highway 63 – The Fort Mac Show (2009) by Architect Theatre ...... 181 4.4.3. Fort Mac (2011) by Mark Prescott ...... 189 4.4.4. The Thematic and Aesthetic Impact of Canadian Petro-Drama – A Résumé ...... 203 5. Other Art Forms ...... 207 5.1. Petrography and Documentary Films ...... 207 5.2. Photography ...... 208 5.3. Puppet Show Theatre ...... 209 5.4. Hybrid Forms of Poetry and Graphic Journalism ...... 210 5.5. Comic Journalism ...... 212 6. Conclusion ...... 215 7. Bibliography...... 219 1. Introduction

When I started my research on contemporary Canadian petrofiction, I was not aware that my topic of choice would be so controversial. The more immersed I got into the topic the stronger my desire became to dive into the highly complex issue of Alberta’s oil industry, its background, benefits and downsides. In addition, my interest was sparked, not least due to the fact that this giant project is hardly known in Austria. Moreover, I was curious to discover literature’s role and importance in this red-hot discussion.

In the course of my research, I quickly realized that analyzing literature’s position in the oil/tar sands discussion of Northern Alberta would not be an easy task and that my ‘interference’ might get me into trouble: whereas those who work for the oil industry mainly focus on the positive aspects of the development (for example reliable jobs, relatively strict environmental standards, economic growth, the building of a community, etc.), there are numerous voices (for example First Nations People or environmentalists) who strongly oppose the oil/tar sands industry because of its concomitant environmental impact (for example its incompatibility with Native lifestyle, water pollution, the displacement of wildlife, etc.). There seems to be a huge bias: either you “hate” the industry, or you “love” it, there is not much room in between. In July 2017, I visited Fort McMurray, the “oil sands capital” or “Alberta’s golden goose” (Marsden 2008: 9) to see the region and the industry’s impact on the landscape with my own eyes. In the following, I would like to describe my own impression of this highly conflictual place.

Fig. 1: Fort McMurray

1 Fort McMurray, a small town situated about 434kms north of Edmonton and part of the Wood Buffalo municipality, thrives due to the oil sands industry. When walking through town, the industry’s presence cannot be overlooked: countless huge, white trucks with the names of the main oil companies printed on them proudly stand in front of single-family homes. Other trucks, on their way back from work, are no longer white, but coated with mud and dust, their orange burgees nervously fluttering in the airstream. “I love the oil sands” stickers decorate ever so many trucks, signposts, doors, or bus stops. The local college is funded by a prominent oil company. Similarly, the huge recreation centre on Mac Island Park, including a swimming pool, a hockey rink, a climbing gym, a dance studio, a library and much more, are sponsored by several well-known oil companies who all proudly display their logos.

Fig. 2: Replacement Equipment next to the Oil/Tar Sands

The oil industry is not only visible: on windy days, the smell of bitumen and sulphur lingers in the air. Depending on the direction of the wind, these smells can be intense. The oil mines north of town operate twenty-four-seven, 365 days a year. Thus, there is also the constant buzzing noise of the heavy trucks and haulers which deliver not only goods but also replacement equipment to the mines. In return, huge trucks ship by-products of the industry, for example sulphur, out. They enter the town and the oil mines on the only highway, Highway 63, commonly also called ‘Killer 63’ or ‘Highway of Death’ by the locals. Numerous little white crosses, erected at the scenes of fatal crashes, made my flesh creep. I was told that one reason for the unusually high amount of accidents

2 and fatalities on that highway is the fact that many foreigners are not used to the Canadian winter and thus to icy, snowy driving conditions. Secondly, the highway used to be very busy and jammed after change of shift – at least until 2014, before the oil price fell and thousands of workers were laid off. The long shifts, combined with the absence from home, still leads many workers to rush back to their homes, speeding up or taking risky passing manoeuvres, which often ends fatally.

Fig. 3: Empty Sidewalks in Fort McMurray

Like in many other North American cities, hardly anyone seems to walk in this town, even though the sidewalks are three times wider than in comparable European cities. Drive throughs are popular, not only to take food out, but also for banking. Modern Fort McMurray was certainly not built for pedestrians and everyone seems to own at least one car. The long and cold winter, with temperatures below minus fifty degrees Celsius and short daylight hours, does not make long walks or bike rides enjoyable. On the other hand, the long nights render Fort McMurray a prime location for watching the Aurora borealis, the Northern lights, especially in winter.

There is also an obvious gender imbalance: the majority of people living in or around Fort McMurray are men in their late twenties, thirties and forties. When talking to a local citizen, she told me that some men deliberately wear t-shirts or hats with their oil company’s logo imprinted when going out. Doing so, they hope to attract female attention, as working for the oil industry is identified with a high income and, thus, they appear to be ‘a good catch’. On the other side, as she

3 further told me, some men deliberately refuse to wear any clothing with their employer’s logo on them, as they do not want to appear as ‘a good catch’ only because of their job and salary.

Fig. 4: Work Camps at the Outskirts of Fort McKay

It is obvious that the oil industry has taken Fort McMurrayites far. Many locals feel offended by the negative publicity that their home attracts. Fort McMurray is a complicated and complex place: described as “dark spot of capitalism” by a local, it is both ugly and promising, harsh and yet friendly. Clearly, the town is more than dust, smell and oil – it is also the home for many people, a place and a community they feel attached to and that they want to protect. It is not only a place to work at, but also a place for children to grow up, for people to meet in hiking clubs, and a place which features a very international community. McMurrayites also take pride in their internationality and the peaceful coexistence of various cultures and religions, including Native- Canadian cultures, and Christian and Islamic communities.

Many negative aspects of Fort McMurray are constantly highlighted, however, there are also numerous positive aspects about ‘Fort Mac’ that should not be forgotten: never in my whole life, and in no other Canadian, American or European city have I experienced a warmer welcome than in Fort McMurray. I quickly became part of a local hiking club where I met amazing and open-minded people. The hikes and walks allowed for conversations about the area and the oil industry to unfold. Strangers became friends, and I was overwhelmed by their hospitality. Every single person I talked

4 to, from artists, bus drivers, baristas, salesmen, scientists, librarians to waitresses or simply strangers, was extraordinarily supportive and friendly. Maybe, I thought, it is due to the fact that the majority of McMurrayites once arrived in town too and thus they know the feeling of being a stranger in a foreign place.

Fig. 5: Hiking the Birchwood Trails with the Fort McMurray Hike More Worry Less Club

During my stay, I was invited to hikes, dinner, tea, lunch and to potlucks by both Euro-Canadians, as well as First Nations People. I was allowed to accompany an Iranian-Canadian scientist to her workplace, an established oil company, and given a tour of the company’s facility and lab. On another day, the Fort McKay First Nation, roughly 50 km north of Fort McMurray, welcomed me on their lands, and I was lucky to meet a very inspiring Native woman who I learned to admire for her strength and her non-violent resistance against further development on her home land. Her opinion about the oil industry is rather negative, as the oil companies not only threaten to pollute the Athabasca River, an essential source for water and fish, but also block people off the land which used to be ‘theirs’ for time immemorial. She explained to me that in these days, members of the Fort McKay First Nation cannot simply walk or drive on the land surrounding their community anymore. Oil companies have leased parts of the land and fenced it in. Roadblocks and hunting bans, next to environmental degradation, have made it very difficult for Native people to travel, to hunt or simply to take a walk in their backyard. Long detours are necessary, costing not only time, but also fuel. For this reason, a trip to Moose Lake, a deeply spiritual place and source of food

5 (berry patches, hunting grounds, fishing grounds) for the Fort McKay First Nation, has become an odyssey that is not easily affordable for the band members. As Fort McKay is surrounded by development and numerous oil companies, their quality of living has decreased dramatically in the last decades. Due to the great number of mining operations in the north, north-east and north-west, the smell of the industry, comparable to a mixture of sulphur and cat urine, is much stronger than it is in Fort McMurray itself. When I first came here, I noticed a revolting smell and I even felt a searing pain in my throat after a few hours.

Fig. 6: The Syncrude Plant

When the oil development in Northern Alberta started, the Fort McKay First Nation decided that they could not completely oppose the development surrounding them. For that reason, they leased parts of their land to oil companies, which enables them to exert a certain amount of control. Future mining projects on their lands need to be approved by the First Nation before construction can start. However, the community itself is also divided into two groups: those who support the industry and work for it, and others who would rather be unemployed than to work for “the devil”, as a Native woman told me. The leasing of their lands is a reliable income for every band member: each one of them, from the infant to the Elders, receives a quarterly dividend. However, the loss of their Native culture, the status of being ‘in-between’ two cultures, the frequent lack of higher education and ensuing unemployment, combined with the regular, three-monthly payment from the oil companies

6 often result in desolation, alcoholism and drug-addiction that especially the younger generations have to face.

Fig. 7: Industrial Area of the Oil/Tar Sands

Fig. 8: Tailing Ponds

7

Fig. 9: The Oil/Tar Sands close to Fort McMurray

Settlers who actually live in Fort McMurray, in turn, are proud of their recent history and their sense of community. Their communal spirit was strengthened in the massive wildfire of 2016, when thousands of people lost their homes and the whole town had to be evacuated. In 2017, whole city districts were still under reconstruction. People told me again and again that people of Fort McMurray helped each other in the face of disaster, no matter if they were supporters or opponents to the oil industry. Both oil companies as well as the Native community of Fort McKay supported McMurrayites and opened their doors to accommodate those who lost their houses in the fire. It is the feeling of solidarity and mutual support in times of crisis that has helped to alter Fort McMurray’s reputation in the last years. As a local artist told me, it seems that the “narrative” of Fort McMurray is no longer solely based on its close ties with the oil industry. The new, extended narrative is the one of a community that settled their differences of opinion in the face of disaster and stood together for mutual support. When I visited one year after the devastating fire, in 2017, this solidarity could not only be felt but was also visible, as for instance on bumper stickers or even tattoos saying, “Fort Mac Strong”. In spring 2020, Fort McMurray was again hit by another natural disaster. Due to an unusually long winter, the ice of the Athabasca River did not melt timely, which caused a massive ice jam and a flooding of wide parts of Fort McMurray in the long run. As a result, many McMurrayites had to be evacuated, and some of their houses, which had been rebuilt only after the wildfire were again destroyed or damaged due to the mass of water.

8 The unusual occurrence of weather extremes in Northern Alberta serves as an example for the increasing number of natural disasters worldwide, which are said to be a product of the man-made greenhouse effect. At present, we find ourselves caught between a rock and a hard place: Whereas our society is based on the consumption of oil in its various forms, we have come to acknowledge the need for environmental commitment and preservation at the same time. However, the world economy’s ever-increasing need for fossil fuels and natural resources creates both ecological issues as well as social imbalance through the exploitation of workforce. A growing awareness about the negative side-effects of industrial mega-projects has led to the formation of environmental protection groups, including media-effective youth movements such as Fridays for Future or the Native Idle No More resistance group. They illustrate that, on a global level, the tension between resource extraction and environmental protection is on the rise.

In the Canadian context, the shift of attitudes towards nature within a relatively short period of time is particularly fascinating, as it was not too long ago that Canadian nature posed an enormous threat to immigrants from Europe. In the last decades, however, as Margaret Atwood explains in Survival, a counter movement seems to have taken place, and human actions seem to have an equally, if not even more destructive impact: “it is increasingly obvious to some writers that man is now more destructive towards Nature than Nature can be towards man; and, furthermore, that the destruction of Nature is equivalent to self-destruction on the part of man.” (Atwood 1972: 60) This complicated and challenging situation is particularly visible in Northern Alberta, where the oil industry has irretrievably changed the landscape to such an extent that human impact in this wide area can even be seen from outer space. Yet, the immensity of this mega-project affects not only the environment, but also entails social implications such as the destruction of habitat for human communities, forced migration, suppression, exploitation, unemployment, or poverty.

That being said, the area of conflict between resource extraction and environmental protection seems to be a particularly fertile ground for literature to unfold. So far, however, there is no critical investigation of the literary aesthetics of the Canadian oil industry across different literary genres. Thus, the thesis at hand aims at filling this lacuna: with its main focus set on Canadian petroliterature, it analyzes how the complex oil/tar sands issue is mediated in poetry, narrative fiction (novels, young adult literature, short fiction), drama and other art forms. Comparing the literary techniques and the thematic approaches of the selected literary texts and also making visible the plurality within genres, this thesis explores questions such as:

9 - Why do we find such a vast body of petroliterature in the Canadian context? - Which explicit and implicit techniques are used in (contemporary) Canadian petrofiction? - Why does genre matter? What are the main differences in mediation when looking at poetry, narrative fiction, and drama? - Can general assumptions about the mediation of content in poetry, fiction and drama be made? - Is environmental petroliterature related to activist writing? - What do we know of an author’s background? In whose interest does s/he write, and who is s/he writing for? Why do authors write about environmental problems? What do they hope to achieve?

By exploring the aesthetic and rhetorical potential of a plethora of different literary texts, this thesis demonstrates that it is utmost variety that, in sum, can break up ossified patterns of thinking. As will be shown, literature can be an important and powerful instrument of change and rethinking. However, to fulfill that purpose, literature must do more than document and raise awareness of social and ecological issues. It is necessary to continue finding ever new forms of aesthetic expression to appeal to and to attract as many readers as possible. What differentiates literature from the news media is, among other aspects, literature’s ‘artistic kit’: each genre has its own ‘toolbox’ at its disposal, consisting of numerous literary techniques and methods of mediation, by which the authors try to trigger an emotional response in their readers. As everyone is different, some genres appeal to a certain group of readers, while others prefer a different genre. In order to instill the need for change in the readers, the plurality of forms and genres is thus of paramount importance: by appealing to the reader’s emotions, literature may instill a process of rethinking and thereby become an agent of change. If a multitude of literary forms is available, the chances to appeal to a wide readership are higher than if only a limited number of genres was offered.

With regards to the structure of my thesis, I am first going to provide some background information on the history and the development of the oil/tar sands, as a basic understanding of the ecological, social and economic challenges of this mega-project is necessary to understand the literary texts presented in the main part of the thesis at hand.

Secondly, the theoretical framework of my thesis will be introduced. One of its fundamental pillars is ecocriticism: instead of being exclusive, ecocriticism asks for interconnectedness between different approaches and sciences, the goal being an increasing awareness of the need to protect our environment and the insight that we as human beings are not separated from, but are also part of nature. Another theory which has proven to be particularly useful is Hubert Zapf’s concept of

10 literature as cultural ecology, which, while also embedded in a larger framework of ecocriticism, specifically analyzes literature’s role and power in times of environmental degradation and climate change. Furthermore, Amitav Ghosh’s influential essay “Petrofiction: The Oil Encounter and the Novel” will be discussed. It is, after all, a pioneering essay for the development of petro-literature and petrocriticism – a new approach in which literary criticism is confronted with climate change and petromodernity (cf. Rubenstein 2014, online). In the context of the Alberta oil/tar sands and the quest for identity, Jacques Ellul’s theory of a technocratic society has proven to be useful, while Jon Gordon’s approach of literature as alternative discourse and suitable medium for a critique of the oil/tar sands in particular is described in greater detail.

Thirdly, the importance of literary genres and genre aesthetics will be discussed in a separate chapter. This chapter, the heart of my thesis, provides ecocritical readings of a carefully chosen selection of literary texts. Each literary genre is introduced by a theoretical part, explaining the genre’s development, main strategies, and characteristics for representing the controversial oil/tar sands issue. This theoretical part is then followed by an ecocritical/petrocritical reading of the selected literary texts. To take account of the different aesthetic manifestations within one text type, each genre-specific sub-chapter is concluded with a section that presents, in a more systematic way, similarities and differences in literary technique and mediation.

The first literary genre to be discussed is ecopoetry. Each poet has his/her own style, yet they also show striking parallels, one being their demonstration of the incredible scale of the Alberta oil industry, thereby artistically reflecting on our dependence on oil in the 21st century. The poems discussed in this part of the thesis are “Tar Swan” by David Martin, which takes the reader on a dreamlike, mythological journey to the present and past of the oil/tar sands. Following the Romantic poet William Wordsworth’s principle of walking, the next poem, “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands” by Stephen S. Collis, encourages the reader to take part in an imaginative healing walk across the industrial wasteland of the oil/tar sands, while the use of drastic imagery and bitter irony awaits the reader in Mari-Lou Rowley’s grim poem “In the Tar Sands, Going Down”. The last two poems discussed in this chapter are “J28” and “Night gift”, both written by the Canadian poet Rita Wong, who confronts the reader with Native and neocolonial issues.

The focus of the next subchapter is set on short stories and fairy tales. The texts discussed here are “An Athabasca Story” by Warren Cariou, which introduces the figure of Elder Brother into the context of the oil/tar sands. “The Angel of the Tar Sands”, a short story by Rudy Wiebe, in turn,

11 introduces the reader to the unspeakable and supernatural, concepts which seem to stand in opposition to the technological rationale of the oil/tar sands. On the other hand, “Leo – A Fairytale”, written by Roby Smith, invites the reader to follow a prince’s journey from the barren oil/tar sands to the animal world to save his mother’s life.

The next part is dedicated to a close reading of petro-novels. The first novel to be discussed is Long Change, written by Don Gillmor, which portrays the life of an oil worker and businessman who dedicates his whole life to the industry. The Bears by Katie Welch is set in Kitimat, British Columbia, a small town, deep water port and prospective terminal of a huge pipeline project. As the title of her book suggests, her protagonists are not only human beings, but also three very distinctive bears. Written from their perspective, the reader is taken on a journey to witness the increasing development in what once was considered a prime bear habitat. The last text discussed in this section is an example for young adult (YA) literature: Hawk, written by Jennifer Dance, features a teenage protagonist and an extraordinary hawk whose lives in Northern Alberta are both connected to and dramatically impacted by the devastation caused by the oil industry.

Another intriguing literary genre is drama, which is in the center of my final part of chapter four and presents three petroplays, each of them foregrounding different challenges posed by the oil/tar sands industry. Highway 63 – The Fort Mac Show introduces the reader to the lives of young people living in Fort McMurray who are either working for or fleeing from the industry. Thus, it is obvious that oil dictates their lives and their daily decisions. Hardhats and Stolen Hearts, in turn, offers the reader/audience a complex play, featuring two different time levels and plot lines, and illustrating the merciless working conditions in the oil/tar sands and their immediate impact on Métis people. Last, Fort Mac, a French-Canadian play, stages the destructive impact of the oil/tar sands on the natural environment, but also on the minds of individual human beings who are exposed to an omnipresence of violence, drugs and exploitation.

As this thesis is not exclusive, I shall briefly provide insight into other literary and non-literary art forms, before concluding that the oil industry is also a dominant machinery of power not only in Canada but also in other countries, such as – just to name but a few – Nigeria, Saudi-Arabia, the United States or Venezuela.

12 2. Background Information on the Alberta Oil/Tar Sands

The Athabasca River Basin in Northern Alberta holds the third largest oil-deposits on earth, followed by oil reserves in Saudi-Arabia and Venezuela. Yet, as opposed to the conventional oil in Saudi-Arabia or Venezuela, it is not exactly oil which is trapped in Canada’s North. The soil in Northern Alberta holds vast reserves of bitumen, a thick substance which cannot be pumped out of the ground but needs to be processed and upgraded by means of energy-intensive processes to turn it into fuel used by planes, ships, lorries and/or cars. To date, the oil/tar sands are said to be the world’s largest man-made industrial project, and it can even be seen from outer space. It is estimated that the bituminous sands in Northern Alberta contain between 1,75 and 2,5 trillion barrels of oil. These numbers are rather hard to grasp and mean, in other words, that the amount of oil, or rather, bitumen, holds enough energy to sustain Canada’s oil demands for another 475 years (cf. Chastko 2004: xiii).

Bituminous sands have been sitting along the Athabasca River in Northern Alberta for centuries. They are the result of a process that started millions of years ago, when the area of today’s southern Alberta was covered by a tropical sea. When the living organisms of this sea died, their bodies slowly sank to the bottom of the ocean. Over time and due to the motion of tectonic plates, heat and bacterial activity, these remnants slowly transformed to liquid oil. As the Rocky Mountains unfolded, the oil was pushed north and into the sandy floors of today’s Northern Alberta (cf. Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers 2019, online).

The vast amount of fossil fuels hidden in the sandy floors of Northern Alberta and North-West Saskatchewan exceeds Iraq’s proven oil reserves of 112 billion recoverable barrels, thereby making Alberta’s oil reserves of 200 billion recoverable barrels the region with the second largest recoverable oil deposit after Saudi-Arabia, which holds an estimated 250 million barrels. (Cf. Chastko 2004: xiii) However, oil produced by the Athabasca oil industry is costly: companies need to invest in newest technology and skilled workers to transform the sticky, gooey bitumen into liquid, light crude oil (cf. Chastko 2004: xii). As conventional sources are said to be dwindling, and in an attempt to become independent from oil-exporting countries, the Athabasca oil industry is expected to increase its production rate over the next couple of years (cf. Government of Alberta 2019, online).

13 Before the arrival of Europeans in the 1700s, Northern Alberta was home to the Chipewyan or Dene First Nation and Cree First Nations, who have been living in that particular region for thousands of years. Scientists argue that these people once traversed the Bering Strait during the last Ice Age in search of large mammals they could hunt for survival (cf. Jean 2012: 1f). After the arrival of the Europeans, the Cree started trading their furs for weapons. The increasing number of immigrants led not only to conflicts, but also to marriages between the Europeans and the Native population. Their descendants are called Métis (French for “mixed blood”), and they form an ethnic group on their own. They are connected to the fur trade and many of them worked as hunters and traders either for the Hudson’s Bay Company or the North West Company or as guides for European explorers (cf. Jean 2012: 7; 11-12). Their skills, knowledge and support were indispensable for the newly arrived Europeans who were quite unfamiliar with Northern Alberta’s climate and environment.

The Chipewyan/Dene prefer the name ‘Dene’, which translates to ‘the People’ (cf. Jean 2012: 4). They were the largest ethnic group in Northern Alberta in the 1700s. Pursuing a nomadic lifestyle, their home was the Athabasca River and Delta, which was an abundant source for meat, fish and also fur (cf. Jean 2012: 4). Alexander Mackenzie, one of the first European explorers, described them as nomadic, skilful, belligerent, yet welcoming people, who shared their experiences and knowledge of their land with the newly arrived Europeans. Other explorers described them as “happy and independent people” (Jean 2012: 4). Mackenzie furthermore observed that Dene women, too, exerted power and had a vast influence on trade and any other concern that was of importance for the people at that time (cf. Jean 2012: 4). Their lifestyle changed considerably after the arrival of the European settlers. Through trade and exchange of goods with the Europeans, they were able to settle down in so-called forts. The oldest permanent settlement in Alberta is named after these people – Fort Chipewyan, located at the shore of Lake Athabasca, once known for its high-quality furs and pelts. Nowadays, many Dene people feel torn between their Native culture and the Western lifestyle. A large number of them is employed by the oil industry, whereas others object to the development, and thus also the pollution, of their Native lands.

The name “Cree” is derived from the French word “Knisteneaux”, which was the name French settlers gave these people. Similarly, to the Chipewyan/Dene people, the Cree too started trading their goods for rifles with the Europeans who stayed in the forts. Whereas the Chipewyan/Dene and the Cree are two different peoples, they “refer to themselves as cousins” (Alberta Energy and

14 Utilities Board online: 1). Long before industrial development of the soil’s rich bituminous deposits, both people used the river’s bituminous outcroppings, for example, to waterproof their canoes.

The first European to become aware of the area’s rich oil/tar sands is said to be Henry Kelsey. He worked at the York Factory on Hudson’s Bay and was given a sample of Northern Alberta’s bituminous soil by a Cree trader in 1719 (cf. Alberta Energy and Utilities Board online: 1). The first European to enter the region of today’s Fort McMurray, however, was the American Peter Pond, in 1778. A veteran of the Seven Years War, a wanted alleged murderer and fur trader, Pond was eager to find the North-West Passage (cf. Jean 2012:17). During his travels, he met First Nations People and was able to produce vague maps of the area what is today northern Alberta. The Native people did not object to Peter Pond’s travels, as he bought many of their furs. In 1778, Peter Pond established a trading post at ‘the fork’, i.e. the confluence of the Clearwater and Athabasca River, breaking the first ground of what was to become Fort McMurray in the following decades (cf. Jean 2012: 18). In his reports, he mentions the bituminous deposits (cf. Alberta Energy and Utilities Board online: 1) along the Athabasca River. The post was closed in 1788, possibly as a result of the smallpox epidemic. Roughly three decades later, the Hudson’s Bay Company started a new trading post in the same spot, which turned out to be a major depot on the supply route from Northern Saskatchewan to Lake Athabasca via the Athabasca River. Although Peter Pond was not able to find the much-seeked North-West Passage, his endeavours altered the region as he “opened up the richest fur trading area in the world and inspired others to follow his dream to locate the Northwest Passage” (Jean 2012: 19).

It was not long until other explorers, among them the famous Alexander Mackenzie, followed. Mackenzie was the first European to cross Canada from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific (cf. Jean 2012: 20). In his honour, the Mackenzie River, flowing north to the Arctic, was named. He, too, took notes of the bitumen found in the region of the Clearwater and Athabasca River. Many of his observations, letters and journal entries are collected and are thus available in his book Voyages (cf. Jean 2012: 21). In one entry, he describes the bituminous deposits: “at about 24 miles from the Fork, are some bituminous fountains, into which a pole of 20 feet long may be inserted without the least resistance” (Mackenzie quoted in Jean 2012: 22). After Mackenzie, David Thompson, a gifted geographer for the North West Company, entered the Athabasca region in 1792 and mapped the area “from Lake Superior to the Pacific” (Jean 2012: 24). In 1819, Sir John Franklin was assigned by the British Admiralty to explore the coast of Northern Alberta. For that purpose, Franklin travelled on the Clearwater and Athabasca River, producing maps. Like Mackenzie, Franklin too, described the

15 bitumen found in and along the Athabasca River, close to where Fort McMurray stands today (cf. Jean 2012: 29f.). Decades later, Sir John Richardson, a geologist, entered the area to find the missing members of the Franklin expedition on his way to the Arctic. He was the first to geologically assert the region in 1848 (cf. Alberta Energy and Utilities Board online: 1). One of the most influential scouting expeditions, however, was led by the geologist Robert Bell, who arrived in the region of the Athabasca basin in 1882 (cf. Chastko 2004: 2). He was convinced that these floors held a petroleum reservoir of huge extent which could be used commercially. Bell’s estimation attracted a large number of engineers, investors and entrepreneurs (cf. Chastko 2004: 3). Several oil drilling wells were installed, but no conventional oil was found.

The name giver of Fort McMurray was the Canadian born Hudson’s Bay Company chief factor William McMurray. During his stay in Fort Chipewyan, an influential trading post back then, McMurray was visited by Henry John Moberly, a Canadian-born HBC employee. McMurray persuaded Moberly to travel south and eventually Moberly founded a permanent fur trading post at ‘The Forks’, i.e. at the confluence of the Athabasca and Clearwater rivers in 1870. He named it “after a chief factor who is also one of my oldest friends” (Moberly qtd. in Jean 2012: 36). Even though there had been temporary posts at the junction of these two rivers before, none of them had been permanent (cf. Jean 2012: 35f.; cf. Alberta Energy and Utilities Board online: 1). Due to a fall in fur prices, Fort McMurray was closed in 1898, but reopened only fourteen years later as storage warehouse. Furthermore, the fort was “the gateway to the Arctic”, as all goods going north had to be shipped on the Athabasca River from there on (Alberta Energy and Utilities Board online: 1). Rivers remained to be the only transport system until 1965, when the Mackenzie highway was opened and when the Canadian Pacific Railway was developed further.

Before the outbreak of World War 1, the Canadian prairies experienced a wave of immigration. The population of Alberta “rose from 73,002 in 1901 to 373,943 in 1911” (Chastko 2004: 3). In the uncertain years before and after WW1, the British Empire was keen on securing petroleum production within its own empire, which again encouraged hundreds of oil companies to drill for oil in Canada. However, “very few people possessed enough technical knowledge to make the development of the oil sands even a remote possibility” (Chastko 2004: 4). One example of an (un-) successful oil entrepreneur is Count Alfred von Hammerstein, who figures prominently in a play that will be discussed later in this thesis. Von Hammerstein, a Prussian immigrant and a highly ambitious man, was on his way to search for gold in the Yukon, when he stopped in Fort McMurray in 1897. Once arrived, he heard about rumours about the region’s rich bituminous deposits and was

16 struck by the idea of drilling for and finding oil. Using a trick, he claimed to have found oil. But when these plans proved to be unsuccessful, von Hammerstein discovered salt at the junction of the Athabasca and Horse River. The Alberta Salt Company opened a mine on the Horse River in 1925, but as transporting the salt to Edmonton proved to be a major problem, that mine was closed only two years later (cf. Alberta Energy and Utilities Board online: 1).

Even though First Nations People and the early European explorers had long been aware of the bitumen deposits found in Northern Alberta, it took until the twentieth century to discover and develop methods of industrial mining. Research in that area was pushed due to WW1 and the concomitant fear of a lack of fossil fuels in America and Canada (cf. Chastko 2004: 1). Dr. Karl Clark, a Canadian chemist, revolutionised the method of separating bitumen from the sands by the use of hot water between 1922 and 1929 (cf. Chastko 2004: 14). At the same time, bitumen was still widely used to coat roads. The difficulty of extracting oil from the oil/tar sands, combined with conflicts between the federal government and Alberta led to a delay in industrial mining (cf. Chastko 2004: 1). In 1926, Sidney Ells reported that the bitumen retrieved from the oil/tar sands could also be processed further to gasoline (cf. Chastko 2004: 17). World War 2 fuelled and underlined the need for the development of domestic Canadian oil (cf. Chastko 2004: 29f.). In 1941, oil production from the Abasand Mine close to Fort McMurray rose to 17.000 barrels per year (cf. Chastko 2014: 31). After WW2, petroleum production from Alberta’s oil/tar sands increased further and the economy prospered until the first bust came in 1951 (cf. Chastko 2004: 79). In 1967, Great Canadian Oil Sands Limited (CGOS), “the world’s first large-scale commercial oil sands surface mining and refining plant” (Alberta Culture and Tourism (n.d.:a), online) opened and started the production of synthetic oil. Ever since, the success story of oil extraction has not abated – on the contrary. With modern societies’ lifestyle depending on petroleum products, the number of plants in the Athabasca River Basin is increasing steadily.

In an effort to become less dependent on oil exporting countries like Saudi-Arabia and in order to boost its own economy, the Canadian government closely cooperated with private businesses from the early days of oil mining in Northern Alberta. This effort even increased after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2011 and a growing instability in the Middle East (cf. Chastko 2004: xvii). In order to match up to the international market, the main concern of oil companies and the Alberta government was not to produce vast amounts of crude oil: rather, the primary goal was to reduce the production costs of synthetic crude oil (cf. Chastko 2004: xvi). Thus, with the help of improved technology and funding for scientific research, the oil/tar sands transformed from a “marginal source operating on the periphery to a viable alternative supply” (Chastko 2004: xv).

17 At that point, it needs to be mentioned that the Albertan oil industry would not have been able to evolve without the United States and without the help from American companies: given its proximity, US-America is the main customer of Canadian crude oil. For political reasons, the American government is also more inclined to import oil from Canada than from countries like Saudi-Arabia. It is therefore not surprising that numerous American oil companies, such as for example Imperial Oil, are found operating in Northern Alberta today. Yet, there are not only Canadian and American companies on site – on more than one hundred sites of production around Fort McMurray, there are also British, Japanese and Chinese oil companies at work (cf. Rainforest Action Network 2017, online), which causes hard feelings in some Canadians.

Today, the oil/tar sands project is a highly controversial topic in Canada – it splits the minds of Canadians as there hardly is an intermediate position: one is either on the pro-tar sands side, or a fierce opponent to the industry. This conflict is already mirrored in the name: whereas the supporters of the project call the sands ‘oil sands’, those who oppose their development call them ‘tar sands’. In an effort to remain impartial, these sands will be referred to as ‘oil/tar sands’ or ‘bituminous sands’ in the thesis at hand.

For many, Fort McMurray represents home and history (e.g. the First Nations People), whereas it represents work-but-no-home for thousands of foreign workers (cf. Dorow and Shaughnessy 2013: 121). Today, Fort McMurray is both resource town and a boomtown, characterized by rapid growth in relatively short time, and a steady coming and going of people from diverse ethnic groups. The majority of new arrivals are young men who accept harsh working conditions in exchange for a high income. Like many other boomtowns, Fort McMurray faces an increased number of conflicts due to alcohol and drug consumption, gambling, prostitution and violence (cf. Ruddell 2011: 329), as workers often cannot deal with their separation from their homes and families, the workload, the harsh climate or the job itself. These young male workers, at times pejoratively called “rig pigs” (Ruddell 2011: 330) by permanent residents of Fort McMurray, often live in camps outside of town (see “Introduction”, image 4) and hardly invest in the local community before flying back to their homes once their shift has ended. The high number of people coming and leaving leads to instability (cf. Ruddell 2011: 329) within the community.

In addition, the harsh climate and difficult working conditions leave their mark on the oil workers. It thus comes as no surprise that the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) is confronted with numerous complaints about maltreatment and exploitation. (Cf. AFL 2007, online) Furthermore, the AFL is concerned about developments of the Alberta Labour Market as a whole, when hiring and exploiting TFWs proves to become acceptable and the norm. (Cf. AFL 2007, online) Cheris, a

18 worker from Saskatchewan, currently employed in Fort McMurray, recounts that he has “never seen such a transient population” (Nikiforuk 2010: 42) and continues to explain that “We are mostly young, make lots of money, play hard, and then go home. We aren’t contributing anything” (Nikiforuk 2010: 42). Fort McMurray is an example of a purpose-driven, globalized community: whereas the executives of the big oil companies are mostly from Alberta or Texas, their employees are hired from countries such as China, India, England, Venezuela or the Middle East. (Cf. Nikiforuk 2010: 43) While the parents are at work, many children are in the care of Philippine nannies, and the taxi drivers are mostly of Somalian or Ethiopian origin. (Cf. Nikiforuk 2010: 43) Far away from home, these workers often have to face difficulties concerning wages and working conditions, ranging from lower wages than initially arranged, racist behavior from the side of the employers, requests for disproportionate personal services or threats. (Cf. AFL, online) Furthermore, many of the TFWs live under inhumane conditions in prison-like workcamps, as housing prices are disproportionally high, and the quality of apartments or camps is mostly poor. Many workers come to Canada with the hopes of a permanent residency and better living conditions, expectations which are often denied. (Cf. AFL, online) In addition, exploitation is a big challenge, as due to language barriers, fear and an unfamiliarity with Canadian law, TFWs do not dare or know how to speak up against unfair working and living conditions. Nixon rightly observes that “[a]bundant resources are frequently coupled to rampant injustice” (Nixon 2011: 70). In that context, he speaks of a “vertical inequality” and “a widening class chasm between super rich and ultra-poor” (Nixon 2011: 70). Whereas the Canadian ‘oil sheikhs’ become richer and richer, the poor and often unskilled workers continue being exploited. This imbalance, “the dark side of a resource boom” (Nikiforuk 2010: 45), has negative impacts on the development of the community, as the rates of divorce, school dropouts, homelessness, alcoholism, drug abuse and jail inmates are on the rise (Cf. Nikiforuk 2010: 45ff) Fort McMurray proves to be a haven for drug users and drug dealers, as an estimated “$7 million worth of cocaine now travels up Highway 63 every week on transport trucks” (Nikiforuk 2010: 47). Drug abuse thus seems to be another by-product of the oil boom and is close to being tolerated as “some contractors swear they’d lose half their crews if they did drug testing.” (Nikiforuk 2010: 46) Keeping all these social problems as by-products of the bitumen-boom in mind, it becomes clear that the oil/tar sands are a hot issue, both from an environmental, but also from a social perspective.

19 The potential for conflict can also be observed when looking at the environmental impact of the oil/tar sands development: the production of one barrel of oil from the oil/tar sands produces three times as many greenhouse gases as one barrel of oil from conventional oil resources. Plus, three barrels of fresh water need to be taken directly from the Athabasca River and two tons of earth need to be excavated to produce one single barrel of oil from the oil/tar sands (cf. Nikiforuk 2010: 3). If the bitumen is stored close to the surface, it can be retrieved from Alberta’s sandy floors by open-pit mining. In that case, the forest, muskeg and wetlands are removed and the earth is sieved by huge trucks to harvest the bituminous sands, which then are sent on a conveyer belt to refinery where the bitumen and sand are separated by means of boiling hot water (cf Nikiforuk 2010: 15). Even then, the process of production is not over: the bitumen needs to be diluted to be fit for transport. Yet, the bigger part of bitumen is stored deep down in the earth and cannot be harvested by trucks. To exploit these sands, steam is injected into the soil and the bitumen is then melted and pumped out of the ground, a process which demands the burning of vast amounts of natural gas.1 For that process, a vast number of material (pipes, wells, pumps) is mandatory (cf. Nikiforuk 2010: 15).

Producing oil from the oil/tar sands can be compared to the effort of “removing honey from a bowl of sugar” (Chastko 2004: 6). It is thus not only a very complex, but highly energy-intensive endeavour, which destroys the natural habitat of wildlife, leading to the slow extirpation of cariboo, fish, bear and moose in the long run. Their disappearance, again, has a disastrous effect for the First Nations who still try to live off their lands, as is the case, for example, with the Cree, Dene and Métis peoples (cf. Weis et al 2014: 4). With their staple diet gone, First Nations are either forced to buy staple food from supermarkets for absurdly high prices or to leave their ancestors’ lands. Either way, their culture and way of life is increasingly disturbed. Whereas the older generation still remembers the old time and values, it is particularly the young generation that is lost ‘in between’ – they neither belong to the Euro-Canadians, nor do they feel completely at home in their forefathers’ cultures. It is no coincidence that drug and alcohol abuse are a serious problem.

In the long run, producing oil from the tar/oil sands poses serious threats to the ecological and social balance of Northern Alberta. An example: the immense water consumption leads to water shortage in a former marshland and to the construction of huge tailing ponds which hold the highly-toxic sewage (see “Introduction”, image 8), which again causes new problems: due to inevitable seeping, the groundwater is at risk of being heavily contaminated, and communities downstream the oil/tar

1 The environmental and social impact of LNG plants in Northern Canada is amply discussed in Fred Stenson’s novel Who by fire (2014).

20 sands project, most notably Fort Chipewyan, report a noticeable rise in cancer patients who suffer from the extremely rare cholangiocarcinoma, a form of bile cancer (cf. Nikiforuk 2010: 97).

Furthermore, Fort McMurray and the industrial sites surrounding town are on the flight path of thousands of migratory birds which sometimes mistake the poisonous wastewater basins as natural lakes. In 2008, 1600 ducks landed and miserably perished on Syncrude’s tailing ponds. The incident was shown on TV, discussed in the news and caused a public outcry – it is also mentioned in some of the texts analyzed in the thesis at hand. Consequently, oil companies are obliged to install warning devices, automatic canons and scarecrows to prevent migratory birds from landing on those noxious lakes, which does not always work.

As this brief account shows, the oil/tar sands surrounding Fort McMurray are a red-hot issue in present day Canada and thus prove to be an excellent ‘breeding ground’ for conflicts, strange encounters and stories of success and failure. Literature, in particular, has addressed this conflicted site from various different angles. In what way and through which generic forms literature has responded to those red-hot issues will be explored in the dissertation at hand.

21 3. Theoretical Framework

3.1. Ecocriticism and the Need for Ecological Genres

The last decades of the twentieth, and the first two decades of the twenty-first century saw a large rise in literary texts dealing with the environmental challenges of our present age. Ecological problems have led English literature and literary criticism, disciplines which once were dominated by “a narrowly anthropocentric view” (Love 1996: 229) to a change of course. In times of climate change, species extinction, more and more frequently occurring natural disasters and a growing awareness about the impacts of ecological destruction, environmental literature is gaining popularity. The academic examination of literary texts reflecting the ecological crisis is called ecocriticism, which was defined by Cheryll Glotfelty as “[...] the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment” (Glotfelty 1996: xix) and “the study of the relationship of the human and the non-human” (Glotfelty 1996: 5). In the landmark publication The Ecocriticism Reader, Glotfelty stresses that human beings, too, are a product of nature, and is in complete agreement with the critic Love (Love 1996: 237) who claims that the “mainstream trend towards sustainability” leads to a growing “application of an ecological perspective to literary studies” (Wylonko 1998: 2). Ecocriticism is thus a wide field that is not unaware of its ties to culture and politics.

Ecocritics, then, are confronted with a particularly challenging situation as their prime directive is to “reach beyond their specialist academic audiences and contribute to a transformation of culture and behavior in response to the urgent environmental crisis” (Kerridge 2014: 363). If ecological problems are omnipresent and much debated on the media, it is only natural that literature, which is often regarded as “art that makes universal (human) values tangible and allows for a reflection and questioning of these values within and for a community” (Berensmeyer and Schillings 2016: ix), tackles these essential and controversial topics. Yet, an ecocritic’s aim in not to spread information in the first place, as this task is accomplished by the news media already. The average citizen living in a developed country and in the twenty-first century is confronted with a daily overexposure by the media, leading to an omnipresence and awareness of problems on a global level. Interestingly, research has shown that the constant presence of factual, bad news and nightmare scenarios does not lead to a rethinking and change in the long run, but to “a disconnection between what we know and how we act. We do not behave as if we knew what we know; our behavior implies a different

22 state of knowledge” (Kerridge 2014: 363). Overexposure to bad news and excessive media consumption thus promotes blunting and the feeling of powerlessness in the face of a seemingly insoluble ecological crisis, an effect which was aptly coined “doomsday fatigue” (Seymour, qtd. in Kerridge 2014: 363). That being said, whereas raising awareness is important, it does not automatically induce change, especially since an excess of information has quite the opposite effect (cf. Kerridge 2014: 363). This creates an uncomfortable and – seemingly – unrewarding initial situation for any ecocritic, as promoting a change of behavior in the wider public is the ultimate task objective for any scholar working with environmental texts. Yet, on closer inspection, literature has a lot of potential in creating awareness and promoting change. The key to reach a wider readership and to instil the desire for change in the reader him/herself may lie in the literary form of mediation. Thus, if literature is meant to be a powerful instrument in propelling a change of values in a given society, it is necessary for texts to be more than simple warnings or documentary writings. It is this aspect which lends literature its power and – often underrated – influence: narratives and stories touch people on a more personal, emotional level, or in a nutshell: “[s]tories stick” (Rigney, quoted in Löschnigg 2019: 23). Rigney explains in more detail:

Those who ‘stick to the facts’ may paradoxically end up with a more historical and authentic story, but also a less memorable one, than the producers of fiction. The latter not only enjoy poetic license when narrativizing their materials, but also often have creative, specifically literary skills that help give an added aesthetic value to their work. This aesthetic dimension means that they can attract and hold the attention of groups without a prior interest in the topic, but with the readiness to enjoy a good story and suspend their disbelief. (Rigney 2010: 347)

That being said, it is mandatory for authors and literary scholars to find new forms of aesthetic expression, thereby “keeping creative literature alive and kicking” (Löschnigg 2019: 23). Literature cannot enforce change on a society; rather, it offers multiple possibilities to engage with the environmental crisis, aiming at educating the readership and motivating them towards a change of values and perspectives. Therefore, it is apparent today that new genres and new forms of literature are needed.

A literary genre may be defined as “a set of conventional and highly organised constraints on the production and interpretation of meaning” (Frow 2015: 10). That means that the experienced reader has a certain expectation when choosing a certain literary text. Assuming that a sample text consisting of literally the same words was given the layout of the opening chapter of a novel, a

23 prose poem or a short story – the effect on the reader would be different. Therefore, literary genres are necessary and helpful in both the production and understanding of meaning: “[g]enre theory is, or should be, about the ways in which different structures of meaning and truth are produced in and by the various kinds of writing, talking, painting, filming, and acting by which the universe of discourse is structured. That is why genre matters: it is central to human meaning-making and to the social struggle over meanings.” (Frow 2015: 10) In a similar vein, Kerridge argues that different literary forms and genres are necessary to create multilayered impacts; he even goes further by claiming that “we need all the different literary forms to do different jobs” (Kerridge 2014: 369) and expands his idea in more detail:

If the fundamental aim of literary ecocriticism is that environmental care should become stronger and more pervasive throughout literary culture, ecocritics [...] will want to address all these various needs and audiences, and to bring environmentalism into all the influential forms of literature. (Kerridge 2014: 369)

Despite the rise of an environmental consciousness in literary studies in the last decades, a lack of scholarly research concerning the theoretical framework of environmental literature is apparent. Scholars working on literary texts dealing with environmental issues often find themselves caught between cultural studies and literary criticism, as the rise of cultural studies has led to a situation in which literature is frequently used as documentary evidence of particular aspects of culture and cultural change. However, this can easily lead to a neglect of the aesthetic (and other cognitive) dimensions of literary texts. (Cf. Berensmeyer and Schillings 2016: x) The apparent lacuna of critical theory concerning literary genres was, to a considerable extent, filled by Evi Zemanek’s publication Ökologische Genres (2018) (= Ecological Genres) which is considered as “the first landmark publication on the issue of ecological genres” (Löschnigg 2019: 27).

Zemanek’s belief in the importance of a plurality of forms coincides with the demands of the aforementioned scholars: she explains that the growing, global awareness of ecological problems of our present time has evoked the need for the development of new literary forms and genres (cf. Zemanek 2019: 24), thereby predicting a departure from traditional literary genres to the growth of new literary forms, i.e. ecological genres (cf. Zemanek 2019: 25) Repeatedly emphasizing literature’s capability of doing more than simply ‘warning’ the public of dire consequences of climate disasters, she argues that literary texts may also pursue different interests, such as a philosophical, scientific, aesthetic interest. Other authors may favour an apolitical discussion of natural phenomena or a reprocessing of personal experiences in nature to create pleasure, fear,

24 curiosity, or concern (my translations, cf. Zemanek 2019: 23 for the original version). This necessity was also acknowledged by Maria Löschnigg who observes that “[e]cocultural functions of literature originate, in part of what Jacques Derrida has pointedly described as literature’s licence “to say everything, in every way” (1992: 36) and thus to transcend the particularities and limitations of the cultural contexts out of which it emerges.” (Löschnigg 2019: 17-18).

If literature’s potential as a medium for cultural change shall be tapped the full potential, authors and literary scholars must differentiate their field of expertise from the field of cultural studies. Beyond doubt, cultural studies and literary studies are closely connected and the cooperation of scholars with the shared objective of raising awareness for ecological issues is considered as fruitful; furthermore, it should not be forgotten that interconnectedness among different academic disciplines and the cooperation of scholars of various field of academia is one of the postulates of ecocriticism. Nevertheless, their “relationship […] has never been completely free of tensions, mutual suspicions, and misrepresentations” (Berensmeyer and Schillings 2016: ix). There is no doubt that literature could never exist outside of the realms of a certain culture, which is why it is mandatory “to keep the lines of communication between literary and cultural studies open” (Berensmeyer and Schillings 2016: ix). They explain that the rise of cultural studies “has led to a changing understanding of interpretation itself, which moves away from trying to understand the meaning of a text in a structuralist sense, and instead embeds literature in the contexts of its production, reception, and not least the social and political functions of meaning-making” (Berensmeyer and Schillings 2016: x). As a consequence of that development, “literature has frequently been used as a documentary evidence of particular aspects of culture and cultural change” (Berensmeyer and Schillings 2016: x). If literature is reduced, and thus misused, to confirm and document present trends of a society, it will fail to fulfil its potential and ecocritical writers and scholars will not live up to the expectation of becoming agents of change. Along these lines, Maria Löschnigg underlines the significance of literature’s regenerative function and multifacetedness by claiming that:

25 […] aesthetic forms that arouse interest and that entertain and are memorable while – directly or indirectly – still affecting the senses and the mind and revealing hitherto unnoticed connections and causalities, gives literature a distinct role in shaping cultural attitudes. […] This relationship between aesthetic power, memorability and longevity is yet another factor which testifies to literature’s claim as an agent of cultural developments rather than merely a cultural product. (Löschnigg 2019: 23-24)

Löschnigg’s claim is also in line with Kerridge, who seek it as an ecocritic’s task to aim for a rethinking in the reader, thereby underlining the need for a multitude of literary forms and genres; he states, in this context, that “[e]cocritics must continually look at the need to reach a variety of audiences, and to address different emotional reactions to the crisis, and to accommodate conflicting tactics.” (Kerridge 2014: 370) It is this notion of recognizing the ecocritical potential of different forms of literary expression that underlies the approach pursued in this thesis. Aesthetic diversity is also a central element in this branch of ecocriticism which regards literature as an ecological system of culture. In fact, German critic Hubert Zapf’s concept of ‘literature as cultural ecology’, which he started to develop at the beginning of the new millennium and elaborated in his 2016 monograph Literature as Cultural Ecology, is also of great relevance for petrocritical writing and for my approach to Canadian oil-related literature.

Zapf explains that literature is more than a collection of texts; moreover, he claims literature to be “a form of cultural knowledge”, explaining that “imaginative texts have a special potential of representing, exploring, and communicating fundamental dimensions of human life within the overarching culture-nature-relationship” (Zapf 20177: 11). Yet, he also states that the importance of ecocritical writing has been underestimated and claims that “[t]he enormous ecocultural potential of imaginative literature […] is just beginning to find the attention it deserves.” (Zapf 2017: 11) An increasing number of petrocritical imaginative texts which were published in the last few years pay tribute to Zapf’s statement: there seems to be a market not only for factual and documentary writing, but also for imaginative literature dealing with the hotly debated Canadian oil industry. As Zapf continues to explain: “ […] ever more examples from non-realist fiction and other genres of imaginative writing have been included in ecocritical analyses; but more often than not, they have been treated rather indiscriminately with other forms of textuality and not been explored as distinctive, semiotically condensed models of ecocultural critique and communication.” (Zapf 2017: 11)

26 Along the basic claims of ecocriticism, Zapf underlines the interconnectedness of all living entities on the planet, which is also reflected in the literary production of a certain period of time. Among the greatest strengths of imaginative literature, Zapf explains, are its

[…] two fundamental assumptions of an ecological epistemology, interrelatedness and diversity, similarity and difference, connectivity and singularity. [...] It seems crucial from a cultural-ecological approach perspective to consider art and literature not just as illustrations but as explorative forms of cultural knowledge and creativity in their own right.” (Zapf 2017: 12)

Thus, the diversity found among (petro-) and (eco-) critical texts is not a sign of weakness: on the contrary, the fact that imaginative texts dealing with the oil industry are found across a wide variety of literary genres (including young adult literature, poetry, short stories, novels, comic strips or plays) only documents their importance and relevance for the twenty-first century. Another advantage of imaginative petro-literature is its plurality of literary expression, which is likely to attract the attention of a wider readership.

In the specific context of the oil/tar sands debate, an aestheticized, imaginative form of discourse offered by petro-literature creates more distance to the challenge of living close to, with or in spite of the oil industry. The mediation of problems and conflicts in imaginative literature is manifold, in contrast to its representation in a newspaper report or the news broadcast. On a more abstract level, literature catches the interest of readers who are thereby more willing to engage with this controversial issue than they would be had they only watched a news report based on gruelling facts. Thus, as Hubert Zapf argues,

[l]iterary texts are sites of radical strangeness, alienation, and alterity – both in terms of aesthetic procedures of defamiliarization and of existential experiences of alienation and radical difference; and they are also simultaneously sites of reconnection, reintegration, and, at least potentially, of regeneration of psychic, social, and aesthetic levels. (Zapf 2017: 12)

That being said, imaginative literature tries to promote critical thinking and “empowerment of readers in terms of a creative activity that both thrives on and goes beyond differences of texts and cultures. In this way, the creative energies of texts can travel across periods and cultures and can be shared by a potentially global audience” (Zapf 2016: 14). The underlying idea of Zapf’s concept is that literature itself constitutes a cultural ecosystem, which in a similar manner as biological ecosystems, depends – for its regenerative force and survival, on diversity and complexity (cf. Zapf

27 2019: 53f.) Thus, aesthetic and generic diversity are essential ingredients for “imaginative and artistic forms of textuality” (Zapf 2019: 53) to remain a “vital mode of ecological knowledge and transformation” (Zapf 2019: 54). At the same time, this literary system of cultural ecology is linked to ecological systems inherent in the environment since through “these imaginative processes, the elemental energies of nature are transformed into metaphorical, linguistic, and creative energies of culture” (Zapf 2019: 58). It is this idea of multifaceted literary discourses that also informs my own investigation of literary representations of the oil business in Canadian literature and, in particular, my critical focus on a panoply of different genres and literary modes of expression.

Hubert Zapf’s triadic model of literature thus offers a novel approach to reading literary texts ecocritically. Literature is thus regarded as a powerful, transformative force which “breaks open ossified forms of language, communication, and thought, symbolically empowers the marginalized, and reconnects what is culturally excluded” (Zapf 2017: 95). To underline literature as powerful agent of change more precisely, Zapf developed a triadic model that presents three distinct functions of literary text, i.e. literature as culture-critical meta-discourse, literature as imaginative counter- discourse and literature as reintegrative discourse. The concept of literature as culture-critical metadiscourse reveals that each literary text is the product of a certain socio-cultural environment which is shaped by distinct power structures. In other words, it is literature’s power, then, to reveal these structures and to discuss issues which have emerged due to a disbalance among different members of a given society (Zapf 2017: 104). As a response to the aforementioned power imbalance, literature also offers the possibility of an “imaginative counter-discourse” (Zapf 2017: 108). Thus, literary texts may empower the marginalized and powerless, thereby providing the readership the possibility to imagine a different situation, “a kind of ‘magical’ counterforce to the cultural reality system” (Zapf 2017: 108f). After revealing oppressive power systems and centering ‘the outsiders and losers’ of dominant culture, literature as reintegrative discourse is also the place of “bringing together the culturally separated spheres or discourses which[…] often appears as a moment of regeneration and the regaining of creativity on a symbolic level” (Zapf 2017: 114).

By admitting and staging obvious power disbalances, by fictitiously correcting, or even reversing these power relations, and by providing a safe ground for mutual concessions and recognition, Zapf’s triadic model of literature as cultural ecology is ideally suited for the analysis of ecocritical and petrocritical literature. Particularly in the context of the oil/tar sands, conflicts of interest are the daily fare of both opponents and proponents of the oil industry, which leads to entrenched positions and tensions. Literature, as creative and ever renewable force may offer a fictitious, yet highly

28 meaningful contact zone which enables the recognition of other opinions. Doing so, it “fulfills a function which cannot be fulfilled in the same way by other forms of discourse but which is nevertheless of vital importance for the richness, diversity, and continuing evolutionary potential of culture as a whole” (Zapf 2017: 121).

Staging “radical strangeness, alienation, and alterity” (Zapf 2017: 12) literature itself can be seen as “an ecological force within cultural discourses” as it provides a safe floor for different opinions and worldviews (Zapf 2017: 121). However, by staging ecological concerns among the different literary genres and by offering a wide variety of aestheticized approaches, literature not only indicates ecological challenges and conflicts of interest; moreover, literary texts are “also simultaneously sites of reconnection, reintegration, and, at least potentially, of regeneration of psychic, social, and aesthetic levels (Zapf 2017: 12).

29 3.2. Petrocultures and Petroliterature

To date, a life without the use of any oil products has become virtually impossible for an individual living in industrial countries of the twenty-first century, or to quote the well-known critic Stephanie LeMenager: “[…] most human survivors of the twentieth century, including a good number of self- identified environmentalists, are driving cars, using petroleum-based plastics, walking on asphalt, filling our teeth with complex polymers, and otherwise living oil.” (LeMenager 2013: 69). Without being consciously aware of it, our lives have become inextricably linked to the use of oil products. Obviously, oil is needed for fuel and thus for car traffic, public transport and the heating of houses. Yet, oil products have also crept into our lives and daily routines in a much less visible guise, for example in the form of plastic, packaging material, medical products, dental fillings and cosmetics, and have become the basis of modern media, as for example CDs, DVDs, film and even books. Considering the necessity of production, transport, wrapping and printing, books – even the most critical book – would not exist without the use of fossil fuels. Along these lines, LeMenager states that oil has become “an expressive form, although often hidden as such, in plain sight” (LeMenager 2013: 66). Similarly, Frederick Buell, too, declares that “it has become impossible not to feel that oil at least partially determines cultural production and reproduction on many levels (qtd. in Szeman and Boyer 2017: 4), declaring oil as “prop underneath humanity’s material and symbolic cultures” (qtd. in Szeman and Boyer 2017: 4).

For this very reason, an analysis of the forms and ecocultural functions of contemporary literary texts dealing with the problematic human-oil-bitumen relationship is deemed noteworthy and highly relevant from a socio-cultural perspective. It is particularly appalling to realize that modern civilization as it is would not exist without the round-the-clock combustion of fossil fuels in the form of oil and gas. Along these lines, the scholars Imre Szeman and Dominic Boyer declare in the “Introduction” to their volume On the Energy Humanities (2017) that

[…] energy is absolutely necessary for modern societies. To be modern is to depend on the capacities and abilities generated by energy. Without the forms of energy to which we’ve had access and which we’ve come to take for granted, we would never have been modern. We are citizens and subjects of fossil fuels through and through, whether we know it or not. (Szeman and Boyer 2017: 1)

30 As literature is a medium that, ideally, addresses the concerns of a certain society, it is not surprising that these conflicts are mirrored in contemporary petrol-iterature, i.e. present-day literature dealing with the oil industry.

The term “petrofiction” was coined by the author and critic Amitav Ghosh. Writing from an American perspective, he lamented the absence of a ‘Great American Oil Novel’ in his essay “Petrofiction: The Oil Encounter and the Novel”, which was first published in the American Literary Review in 1992. Ghosh provocatively compared the influence of the oil industry of the twentieth century to the spice trade, stating that: “In its economic and strategic value as well as its ability to generate far-flung political, military, and cultural encounters, oil is clearly the only commodity that can serve as an analogy for pepper.” (Ghosh 2017/1992: 431) Yet, he concludes that “in at least one domain, it is the spice trade that can claim the clear advantage: in the quality of literature that it nurtured.” (Ghosh 2017/1992: 431) Mentioning influential authors and oeuvres, such as Luis de Camoes’s epic poem “The Lusiads”, travelogues and other narratives by Portuguese writers Duarte Barbosa, Tomé Pires or Caspar Correia, he wonders why there was hardly a considerable piece of literature that discusses the oil industry. The “Oil Encounter”, which he describes as the contact between America and the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf, has proven to be “barren” and “sterile” (Ghosh 2017/1992: 431) due to the following four reasons: Firstly, “oil smells bad” and “reeks of unavoidable overseas entanglements, a worrisome foreign dependency, economic uncertainty, risky and expensive military enterprises; of thousands of dead civilians and children and all the troublesome questions that lie buried in their graves.” (Ghosh 2017/1992: 432). Secondly, it “begins to smell of pollution and environmental hazards”; thirdly, a critique of an industry which was the foundation of a way of life was simply “inconceivable” (Ghosh 2017/1992: 432). Instead, literature reflected the zeitgeist of unquestioned progress, “accompanied by a well-tasted pedagogic technology” (Ghosh 2017/1992: 432). Finally, Ghosh explains that oil companies made sure that no information about the industry’s questionable methods of operation found its way to the general public (cf. Ghosh 2017/1992: 432).

Considering the genre of the novel in particular, Ghosh tries to explain the absence of a ‘Great American Oil Novel’ by declaring that the landscapes and communities in which oil was produced are unfit to the prototypical setting for a novel: “The territory of oil is bafflingly multilingual, for example, while the novel, with its conventions and naturalistic dialogue, is most at home within monolingual speech communities” (Ghosh 2017/1992: 433). Plus, he states that the ideal novel’s setting promotes a “sense of place” whereas “[…] the experiences associated with oil are lived out

31 within a space that is no place at all, a world that is intrinsically displaced, heterogeneous, and international” (Ghosh 2017/1992: 433). He thus comes to the conclusion that “we do not yet possess the form that can give the Oil Encounter a literary expression” (Ghosh 2017/1992: 433).

Yet, Amitav Ghosh’s influential essay was published in 1992. In the meantime, twenty-eight years have passed, and it is one of the aims of the thesis at hand to prove that authors, particularly in the Canadian context, but also on a global scale have developed not only one, but numerous forms of literary expression to address the omnipresent dependency on oil. Instead of dwelling on ‘the barrenness’ of petro-literature, I prefer to speak, especially with regard to the Canadian context, of petrofiction’s initial difficulties, as will be elaborated in the paragraphs below.

In the early days of settlement on what was to become Canadian territory later, European immigrants fought to survive in their new, harsh environment. The concept of the “Canadian Survival Myth” was coined by the famous Canadian author Margaret Atwood and thoroughly discussed in Survival. A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (1972). In her pioneering book, Atwood does not only explain the Canadian struggle for an own identity, but also claims that survival itself – the remaining in existence, the remaining alive in spite of hostile nature – has been and still is a dominant element of Canadian identity. Yet, she also claims that this struggle for survival has changed in the course of the twentieth century:

The war against Nature assumed that Nature was hostile to begin with; man could fight and lose, or he could fight and win. If he won, he would be rewarded: he could conquer and enslave Nature, and, in practical terms, exploit her resources. But it is increasingly obvious to some writers that man is now more destructive towards Nature than Nature can be towards man; and, furthermore, that the destruction of Nature is equivalent to self-destruction on the part of man. (Atwood 1972: 60)

Atwood’s quote reveals that firstly, the exploitation and use of earth’s resources is necessary to survive, particularly in a harsh climate such as the Canadian one. Secondly, she emphasizes the interconnectedness between nature and humans: as human beings cannot be separated from their natural environments – like every other living entity, humans rely on food, fresh air and water to survive – the increasing destruction and pollution of nature and the environment is not only disastrous for the fauna and flora, but also for each individual human being on earth.

32 While the struggle for survival had a major impact on the creation of a Canadian identity for a long time, the oil industry has recently become a relatively new “dominant element of shaping the Canadian identity” (Barney 2017: 78). Forty-six years after Atwood published Survival, she wrote a thought-provoking article called “It’s not Climate Change – It’s Everything Change”, which was published in newspapers of several countries, including Germany and Norway. In her article Atwood, too, discusses the problematic omnipresence of oil in Canada: “The Athabasca oil-sand project has now replaced the pyramids as the must-see man-made colossal sight, although there it’s not exactly a monument to hopes of immortality.” (Atwood 2017: 142)

It comes as no surprise that by now – quite in contrast to Ghosh’s findings of 1992 – a considerable body of serious petroliterature has emerged in Canada. From the perspective of literary studies, the oil industry’s prominence, and its link to the creation of a Canadian identity resulted, on the one hand, in the need for and interest in petroliterature. These literary texts – as will be demonstrated in the following chapters – serve as a medium which allows for alternative discourses. On the other hand, the unquestioned trust in progress and the need for economic prosperity at – seemingly – any cost made and continues to make it challenging, if not impossible, for critical petroliterature to become accepted by the majority of Canadians.

To explain the background of these tensions and conflicts, the cultural scientists Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay introduce Jacques Ellul’s theory of a technocratic society to the context of the Alberta oil/tar sands. They use Ellul’s concept of technique, which is defined as “the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency for a given stage of development in every field of human activity” (Ellul qtd. in Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay 2015: 80) to try to explain why the need for progress in the form of oil production in Alberta is unquestioned and why the oil/tar sands have “acquire[d] a sacred character” (Ellul qtd. in Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay 2015: 80).

Due to the fact that the industry is directly linked to Canadian, and even more so, to the Albertan- Canadian identity, any criticism of the oil industry equals a critique of the self, thus directly resulting in conflict, or as the critics Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay explain: “Albertans are supposed to view the tar sands as part of being Albertan and therefore as something to be defended as one would defend oneself.” (Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay 2015: 89) This creates another problem, as “criticizing the system from the outside is irrational, while criticizing it from the inside is inauthentic. Critics of the tar sands are consistently derided for owning cars, houses, and generally

33 living a modern way of life. […] [C]ritics are both stuck in the petromobile society and dismissed for lacking an alternative praxis” (Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay 2015: 90). The negative connotation is not perceived by those who promote the oil production in Northern Alberta. They claim that “[…] Albertan identity is defined in terms of oil and the tar sands, any potentially negative moral evaluation of them is unthinkable. […] Alberta appears as a hypnotized province, pre-rationally resistant to independent assessments which automatically seem foreign and heterodox” (Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay 2015: 91).

Reconsidering Atwood’s survival myth, it becomes apparent that their core message is very similar, as in Ellul’s sense, “the efficient mastery of nature” is the ultimate goal of technological progress, a target which he called “technological rationality” (Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay 2015: 75). Ellul’s theory of a technocratic society also allows an explanation for the absence of ethics within the oil industry: “Ellul’s ethical point about technological power is that it is not directed toward any telos other than itself” (Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay 2015: 79), thus explaining the intrinsically autocratic character of both society and industry. The sacrifice of morals for the sake of economic progress and boom is not only “anti-democratic” (cf. Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay 2015: 83), it has gradually led to the reduction of human freedom as “[a]ll ends other than technique are considered merely subjective, whereas efficiency occupies the prized position of value-neutrality. Because technical efficiency functions as the limit of what is pragmatic and possible, it is no longer considered a value; ‘values’ are rather dismissed as mere emotion or sentiment” (Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay 2015: 80). Therefore, the advocates of the oil/tar sands easily defeat environmental concerns as “subjective, misinformed, inefficient and irrational.” (Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay 2015: 80) As environmental ethics are irrelevant and dispensable for a technocratic society, so is the critique of the oil/tar sands industry. The leading figures of both industry and politics leave no doubt that there is currently no alternative to oil extraction from the Alberta oil/tar sands: therefore, the oil/tar sands and the manifold industries connected to it

[…] are advanced as key components of individual and collective identity, naturalized and inoculated against criticism. The technique of energy economics and automobility become institutionally manifest and control the social, ecological, and political spheres. The only way for environmental ethics to say anything to this way of life is to be seen as radical, standing conceptually outside the system, which automatically invalidates it in the eyes of the system. (Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay 2015: 96)

34 It is very difficult to reach a common ground for both supporters and opponents of the industry as their points of view are extremely polarized. This unsatisfactory situation might be another explanation why petroliterature, as a medium that stands outside direct political debate, has recently started to flourish across all genres. Yet, to what end, and what precisely is literature’s potential in such a dead-end situation?

With regards to the importance of independent, imaginative literature on the oil/tar sands in Northern Alberta, the Canadian critic Jon Gordon differentiates between “upward counterfactuals” and “downward counterfactuals” (Gordon 2015: L). He explains that a great number of opinion leaders such as politicians or industrialists try to spread the notion of a very positive future thanks to the oil industry, a strategy which he calls “upward counterfactuals” (Gordon 2015: L). Literature, by contrast, tends to present the reader a rather grim outlook, meaning that “the future created by bitumen extraction will be worse than the present” (Gordon 2015: LI). He continues to explain that neither the very positive, nor the extremely negative picture of the oil industry is likely to be true, however, he is convinced that “the upward narrative of infinite progress, in its simplicity, is far more dangerous than the downward narrative of limit and decline because it is so tempting and persuasive.” (Gordon 2015: LI) The danger of the upward counterfactual narrative lies in its invitation to accept the present situation and to believe in the myth that everyone benefits from resource extraction, which, so Gordon, leads to a strong belief in “the facts” and “a widespread culture of denial” (Gordon 2015: LI).

Thus, literature offers a space where entrenched positions can shift, where questions of co-operation and exploitation can be rethought, because literature is something people can get caught up in” (Gordon 2015: LII). It is thus one of the challenges of literature to offer space for a rethinking for the concept of progress and for alternative discourse to unfold (Gordon 2015: LIV). Literature, according to Gordon, generates a space where the “the unquestioned narrative of progress can be re- presented” (Gordon LIII). Yet, as Gordon states, the oil/tar sands are not only worrying because of their impact on the environment, but also because of their violation of human rights. The seemingly infinite need for oil has led to phenomena such as the forced displacement of communities or the persecution of opponents to the industry. In public, the oil/tar sands are presented as “a common good of prosperity, equality and independence” (Gordon 2015: 3), which, however, “depends upon the finite ecological diversity on which all life, including the human, depends” (Gordon 2015: 3).

35 In between the poles of progress and conservation, Gordon believes in literature’s importance and function “as alternative discourse that can present these challenges in a new way” (Gordon 2015: LIV) Similar to Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay, Gordon too, declares that the oil/tar sands are “central to the current narratives of Alberta and Canada” (Gordon 2015: 1). As the wealth of the province is directly linked to the extraction of bitumen, any decline in production would go hand in hand with “cuts to services and/or increased taxes” (Gordon 2015: 1), which, undoubtedly, would lead to public unrest and turmoil – a situation that any government tries to avoid.

Nevertheless, he states that literature is an apt medium for a critique of the oil/tar sands and their concomitant consequences. Moreover, he claims that literature not only allows critical voices to be heard, but also offers “the losers of progress to raise their voices” (Gordon 2015: 3). He concludes that “[l]iterature, then, is one place to look for alternative narratives that reveal what is left out of progressive and teleological myths. […] Even if literature does not tell us what we should do, it can suggest that something is missing in what we are currently doing.” (Gordon 2015: 3) Plus, it (=literature) is a medium to reach people who are interested in “alternatives” (Gordon 2015: 2) and “counternarratives, narratives that may displace the droning monologist justification of the status quo” (Gordon 2015: 2).

Like Kowalsky and Haluza DeLay, Gordon, too, observes that not only the environment, but also individuals and communities are displaced due to bitumen extraction projects in the vicinity of Fort McMurray (cf. Gordon 2015: 3). These sacrifices, however, are widely portrayed and “justified by a political representation of ‘a common good of prosperity, equality and independences’” (Gordon 2015: 3). Next to the individual sacrifice, Gordon stresses that the large-scale destruction of habitat not only affects wildlife, but also each single human being in the long run (cf. Gordon 2015: 3). Again, agreeing with Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay, he observes irreconcilable differences between supporters and opponents to the industry. Thus, he regards literature as an excellent medium to discuss this highly controversial issue. (Cf. Gordon 2015: 63).

36 4. Generic Manifestations of Canadian Petro-Literature

4.1. Ecopoetry

At this point, literary scholars have not yet agreed on “an authoritative definition” (Bryson 2005: 1) of ecopoetry. However, in spite of slightly different notions and definitions, poets and scholars alike agree that ecopoetry is poetry closely linked to ecological problems, such as resource extraction in the Alberta oil/tar sands, species extinction, water pollution, salinization or climate change, just to give a few examples. One might say that these topics and problems create the field in which ecopoetry flowers. According to Bryson, ecopoetry differs from nature writing as it acknowledges the current environmental crisis and thereby tackles these contemporary problems and issues. (Cf. Bryson 2005: 1) As lowest common denominator it can be claimed that ecopoetry tries to shed light on ecological problems and endangered habitats.

In the preface to their volume The Ecopoetry Anthology (2013), the American literary critics Ann Fisher-Wirth and Laura-Gray Street go one step further by dividing poetry discussing the natural world into three groups: nature poetry, environmental poetry and ecological poetry (cf. Fisher-Wirth and Street 2003: xxviii). Nature poetry, they argue, praises the natural environment, its positive impact on human beings while excluding the human sphere and human impact on the natural environment. Environmental poetry is described as poetry inspired and influenced by human rights groups and activism, it is thus “poetry propelled by and directly engaged with active and politicized environmentalism. It is greatly influenced by social and environmental justice movements and is committed to questions of human injustice, as well as to issues of damage and degradation to the other-than-human world” (Fisher-Wirth and Street 2003: xxix). The third group is ecopoetry, whereas Fisher-Wirth and Street prefer the term “ecological poetry”, which they regard as the “more elusive” category (Fisher-Wirth and Street 2003: xxix). Ecological poetry is described to be more daring and “experimental” and “the most willing group to engage, even play with, postmodern and poststructuralist theories, which, however puts ecopoetry into the risk of being elitist, thereby creating “hyperintellectualism, emotional distance or detachment” (Fisher-Wirth and Street 2003: xxix). Yet, they claim that more important than discussing and categorizing different qualities of nature-, environmental- and ecopoetry is their shared aim – inviting both poets and readers to actively “engage in and slide between contemplation, activism, and self-reflexivity” (Fisher-Wirth and Street 2003: xxx).

37 Similar to the poets and scholars mentioned before, the American critic Juliana Spahr came up with another useful description of ecopoetry. According to her, “ecopoets are concerned with a “poetics full of systematic analysis and critique that questions the divisions between nature and culture while also acknowledging that humans use up too much of the world” (Spahr 2003: 29). That is to say that ecopoets not only question the boundaries between the human and the not human, but also express their concern for human consumption and waste of natural resources.

The rise of publications within the genre of ecopoetry has still not ceased, as an ever-increasing number of ecopoetical work keeps appearing on the market, as well as on the internet.2 However, poems praising nature are not a new trend. Ancient authors such as Homer or Virgil and their praise and idealized view of nature have become famous examples of classical pastoral literature. In the Romantic period, on the other hand, nature poetry foregrounded the contrast between seemingly untouched nature and the growing urbanization and industrialization; thereby, nature became a symbol of beauty, innocence, and creativity. Whereas some Canadian poets have refocused on pastoral poetry recently3, the general notion of Canadian poets in the twenty-first century seems to be that “[i]t is no longer sufficient to stage singing contests among shepherds” (Anand and Dickinson 2009: 11). Along these lines, the Canadian poet Don McKay claims that contemporary poets writing about nature must “come to grips with the practice of poetry in a time of environmental crisis” (qtd. in Anand and Dickinson 2009: 11).

In contrast to previous literary epochs, in which the main emphasis was set on the experience of an individual person or a group of people, ecopoems try to provoke a sense of community and a feeling of interconnectedness, across people of different families, backgrounds and nationalities, and even across different species and human and non-human spheres in general. This new, striking phenomenon removes humankind’s privileged status and underlines that human beings are one of many different living creatures on earth (cf. Bryson 2005: 3). Thus, ecopoems strive to stir their readers in the hope of achieving a rethinking and re-definition and acknowledgement of the intrinsic values of nature. In other words, ecopoetry calls for action and for change. Thus, ecopoetry includes some aspects of the activist movement, which will be discussed in more detail in the following

2 A typical example for an online magazine is The Goose, the official publication of ALECC (Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture in Canada / L’Association pour la littérature, l’environnement et la culture au Canada). 3 Madhur Anand and Adam Dickinson mention Lisa Robertson’s XEclogue and Occasional Work and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture (2011), and Erin Mouré’s Sheep’s Vigil by a Fervant Person: A translation of Alberto Caeiro / Fernando Pessoa’s O Guardador de Rebanhos (2001) as examples of contemporary Canadian pastoral poetry (cf. Anand and Dickinson 2009: 11; 17).

38 subchapters (cf. subchapters 4.1.3., 4.1.4. and 4.1.5.). Along these lines, literary scholar Maria Löschnigg argues that ecopoetry may be regarded as a “new form of literary resistance” (Löschnigg 2014a: 32). The activist notion is also described by Fisher-Wirth and Street who mention a “straightforward activist urgency of much environmental poetry” (Fisher-Wirth 2003: 2). On the negative side, they claim that if these poems drop their literary qualities for the sake of their activist message, they should merely be described as “simply agitprop” (Fisher-Wirth 2003: 2). Thus, ecopoetry is ecological also in the sense that it creates connections, through devices such as metaphoric language and intertextuality, between spheres that have hitherto been separated, but also between past and present and between poetry and the biosphere when, for example, natural phenomena are imitated through phonological devices (including onomatopoeia), rhythm or iconic structural devices. A rather extreme example of interlinking textual and biological processes is Stephen Collis and Jordan Scott’s Decomp (2013). For their project, the Canadian authors left copies of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species in five distinct ecosystems and let nature ‘rewrite’ the famous book, in other words, they left it to nature to ‘decide’ which parts of the books survived and used the remaining text for the creation of their own long poem.

Yet, one might wonder why ecopoetry is such a popular literary form in present-day Canada. Especially in contrast to its neighbor, the United States, Canada seemed to be a country where – to put it crudely – ‘the world was still in order’. However, that impression is misleading as the spectrum of environmental concerns and issues in present day Canada is wide, reaching from clear cut logging, daring pipe line proposals (for instance the Enbridge Project or the Trans Mountain Project), unsafe and highly poisonous tailing ponds, to the threat of species extinction (for example caribou or polar bears). Thus, it is hardly surprising that Canada’s ambitious oil/tar sands politics are an issue that is repeatedly taken up in ecopoetry, as shall be seen in the poems analyzed in the following. sections.

39 4.1.1.“Tar Swan” (2014) by David Martin

“Tar Swan” is one example for a contemporary Canadian poem dealing with the oil/tar sands industry. As its author David Martin explains in an interview with the CBC press, the poem focuses on the history of the Alberta oil industry, and also forms its own mythology, featuring, as the title suggests, a swan. Written from an oil worker’s perspective, the poem is loosely based on Robert Fitzsimmons’s life (1881-1971).4 In an interview with RETROactive, Martin explained his motivation to approach the oil/tar sands issue from Robert Fitzsimmons’s point of view: “I felt that the Fitzsimmons’s story offered me a smaller, more manageable way to write about the oil sands, rather than to focus on current industrial operations.” (Cf. RETROactive 2015, online)

Consisting of six stanzas, “Tar Swan” takes the reader on a mythological, dreamlike journey to the Alberta oil sands. Referring to past, present and future scenarios, the poem includes both fictitious elements as well as historical references to the early days of oil extraction. Its dense language certainly poses a challenge to the reader, yet it is exactly that language that “Tar Swan” is praised for.5 At the beginning, the lyric persona explains that he once saw a “singly cygnet / abandoned by cob and pen” (line 3f.) in the Athabasca River. The author puts a cygnet, rather than a grown swan, into the centre of the poem; maybe because a baby animal is more likely to evoke a feeling of empathy in the reader. Being alone on the wide Athabaska [sic] River, which is mentioned in line 11, the cygnet’s future looks grim. The already threatening atmosphere is highlighted by the repeated, hissing [s]-alliterations (“His sobs skip-dripped / from sockets and slithered into deep / pools of felicity”, line 5-7), as well as by the ambiguous and yet telling choice of wording: “doodle- buggers / and orange worms will soon mine his / blistered lore” (lines 7-9). These lines demonstrate the poem’s complexity: not only does lyric persona’s voice foreshadow the cygnet’s imminent death by referring to insects (doodle bugs and orange worms) which will consume the bird’s body (“lore”, line 9); it also plays with words, as “doodle buggers” is also a vulgar expression for a male person and could thus stand for oil workers who destroy the swan’s natural environment. Even more, both the bugs, worms and men mentioned in these lines also ‘extinguish’ the cygnet’s myths, as “lore” (line 9) not only refers to the facial area of a bird, but also stands for a group’s traditions and

4 Apart from Karl Clark, also Fitzsimmons was also looking for a method to seperate oil from the sticky sands. For that purpose, Fitzsimmons opened his own company, Bitumount, in 1927. It was situated next to the Athabasca River in the North of Fort McMurray. Even though he was able to produce a certain amount of oil and he was granted a patent for his own separation method, the company was closed in 1940 due to financial problems (cf. Alberta Culture and Tourism (b), online). 5 The CBC Poetry Prize panel, e.g., underlined its “daring, and brilliantly challenging use of diction, syntax and imagery.” (Schoenmakers, online).

40 knowledge. Thus, the lyric voice suggests that both the individual cygnet, as well as its culture and tradition are doomed. Nevertheless, the cygnet is “heralding a black egg” (line 10), which bestows the baby swan with prophetic powers and a sense of persistence (see also “spit the yoke”, line 11). Whereas the egg’s colour further underlines the threatening atmosphere, it certainly also refers to the ubiquitous tar. In stark contrast to the black egg, the lyric speaker, who observes the scene, has “a tar-cleaned tongue” (line 12).

The second part of “Tar Swan” opens with historical references and thus fulfils a documentary function:

Say Alexander Mackenzie once netted an elephant by the jugular, a vein he blotted ashore, and ashore he cajoled a catheter up its trunk, a trunk that smelled of sea coal. Believe me, he never imagined his dead mammal would tender its supreme body as petroleum. (lines 15-22)

By mentioning the famous explorer Alexander Mackenzie, who was one of the first Europeans to travel along the Athabasca River towards the Lake Athabasca, the poet returns to the past and the days before industrial mining in Northern Alberta. According to the lines above, Alexander Mackenzie broke the ground for resource extraction in the area by catching “an elephant” (line 16). It stands to reason that the very elephant mentioned in the poem, a huge animal, or rather, a vast area that has been tamed by nets and “catheters” (line 18) can be seen as a metaphor for Canada. The verbs used in that part of the poem stress the brutality which was necessary to subdue the elephant, i.e., the land: “netted […] an elephant by the jugular” (line 16) or “[…] cajoled a catheter up its trunk” (line 18). When looking closely at the wording and the context of the Albertan oil industry, it seems plausible to interpret “the jugular” (line 16) as the oil/tar sands lying beneath the muskeg and “the catheter” (line 18) as pipelines which are forced into the animal’s trunk, i.e. the soil.

The poem continues by claiming that the elephant’s trunk, representing the soil lying below the Northern Alberta’s muskeg, “smelled of sea coal” (line 19), which can be easily explained as

41 Northern Alberta was once covered by a vast ocean.6 The reader’s attention is drawn to the fact that Alexander Mackenzie would never have imagined the dimension and extent of today’s oil industry: “Believe me, he never imagined / his dead mammal would tender / its supreme body as petroleum” (lines 20-22). The choice of words (“tender”, line 21) suggests that the animal/ earth provides its “body” without any resistance.

By making inter-textual references, the poem’s menacing atmosphere continues to unfold:

We are bitumen farmers, gleaners and I wield the wide metal plough, a plough with ragged furrow-slice my coulter’s wake. Wake, and never again will Virgil warn, “Let the horns of the moon govern a Soiler’s work” (lines 23-29)

The lines above seem to refer to the Ages of the World, a topic already used by ancient authors such as Herodot (Days and Works), Ovid (Metamorphoses) or Vergil (Georgics). According to Herodot and Ovid, there are several stages of human existence on Earth. The first one is the Golden Age, where everything is plentiful, and earth is benevolent. This stage is followed by the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, the Heroic Age and the Iron age. With each stage, the state of the world and the people inhabiting it, deteriorate. In the Golden Age, mankind lives in close communion with nature and the virtues. There is no need to plough and farm the land, as the land gives freely and in abundance. A very different situation is found in the Heroic Age, when farmers need to plough their land for the first time, as the Earth does not freely provide food any longer. The situation becomes even worse in the Iron Age when the virtues leave earth and the sins take over the land. As a consequence, men start exploring and conquering. They suddenly become possessive towards the land, and resource extraction, war and theft follow. In that context, lines 23-29 obtain a deeper meaning, as the “farmers”, “gleaners”, “the wide metal plough”, the “plough with ragged furrow-slice” and the “wake” are all taken from the semiotic field of agriculture and thus undoubtedly refer to the Heroic Age, which is transferred to the context of the oil/tar sands industry. On the positive side, it could be argued that the situation described in the poem obviously refers to the Heroic Age, not to the Iron Age, which is the ultimate age in which everything has deteriorated already. In that context, the careful reader will realize that, in this stanza, the author did not only include inter-textual references

6 The living entities of that ocean and life cycle of these organisms, were a precondition for the formation of the bituminous sands in the first place.

42 to classic ancient works to increase the poem’s effect on the reader. In addition, he also skilfully plays with words, e.g. the repeated use of “wake” in line 26. Whereas the first ‘wake’ is used as a noun and might refer to the undertow of heavy machinery (e.g. of “the wide metal plough”, line 24), the second ‘wake’ is used as an imperative: the addressee is meant to awake and to avoid the transition from the Heroic Age to the final, Iron Age. Following that interpretation, there is still hope and a certain room for manoeuvre.

Leaving antiquity behind, the poem nevertheless stays in the mystical realm and, in the third stanza, takes the reader into the land of deceit and magic. Again, the density of imagery and landscape adds to the meaning of the stanza (cf. Löschnigg 2016: 214). Mentioning the well-known conjuring trick “a Question / of Sympathy”, line 35f. in combination with an inter-textual reference to Shakespeare’s Othello, the lyric voice cleverly connects world literature’s symbols (e.g. the handkerchief) and its connotations to the environment of the Canadian oil/tar sands industry:

All magicians know stubholders [sic] double watch: convincing heart that behind the trick is trick, hoodwinking body-be-mind to lunch with wonder. It is simple then: Threshing bitumen is the Devil’s Handkerchief followed by a Question of Sympathy. Suckers agog, exposed by boreal thugs who conjure a terrible prophesy, stringing out Dionysian muck to smear on highway blacktop. (lines 29-39)

The imagery of magic and deceit is enforced by the repeated use of words taken from the semiotic field of deceit: “magicians”, “double watch”, “trick is trick”, “hoodwinking body-be-mind”, “the Devil’s Handkerchief”, the well-known magic trick “a Question of Sympathy”, “conjure” or “Dionysian muck”. In addition to the sinister atmosphere created by these words and their meaning, the author goes one step further by skilfully adding another layer of meaning to the already complex stanza (cf. Löschnigg 2016: 214). Since Shakespeare’s Othello, the handkerchief has become a proverbial symbol of betrayal7 (cf. Löschnigg 2016: 214). Coming back to the context of Northern

7 The handkerchief was the first gift Desdemona ever received from her future husband Othello. In the play, the handkerchief is much more than a piece of cloth: it represents Desdemona’s love for Othello, her future husband, but also represents her chastity. Iago, who functions as stage manager in the play and who is indirectly referred to, as “the Devil” in the poem (line 34), instructs the maid Emilia to steal the very handkerchief from Desdemona and to produce a copy of it. Afterwards, Iago smuggles it into Cassio’s

43 Alberta’s oil industry, these Shakespearean symbols of deceit and betrayal “bring up the question of who is to blame” (Löschnigg 2016: 214) for the consequences of the area’s large scale, industrial development. Whereas I agree with this conclusion, I argue that it is possible to extend that question to who is deceived – people like Robert Fitzsimmons, who would never have expected the present dimension of his once small bitumen extraction site? The First Nations people living close to the industry, who must face the environmental pollution caused by the industry every day? Future generations? Or nature as a whole, represented by the tar swan in the poem? The poem leaves the reader with many unresolved issues, yet this ambiguity, as well as its aesthetic complexity, contribute to the poem’s lasting effect on the reader.

If it can be claimed that the handkerchief is used as a symbol of betrayal in “Tar Swan”, then there is a very clear and distinct message to be found in lines 34ff.: “Threshing bitumen is the Devil’s / Handkerchief followed by a Question / of Sympathy”. Rephrasing this line, its content might be summarized as in the following: ‘Extracting bitumen is betrayal, which is followed by a magic trick’. From a more positive perspective, in the context of the oil/tar sands industry, the ‘magic trick’ might hint at the feasibility of producing oil from bitumen. The oil workers, who are rather contemptuously called “suckers” and “boreal thugs” in the poem (line 36f), continue performing their dark magic by applying bitumen on highways. Again, using Shakespeare as inter-textual reference, the stage manager (line 42) will remind the reader of Iago, the manipulative vice figure in Othello. As Iago is a rather negative figure in Othello, the author uses Shakespeare’s play to construct a (sophisticated) bridge between deceit and Alberta’s oil industry.

Intertextuality is also present in the next stanza, which opens with a reference to a well-known Bible passage (Genesis :29-31):

Behold, the plant is alive! I give you the loaf-crunch of Draglined Sand; the shut-eye-beak-oool (sic) of Feed Hopper; the scheming sheats of Toothed Rollers; the rumen-torque of Pug Mill; the pupa-soup gyrate of Separator; the moulted-scales of Tailings Pond; the magpie appraisal of Settling Tank; the shadow-tailed-cache of Elephant Storage;

room and tells Othello that he saw Cassio wiping his beard with that very handkerchief. Othello grows furious and readily believes Iago when he is told that his wife-to-be and Cassio have an affair. In a rush of jealousy and a violent fit of temper, Othello chokes his innocent wife.

44 the nagging scent of Water Drained to River. (lines 43-52)

The passage from the Bible (Genesis 29-31) reads as follows:

And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

The obvious reference to the Bible text allows for some interesting conclusions and adds yet another layer of meaning to the poem: in Genesis, the speaking voice is God, whereas it is a human being, i.e. an oil worker, in “Tar Swan”. Thus, the intertextual comparison equals a human being to a god-like figure, underlining, and thus criticizing, mankind’s hubris in the oil/tar sands operations. In addition, Genesis 28-32 includes God’s message to Adam and Eve to “subdue” the world. In that context, the line could also justify man’s exploitation of the oil resources in Northern Alberta; moreover, it might even be regarded as heavenly mission. This ambiguity – does man act according to a godly mission or are his deeds morally reprehensible? – is one of the poem’s qualities and leaves the reader left to wonder and draw his/her own conclusions.

The stanza’s obvious similarity to Genesis allows a clever wordplay: whereas the Bible text reads: “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, […]”, David Martin’s poem, line 43, reads: “Behold, the Plant is alive”. Obviously, the ‘plant’ in the Bible refers to the flora, whereas the ‘plant’ in “Tar Swan” refers to an actual industrial site in the oil/tar sands. In the Bible, God as speaker continues to list examples of flora and fauna. David Martin, however, continues with a detailed list of industrial constituents needed in the oil/tar sands operations, e.g. the “Separator”, line 48, or the notorious “Tailing Pond” (line 49).8

The author’s meticulous enumeration of industrial facilities, combined with references to sensory perception (e.g. line 44: “the loaf-crunch of Draglined Sand”; or line 52: “the nagging scent of Water Drained to River”) and allusions to the natural world (“the shut-eye-beak-oool of Feed Hopper”, line 45; the “magpie appraisal of Settling Tank”, line 50; or “the shadow-tailed cache of

8 Tailings or tailings ponds are one of the most controversial topics when it comes to reclamation and the industry’s impact on the land. They figure prominently in other texts, such as Mari-Lou Rowley’s poem “In the Tar Sands, Going Down” (see subchapter 4.1.2) or in Katie Welch’s novel The Bears (see subchapter 4.3.2.).

45 Elephant Storage”, line 51) and the capitalization of the individual industrial facilities capture the reader’s attention. To put it short, it sounds as if lines 44-52 do not describe industrial facilities, but rather a living creature. Thus, the author skilfully forges a bridge to the first line of stanza four: “Behold, the Plant is alive!”, line 43. The parallel structure of the enumeration in lines 44-52 abruptly ends, leading to the stanza’s final lines:

I submit Nature’s Supreme Gift to Industry. Muskeg, glacial tills, sandstone and shale - all useless like a turf cutter’s saw, for we are gouging at a forest sea. (lines 53-56)

In the lines above, the lyric speaker, i.e. the oil worker, sacrifices nature for the sake of the industry. Nature is anthropomorphized and described as giving, but her offerings (“muskeg, glacial tills, sandstone and shale”, line 54, all landscape forms found in Northern Alberta) are no longer useful for mankind. Yet, they are called “Nature’s Supreme Gift”. Thus, the poem subtly suggests a criticism of mankind’s attitude and misjudgement: instead of valuing nature’s riches, man systematically destroys even the most precious landscapes if they stand in the way of economic development.

Stanza five leads the reader back to the perspective of the lyric persona of Fitzsimmons. The oil worker is haunted by a nightmare and a “monster” (line 64) which consists of several animals and shows a strong similarity to the industrial facilities described in the previous stanza (cf. Löschnigg 2016: 215):

As I slept, a creature brewed for me: head of a white-tongued lion, body the blood of a cinnamon hermit, feet the sheats of a fire moth – and as I pounced, flailing hands, hurling clods of black sand in its mask, biting out eyes – nothing would cripple the monster, no wound appeared on craning form. […] (lines 57-65)

It is tempting to wonder what this “monster”, line 64, is meant to represent. Again, there is no definite answer, but I would argue that the monster represents nature who is willing to fight back.

46 Nature’s power can be seen as the speaker, i.e. the oil worker, panics and stumbles. In a desperate act of self-defence, he sets for the kill:

[…] At last I choked its throat with heavy stones, crushing a gaunt neck, peeled back layers of rotted cloak to find brittle feathers, no bulk beneath, nut a black egg - a single black egg wrapped in moss. (lines 65-70)

Nature, embodied by the monster, is weakened (e.g. “gaunt neck”, line 67, or “brittle feathers”, line 68) and alone. While a part of her, i.e. the monster, is defeated by the lyric persona in the end, the black egg (cf. line 10) has survived unimpaired. The nightmare continues in the poem’s last stanza. The lyric persona, representing the early oil-sands pioneer Robert Fitzsimmons, stumbles and falls into “elephant drool” (line 75). Thereby cleverly referring to stanza two, the poet underlines that the speaker not only fails, but literally falls because of the development in the first place. In that context, Löschnigg argues: “The persona of the oil pioneer Fitzsimmons is confronted with his own suicidal participation in the increasingly uncontrollable mechanisms of business expansion” (Löschnigg 2016: 215f). In the poem, the explicit speaker is aware of his imminent death:

Peel back overburden, lie down in elephant drool like a swan that sinks into song. Wheels turn, and I’m the undercarriage. (lines 74-77)

Even though the last stanza ‘only’ describes the oil worker’s nightmare (cf. Löschnigg 2016: 216), the vivid imagery and poetic wording used in the poem’s final lines is likely to make the reader’s flesh creep. The speaker is forced down to the ground, “like a swan that sinks into song” (line 75f.) Once more, the author draws on the reader’s erudition, as the motif of swan song has been used by ancient, medieval, but also new-age authors (e.g. Ovid, Chaucer, Coleridge or Tennyson) to announce imminent death. In the context of “Tar Swan”, it remains to question who, or maybe also what, is going to die. Is it only the persona of Fitzsimmons, or could the swan song announce the decline of the oil/tar sands industry, or maybe also the death of nature in Northern Alberta? Again, the author does not provide any answers, but leaves a puzzled reader behind. To put it in Löschnigg’s words: “Even though the last two stanzas envision but a dream, the implication that […] the whole oil enterprise has run out of control, leaves a lasting and thought-provoking impact

47 on the reader.” (Löschnigg 2016: 216) To increase the poem’s tension, children, probably representing innocence and the future generation, are introduced in line 77. Before his death, they force the oil worker to return the egg: “[…] They clutch feathers / demanding I give back the nest egg / wrapped in moss […]” (line 78ff.).

From an optimistic point of view, one could interpret that the oil worker’s nightmare hints at a slow rethinking of values. Moreover, the black egg, representing nature, did not break but remains in the hands of the generations yet to come. “Tar Swan” is very likely to disturb and puzzle its readers, while also reminding them of their own responsibility with regards to the future of the oil/tar sands industry.

48 4.1.2. “In the Tar Sands, Going Down” (2009) by Mari-Lou Rowley

Similar to the previous poem, “In the Tar Sands, Going Down” by Mari-Lou Rowley also confronts the reader with a very grim, disturbing, and even dystopian view of Alberta’s north: already the title hints at this specific location, and the poet also names the Athabasca River in line 85 as further evidence. Choosing the moon-like, industrial setting of the oil/tar sands, Rowley’s poem basically describes the romantic meeting of a couple, but instead of a peaceful, familiar atmosphere, the two find themselves in an environment which has been altered or even destroyed by man’s influence. Nevertheless, sensual imagery and sexual allusions frequently occur throughout the poem. Rowley uses various techniques in her effort to create a lasting impression in the reader. The most obvious stylistic devices are alliterations, onomatopoeia and anaphora in combination with drastic language and contrasting imagery. Thereby, not only the words of her poem, but moreover, the subject matter, namely the progressive destruction of a unique habitat, uncomfortably reverberate in the reader’s mind even long after the perusal of the poem.

Rowley opens her poem “In the Tar Sands, Going Down” with a fictitious speaker directly approaching a fictitious addressee: “Hey luscious baby” (line 1). Throughout the poem, the lyric persona repeatedly addresses the lyric ‘you’ in the same way, e.g. in line 20: “Hey what’s that smell, sound, taste?” or in line 48f: “Hey baby what’s your / action potential” and once again in line 71: “Hey baby, let’s turn off this noise”. By explicitly and repeatedly calling upon a fictitious addressee, the real author manages to use the lyric persona in order to involve the real reader. Thus, the reader is almost ‘dragged’ into the poem. Addressing the fictitious addressee over and over with “Hey” or “Hey baby” initially also helps to create a relaxed, easygoing and familiar atmosphere. At the same time, however, this sense of security is already disturbed in the second line of the poem, in which the addressee is called a “by-product of the infernal machine” (line 2), which might be read as a strong devaluation of the person addressed. In addition, the reader is led to wonder if the existence of the fictitious addressee is owed only to an accident in a laboratory. Along these lines, the issue of genetic engineering is touched once again in line 8: “oh perfector of defects”, where another person (i.e. not the fictitious addressee called ‘baby’) is mentioned. Who is this so-called ‘perfector’, and which defects does s/he dispose of? Is genetic manipulation in humans a hot issue on the intratextual level of the poem? It seems that this powerful ‘perfector’ is also the “perpetrator of polite wars” (line 10), which is also hinted upon due to the noticeable alliterations (perfector /

49 perpetrator of polite wars, line 10). Furthermore, this person seems to be ubiquitous, as he or she is “in flesh, water, air” (line 9). Thus, this so-called ‘perpetrator’ is not only visible on a regular basis in everyday life, but s/he has also left a mark in the speaker’s “flesh”, which again could refer to conscious alterations of the human genome. Furthermore, Rowley also adds defamiliarization and irony to her poem which can be seen in the wording “perpetrator of polite wars” (line 10, my emphasis) because how or when could any kind of war, ever be “polite” (line 10)?

The fictitious speaker closes the first stanza of the poem with an impressive run-on line: “pipelines across continents and so many new / cars, jobs, cans of Dream Whip”. Again, due to this wording, the reader is inclined to spot irony in these very words: the promise of the tar/oil sands industry is to create new jobs and thus prosperity, which is symbolized by the number of brand-new cars and Dream Whip, which are luxury items and thus not necessary for everyday life. The total number of new car registrations in Canada in 2018 was 35,1 million (cf. Statistics Canada 2019a, online). Considering that approximately 37,589,262 million people lived in Canada in July 2019 (Statistics Canada 2019b, online), the number of car registrations is appalling. Dream Whip, on the other hand, is a white powdered topping used for desserts. Keeping in mind that the number of obese adults living in Canada has increased over the last years and that almost 7.3 million Canadians were considered to obese and another 9.9 million adults to be overweight in 2018 (cf. Statistics Canada 2019c:, online), the poem sarcastically questions the need to build new pipelines to facilitate the production of such products.

In the second stanza, Rowley continues to use striking language and imagery:

Watch9 them foam at the lips dream rivers of oil brazil-waxed forests engorged orifices oh white white teeth Pearly Whites, the adman grins for a smile you can sink your teeth into. (lines 13-19)

Not only is the imagery of teeth, eating and biting used in these lines evoking notions of consumerism. The widespread ideal of beauty – white teeth – is also radically defamiliarized and put into a very different, even threatening context. Even though ‘to sink one’s teeth into’ is a

9 The underscored parts illustrate my emphasis.

50 commonly used idiom in the English-speaking world, the phrase in this context also conveys the image of predator and prey, of violence and submission. Considering that Earth is personified later in the poem (“neck arms thighs of Earth, line 38) it is conclusive that by consuming toothpaste we also – metaphorically speaking – ‘sink our teeth’ into the soil, thus into one bodily part of Earth. Whereas this might seem far-fetched at first glance, this reading is further supported when keeping in mind that cellulose from trees is used in many cosmetic products, such as toothpaste. The preceding metaphor “brazil-waxed forests” (line 15) supports this interpretation. Again, using drastic imagery and defamiliarization, Rowley powerfully describes a forest that has completely vanished. Just like in the cosmetic context of Brazilian waxing, where the roots of every single hair are torn out, the trees were rooted out to clear-cut the forest. It is likely that the wood from the trees has been processed further into furniture, paper, or – cosmetic products such as toothpaste. These lines are an excellent example of how poetry creates meaningful connections between seemingly unrelated elements.

Hey what’s that smell, sound, taste? Lick of salt-glazed prick, palm, hollow of knee radiation-seared fles brazen and naked under the noon sun (lines 20-24)

The third stanza is connected to the beginning of the poem, as the fictitious addressee is once again spoken to. “Hey, what’s the smell, sound, taste?” (line 20) Thus, the fictitious speaker introduces a sensual, even sexual imagery to the whole poem (see also “prick, palm, hollow of knee” line 22), a theme which runs throughout the entire poem. Furthermore, the mentioning of the “radiation-seared flesh” (line 23) and “the noon sun” (line 24) suggests a highly aggressive sun10, maybe a result of a depleted ozone layer, a phenomenon which is known to the extratextual world.

In the next lines, the poem continues in this colloquial tone, as the lyric persona once again directly approaches the fictitious addressee:

see oh two oh see only two of us fondling under leaves mottled and falling

10 In Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy, the sun similarly figures as a threatening and harmful natural phenomenon.

51 under a sky mortally dazed under clouds weeping acid leaching moisture out of the trope trop troposphere, (lines 27-33)

At the beginning, the encounter of the couple is not yet described in negative terms: they are alone, enjoying each other’s company under the cover of trees, slowly getting closer to each other (“fondling”, line 28). These two lines remind of the paradisiac state of Adam and Eve as described in the Old Testament. Yet, the harmony does not last long, on the contrary: the seemingly peaceful atmosphere is destroyed already in the next line (“mottled and falling”, line 29): the couple, which is representative of mankind, is expelled from paradise. Thus, their “falling” is associated with the fall of Adam and Eve, and their expulsion from paradise. Whereas the reason for the fall of Adam and Eve is general knowledge, one might wonder, what the reason for the fall of the poem’s couple is. Considering the context of the poem, the poem invites the reader to assume that mankind’s exploitation of Alberta’s oil/tar sands, accompanied by massive industrial and environmental pollution, is the reason for their fall. Thus, it is again knowledge, namely the urge to use technological knowledge for profit.

In the same stanza, Rowley continues to use drastic imagery to describe the sky, which is “mortally dazed” (line 30). This could refer to air contamination or a tropic climate, caused by global warming.11 Furthermore, Rowley anthropomorphizes ‘clouds’, which are “weeping acid” (line 31), which of course refers to acid rain as a consequence of industrial air pollution, but , metaphorically adds an elegiac element. The water imagery continues even in the next line and is supported by use of another alliteration as well as onomatopoeia: leaching moisture / out of the trope trop troposphere (lines 32 f). When reading these lines, it is almost possible to hear the toxic raindrops slowly falling to the ground in our inward ear. In the following lines, the speaker again explicitly addresses a lyric ‘you’:

Look up! Look all the way up – nothing but haze and holes. (lines 34-35)

In these lines, we find the lyric persona and the fictitious audience after their fall. The apocalyptic image in line 35 is supported by yet another use of alliterations (haze and holes, line 35), suggesting

11 This issue is also amply discussed in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy.

52 that, according to the speaker, God does not exist. This non-existence of God helps in creating a bleak scenery: humankind has to bear responsibility for the current ecological crisis. In the following lines, the lyric persona urges the addressee to take a close look around:

Look down! bitumen bite in the neck arms thighs of Earth a boreal blistering, boiling soil and smoke-slathered sky. (lines 36-40)

What is striking in lines 37 - 38 is that planet Earth is personified (“neck arms thighs of Earth”, line 38, intensified by use of an asyndeton) and portrayed as a victim of the “bitumen bite” (line 37, note also the repeated use of plosives for a more powerful effect). The previously mentioned clouds have given way to pillars of smoke, rising from the actual oil/tar sands and burning forests (“boreal blistering”, line 39, emphasized again by use of alliterations). In addition, the “boreal blistering” (line 39) could refer to the process of extracting oil, calling up a picture of bubbling, black bitumen in the reader’s mind. The whole scenario in lines 36-40 is depicted as being dominated by destruction and the semantic field of violence, heat and fire, which refers back right to the beginning of the poem (“infernal”, line 1). The author’s repeated use of alliterations, mainly plosives (bitumen bite; boreal blistering) helps to create a threatening atmosphere. In these lines, Rowley also uses alliterations in combination with hissing sounds (smoke slathered sky), which helps to illustrate the place and to underline the process of burning, as these sounds remind the reader of sizzling flames and tongues of fire. The oil/tar sands are described as a godless place, which, moreover, even resembles the Christian view of hell. Yet, keeping the previous encounter of the couple and their intimate scene under the leaves (line 27-29) in mind, the sexual tension is retained if line 37 is read as a run-on line and also informs the following passage:

53 And all those errant cells, erotic electric discharges mutated genes, neurons gone wrong under the strobe under the probe Burn it! Ignite it! Hey baby what’s your action potential? (lines 41-49)

Here, natural procreation seems to have given way to a new, automatic technology (cf. lines 1-2: “by-product of the infernal machine / stem cell automaton”). The picture drawn in lines 1-2 and 41- 49 is rather dark and menacing, as it suggests that life and thus genetically immaculate human beings are designed in laboratories. Internal rhyme (“probe” / “strobe”, lines 45f), alliterations (“errant cells” / “erotic electric discharges”), anaphora (“under the probe” / “under the strobe”, lines 45f), colloquial elements and commands (“Burn it! Ignite it!”, line 47) and scientific language (lines 42f.) helps to intensify the picture evoked by the content of these words: It suggests that creatures whose genetic material shows some defects is not considered worth living and is expected to be destroyed, which connects to the previous image of fire and hell (line 47). Alternatively, “all those errant cells” (line 41) could also refer to the increasing cancer rate which has been observed in Alberta’s North, and surrounding areas of the oil/tar sands. When reading lines 41-49 in that way, the command “Burn it! Ignite it! (line 47) could also refer to the industry’s attempt to deny any relation between growing cancer rates and the oil industry. In present-day Canada, the debate of whether the oil/tar sands are responsible for an increasing amount of rare cancerous conditions in the area of Fort McMurray and Fort Chipewyan is highly controversial. Furthermore, numerous families living in the Peace River Region (North of Alberta) had to leave their homes because they “complained about from noxious fumes” (Cf. Prystupa 2014, online). Some scientists claim that a connection between illnesses and industrial development in the oil/tar sands is unverifiable: “Whether people living in Fort Chipewyan have an increased risk of developing cnacer is still not clear.” (Alberta Cancer Board 2009: 44). However, others, such as researcher Stephane McLachlan state that the high amount of rare cancer rates in the surrounding area of Fort Chipewyan is no coincidence, but “clear and worrisome” (Financial Post 2014, online). Dr. John O’Connor, who claims that there are scientific, even “published, peer-reviewed studies that indicate that the government of Alberta and Canada have been lying, misrepresenting the impact of industry on the environment” (qtd. in Prystupa 2014, online). Furthermore, he claims that “statistics for rare cancers – of the bile duct for example – that have shot up 400 times for what is considered normal for a tiny

54 community, such as Fort Chipewyan – which is downstream, to the north of the oil sands” (Prystupa 2014, online). Returning to the poem, the reader realizes that in stark contrast to the threatening scene depicted in lines 41-46, and the harsh commands (“Burn it! Ignite it!” line 47), the speaker of the poem addresses her vis-à-vis in a seemingly soft voice in the next line: “Hey baby what’s your /action potential?” (lines 48-49) Yet, it could also be interpreted as a test; is the lyric ‘you’ the speaker is talking to healthy, vigorous, and free from harmful mutations?

The second part of the poem (line 50ff) starts with economic strategies, probably from the stock market. The poet herself printed the following lines in italics in order to allow them to stand out and catch the reader’s attraction:

Identify and seize Invest and Develop Reward and satisfy Strip and reclaim. (lines 50-53)

As the oil/tar sands are a very remunerative project for numerous national and international companies, a reference to the stock market is a well-chosen and subtle addition to the poem. Nevertheless, apart from health and environmental concerns, which are both connected to one another, the oil/tar sands also pose numerous social challenges and problems. The most obvious challenge is the striking amount of temporary foreign workers (TWFs) in Alberta:

In 2006, for the first time in history, Alberta had more temporary foreign workers (TFWs) arriving in our province than permanent immigrants. There were 22,392 TFWs working in Alberta. Meanwhile only 20,717 immigrants were granted permanent resident status in the same year. The number of TFWs in Alberta has doubled since 2003 and tripled since 1997. (The Alberta Federation of Labour 2007, online)

Returning to the poem, the following lines (55-59) particularly foreground the aggressive effort that is necessary in order to extract bitumen from the ground.

Knees to ground head to groin grovel and growl scourge, gouge rip it rip it

55 rip it all out. (lines 55-59)

Using alliterations (ground/ groin / grovel / growl / gouge), assonance (scourge / gouge) repetitions and enjambement (rip it rip it / rip it all out), the lines above portray semantically, but also acoustically, the toil necessary to pump up bitumen- In addition, they can also be interpreted as sexual metaphors and thus stand for male exploitation of feminized nature, thus adding another layer of meaning.

Extracting bitumen from the sandy ground is not only energy-intensive but is also a highly physically demanding labor for the people working on the oil/tar sands. Concerning the situation of the Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs), the question arises if the exploitation and even violations of human rights, next to the destruction and pollution of the environment and health-related issues) are the price that is paid for our society’s need and greed for oil. The line “rip it rip it / rip it all out” (58f.) captures, in a few words, both extraction and destruction in a few words, the latter being further reinforced by the picture of an anthropomorphized, victimized Earth:

From space pock marks in Earth the size of countries (lines 60-62)

In these lines, the author again works with defamiliarization to create a lasting, even shocking, image in the reader: the pocks, a childhood disease, are used as a metaphor to describe the scale of the oil / tar sands development. Not only is planet Earth victimized in lines 60-62; moreover, by naming the scars of a pediatric disease, Earth is also compared to a child. As children are the most vulnerable and innocent part of our society, this comparison draws an even grimmer view of the destruction caused by the oil / tar sands development. In fact, the impact of the oil/ tar sands in Northern Alberta / Saskatchewan can already be seen from outer space (Cf. World Watch Institute 2015, online). The hectic rhythm of the following lines displays the greed-driven speed of the oil- industry:

While boys in boardrooms heavy hitters fossil fuelling in the heat of the night in the heat of the right in the heat of the might

56 of how many barrels a day? (lines 63-68)

Not surprisingly, the poet again uses alliterations (boys, boardrooms / heavy hitters / fossil fuelling) to underline the message of her words, and further intensifies the effect by the excessive use of anaphora (in the heat of, repeated 3 times) and internal rhyme (night / right / might). Keeping the former Prime Minister Harper and his influence on the oil/tar sands development in mind, it is not too far-fetched to assume that “the boys in boardrooms” (63) refer to himself and his cabinet. The obvious minimization of grown, influential men (“boy”) hints at the fact that the conservative politician and his team are not held in great esteem by numerous critical voices in the country.12 The fact that these “boys” (line 63) are capable of making far-reaching decisions (“of how many million barrels a day?”, line 68) provides food for thought. The reference to “boys” (line 63) for grown politicians could also simply refer to our human insignificance, our short life span and thus to our limited range of power in the long turn. On the other hand, the stark contrast of the boys mentioned in line 63 and the “heavy hitters” of the next line, is striking. Who are these heavy hitters, these very important and powerful people, the reader may wonder. Do they refer to the ‘grown’ politicians, or to investors? The reader cannot be sure. Yet, the threefold anaphora, combined with rhyme develops into a climax, ending in the urging question “of how many barrels a day?” (line 68).

Using powerful language and imagery, Rowley manages to capture negotiations between businessmen, investors and politicians, all wondering about the amount of money that could be made from the oil/tar sands. To produce one barrel of water, about three barrels of fresh water (cf. Nikiforuk 2010: 65), taken from the Athabasca River, which is named in line 85 of the poem, are needed. The sewage mostly ends up in toxic tailing ponds. (Cf. Greenpeace 2015, online) Per year, the oil/tar sands “remove about 370 million cubic metres of water” from the Athabasca, which is “nearly twice the annual water use of the City of Calgary, which has a population of almost 1,300,000.” (Cf. Greenpeace 2015, online) The same amount of water is needed to fill “about 140,000 swimming pools” (Sierra Club Canada 2008, online). By referring to the amount of water required for Alberta’s oil industry, Rowley creates a coherent web of allusions throughout her poem, as water imagery was already used in lines 30-33, and is again used in line 82ff., 87, and 100.

12 Massive cutbacks in research funds, decided under Stephen Harper’s government, alarmed many Canadian scientists of various disciplines across the country, calling them “an assault on knowledge” (Turk, qtd. in CBC Canada 2014, online).

57 A highlight of the whole poem certainly are lines 69-70, which stand out already as they form a stanza on their own:

Ah, the smell of crude oil in the morning (lines 69-70)

In the context of the whole poem, these two lines appear to be particularly impressive, as they not only suggest that our civilization has grown dependent on oil; they also claim that we have become addicted to oil, such as numerous people need coffee to start their day. However, that is not all, as the message of these lines becomes even more powerful when realizing that they are an intertextual reference to the popular movie Apocalypse Now (1979), which itself is based on Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness. Set in the context of the Vietnam War, Colonel Kilgore talks to his soldiers after the beach has been bombarded with napalm gas (cf. BBC News 2004, online):

Kilgore: Smell that? You smell that? Soldier: What? Kilgore: Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. Kilgore [kneels]: I love the smell of napalm in the morning. […] Smell... you know. That gasoline smell. The whole air. It smells like … victory.

Although the War in Vietnam and the oil/tar sands in Alberta are two very different events, the allusion to the movie fits perfectly to the poem. One reason is that merely the title – Apocalypse Now – captures the poem’s gloomy atmosphere. Secondly, the connection to war imagery and destruction fits the poem’s evocation of the oil industry as something violent (“infernal machine”, line 2; “perpetrator of polite wars”, line 10; “boiling soil and smoke-slathered sky”, line 40). Furthermore, the sensory perception is mentioned in the poem several times (“Hey what’s that smell, sound, taste?” (line 20:); “Look up!” (line 34); “Look down!” (line 36); “Hey baby, let’s turn off this noise / turn on the radio” (lines 72-72). In addition, it is very likely that similar to the beach in Apocalypse Now, the surrounding area of the oil/ tar sands reek of bitumen. The fact that the last line by Colonel Kilgore is: “[...] The whole air. It smells like... victory” adds yet another layer of meaning and raises the question whether the development of these oilfields could ever be a triumph, considering the enormous costs (destruction of habitat, violation of human rights, growing cancer rates, air pollution, etc.) of the mega-project. Thus, in this context, Rowley’s lines are also highly ironical.

58 The next stanza, starting with “Hey baby, let’s turn off this noise” (line 71), seems to illustrate the human urge to look away, to avert one’s eyes and to seek diversion, for example in music:

Hey baby, let’s turn off this noise turn on the radio exceed disturbance rip off our overburden pull and pound get emotional, physical, ontological, illogical wear our hearts on our sleeves until breath leaves in gaps. (lines 71-81)

The reader might wonder what “this noise” (line 71) actually refers to. Considering the context, it might refer to the roaring sounds of machines and engines which are used in the process of bitumen production. The fictitious speaker seems to be unable to bear the situation any longer and wants to “exceed disturbance” (line 73) by approaching the addressee and anticipating a possible sexual encounter. Yet, the unusual choice of words to describe that scene seem to encourage the reader to read attentively: instead “ripping off our clothes”, the author chose to write “rip off our overburden / pull and pound” (lines 74-75), which again is highly ambiguous, as the verb “overburden” means “to give someone or something too much work” or “to burden too much” (Merriam Webster, online). On the other hand, “overburden” as a noun refers to “material overlying a deposit of useful geological material of bedrock” (Merriam Webster, online). In the context of the poem, both options are evoked: firstly, the couple might feel “overburdened” and helpless by the sheer extent of the oil/tar sands project and its side effects, as numerous people all over the globe feel: through the media, news of the latest catastrophes, ecological disasters and gloomy prospects of global warming many people seem to feel surfeited. They are aware of the ongoing problems but feel powerless in the face of decisions made by politicians and businessmen. They might also feel that they as individuals cannot really make a change. Thus, they deaden their worries by distracting themselves, looking away or hoping that they themselves might not be affected by future developments, continuing their daily routine. Secondly, when “overburden” is indeed read as a noun, it might be understood as a request to dig up the earth and to produce even more oil from the oil/tar sands. This reading is supported by the next line “pull and pound” (75), which refers to the toil of digging and pumping up bituminous sands. The lines “wear our hearts on our sleeves / until breath leaves / in gasps” might represent the endeavor of the numerous mining processes and is highly ironical as it

59 encourages the addressee to join in this suicidal endeavor. The sexual tension created in lines 71-73 is continued in line 76: “get emotional, physical”, which might refer to Olivia Newton John’s popular song “Physical” (published in 1981):

Let’s get physical, physical, I wanna get physical. Let’s get into physical. Let me hear your body talk, your body talk. Let me hear your body talk.

Thus, the two lines of the stanza “until breath leaves / in gasps” (80-81) do not only seem to refer to difficult, energy-intensive extraction methods, but might also represent the conclusion of the couple’s sexual encounter. Again, Rowley uses ambiguity and irony to create a more profound message throughout her poem. Sexuality, used merely as distraction and as escape from bitter reality, is another means by which the author tries to express that the massive development of the oil/tar sands might lead to alienation and factitious behavior patterns of people who live in the vicinity.

The atmosphere described up to that point in the poem is already gloomy, yet it becomes even darker and more desperate in the last third of the poem, culminating in the climax’s ominous last line “we go down” (109f.), which is repeated twice. However, the described setting does not appear threatening at first glance. The running motor and the cigarette (cf. line 84) stand for symbols of the North American, and thus Western way of life, representing progress yet also independence. The lax, colloquial diction and imagery evoke the atmosphere of a warm summer day at the lakeside, if it was not for a few well chosen, disturbing words:

Let’s wade in the tailing ponds slather our bodies with sludge and sand light a cigarette, keep the motor running roll over like fish in the Athabaska bloated bellies toward a dazed sky. (lines 82-86)

The harmonious summer-day picture is destroyed by the tailing ponds, which contain highly poisonous wastewater. Again, Rowley makes ample use of defamiliarization and unusual water imagery to create an uncomfortable feeling in the reader. In the lines above, the fictitious speaker prompts the fictitious addressee to slosh through the toxic tailing ponds, where s/he will end up like a bloated dead fish.

60

Whereas the simile (“roll over like fish in the Athabaska”, 85) at first glance reminds the reader of sun-seeking bathers rolling over in order to tan, a second reading reveals that the situation for the fish in the northern parts of the Athabasca River, as well as for fishermen, most of them of Native origin, whose livelihoods depend on the fish as staple food, is critical: due to the high amount of fish mortality, local fishermen are deprived of their source of income as well as of an important food staple. Even worse, an unusually high cancer rate affects the population of the oil/tar sands region, an issue which Rowley also mentions in her poem:

Drink from the lakes of our bodies until shorelines recede, tumours become visible. (lines 82-89)

The tumors mentioned in line 89 forge a bridge to lines 41-49 of the same poem, where the author alludes to cancer and mutations as consequence of the pollution caused by mining processes.

All lines from 71-89 are informed by bitter irony. The speaker seemingly encourages the lyric ‘you’ to keep doing things which are suicidal (made rather clear through the dead-fish simile). In fact, however, it is a warning – well, go on, keep doing all these things and you will see where it ends – in our extinction (cf. “we go down”). In the last stanza of the poem, the pace grows faster and faster, representing the fall which is already mentioned in the title of the poem “In the Tar Sands, Going Down”, the excessive use of anaphora accelerating the pace:

Until rivers dwindle to tears until wells gush blood until bankers weep sweat until hell freezes over until raw and singed as the forestless birds as the fishless rivers as the speechless politicians as the songless, barren face of th earth we go down we go down. (lines 90-100)

The last ten lines of Rowley’s provide the reader with a dystopian view of Alberta’s north, if nothing is to be changed and if the development of the oil/tar sands continues. However, the oxymoron in line 103 (“until hell freezes over”) implies that it is unlikely that the lucrative mega-

61 project will be stopped. If continued, as the poem suggests, Canadians are going to lose what they are particularly proud of in the long run: crystal clear water, endless forests, wildlife and a high standard of living. As Rowley’s text concludes – this point has not arrived yet. (“we go down / we go down”, line 109-110). There still is some time left to act and to prevent major accidents or oil spills, yet from an economic point of view, the oil/tar sands and their potential are too tempting to be left behind (cf. Nikiforuk 2010: 186). As has been pointed out in this chapter, Mari-Lou Rowley’s poem is the product of a combination of documentary and poetic complexity.

62 4.1.3. “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands” (2015) by Stephen S. Collis

“Reading Wordworth in the Tar Sands” is another example for a deeply disturbing, dark and upsetting long poem, covering 375 lines of free verse. It meditates on the question of responsibility for the land and land ownership, a central issue also for First Nations People who struggle to survive next to industrial development on ‘their’ lands. The poem was written by Vancouver-based poet and professor Stephen Collis, who gained the reputation of being a vehement critic of the Alberta oil industry and practises “social critique through poetry” (McLennan 2017, online). Collis describes his motivation for writing socio-political poetry in the 21st century in the following:

If the goal is to reach as many people as possible, poetry is not the best choice. But if the goal is to think and feel your way through a complex issue, poetry might be the way to do that. It is excellent at holding contradictions together – like our dependency on modern technological conveniences and at the same time a desire for a more sustainable, and ultimately more just world. (“Poetry against Pipelines”, qtd. in Staff 2016, online)

Collis’s motivation for writing poetry confirms Zapf’s aforementioned approach to literature as cultural ecology. Zapf, too, claims that literature’s role in the 21st century was to provide the floor for a creative examination of our culture, thus renewing “ossified forms of language, thought, and cultural practice” (Zapf 2017: 121). Literature thus offers the unique opportunity to confront opposing worldviews, to experiment with language, to document the status quo and to provoke a response in the reader at the same time. “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands” also fulfils several criteria for petro-literature that were listed by Macdonald: the poem discusses core topics of petro- literature, e.g. the exploitation of workforce, social tensions, political corruption, environmental degradation or masculinity (cf. Macdonald 2012: 31). Collis’s creative processing of these issues in “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands” will be discussed in the following.

In 2014, Stephen Collis and Lynne Quarmby, both professors at the Simon Fraser University, took part in a public protest movement against a U.S. company’s plan to extend the Trans Mountain Pipeline which would not only run through unceded Coast Salish territory, but also triple the amount of oil flowing from Northern Alberta to the port of Vancouver, thereby running through a conservation forest close to the town of Burnaby, B.C. (cf. BC Booklook 2014, online). They impeded the survey work and were therefore filed with a multi-dollar lawsuit. While the charges were dropped, Collis was outraged and wondered:

63 How, in a democracy, can someone be charged for occupying public land, and for speaking their mind freely? Last I checked, Canada had a constitution. I believe I am allowed to speak freely about climate change, about our need to alter our course away from fossil fuels, and the need for a public movement against systemic threats to this planet. I do not believe corporations should be allowed to take this freedom away from me or anyone else. (Collis, qtd. in BC Booklook 2014)

Even before becoming involved in the debate about the oil/tar sands, Collis had published a collection of poetry, The Commons, which exclusively deals with the enclosure of land in Great Britain, in 2008. Thus, the topic of land ownership vs. common land is one of the elements of his poetry which has also made its way in the poem discussed in this chapter. As an opponent to the industry, Collis took part in the Tar Sands Healing Walk in Fort McMurray, which was organised by the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in 2014. A healing walk is a ceremonial walk around deserted tailings ponds on which people pray for the healing of the land. As a First Nations member explains the purpose of this walk as follows:

[…] [W]e pray for ourselves, our families, the food, water, air, trees, other living beings, so that we can change this and make it better. We pray so that we can heal this land. Healing turns the greatest adversities into the warmest and highest hopes, which our children and grandchildren can carry to light their way. This is the spirit we have brought to the Tar Sands Healing Walk. (Cardinal 2014: 128)

While taking part in the ceremonial healing walk, Collis wondered how Wordsworth, who is renowned for landscape poetry, would account for a place like the oil/tar sands, and how he would celebrate a place that has been completely altered due to industrial activity. Trying to write out of Wordsworth’s perspective, Collis used “Wordsworthian description applied to the impossible task to aestheticize the Tar Sands” (Collis, qtd. in Staff 2016, online). Already in the poem’s title, Collis ‘uses’ Wordsworth, one of the best known Romantic poets in the anglophone world, to forge a bridge between the current state of affairs in the oil/tar sands and Wordsworth’s home in the Lake District in the 18th and 19th century. By borrowing lines from Wordsworth’s early texts, as well as from contemporary musicians, and by combining them with elements of First Nations Culture, drastic images, dystopian visions of the future and an alienated depiction of the present situation in Northern Alberta, the poem is also a lament, an elegy for what has already been destroyed and lost in the process of industrial development of the oil/tar sands.

64 Next to the question of common land, another parallel between the poetry of Collis and Wordsworth is their mutual interest in the method of walking to experience nature and to become inspired by nature. A large number of Wordsworth’s poems were channelled by emotional experiences on walks in nature and, as it is famously mentioned in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, later on written down to be “recollected in tranquillity” (cf. Wordsworth (2006 [1802]): 273). Similarly, the author Stephen Collis wrote his poem to process his experience of the healing walk in the Alberta oil/tar sands. The poem shows a considerable number of references to the act of walking, starting already in the poem’s first line: “An evening walk”, which obviously echoes Wordsworth’s famous same named long poem “An Evening Walk”, or in lines 25-27 (“We were walkers / in a dangerous place / of storm and thaw”), which allude to the growing number of climatic disasters and climate change, thereby pointing at humankind’s powerlessness in the face of a violent nature. Another example appears in the lines “Walking – we were seeing / silvered shunts of sand lakes (lines 77f.), in which the repeated alliterations, especially involving fricatives create an uncomfortable, even uncanny atmosphere on level of sound while also underlining the man-made artificiality and futility of the place (see e.g. “sand lake”). Plus, it seems as if the shattered landscape of the oil/tar sands was mirrored in the poem’s shattered language.

Not only at the beginning, but throughout the entire poem, the lyrical persona repeatedly mentions the method of walking, thereby directly addressing Wordsworth as his role model:

Wordsworth – I feel you too! Though there is no mechanism To nuance this conversation Across the years – so I brought Your ruined cottages your Evening Walks and Grasmere Homing here to the Tar Sands To stroll across northern desarts Not knowing how well you fit The method of our walking From seeing to contemplating To remembering – is yours (lines 35-46)

The lines above the lyrical persona’s unfulfillable wish to meet and talk to the long-dead poet Wordsworth, apparently wondering what a Romantic landscape poet would make of the oil/tar sands, an area where the enclosure of common land was complete and where the vegetation, called ‘overburden’ by the industry, had been completely removed. As a substitute to the famous poet’s

65 presence, the lyrical persona chose to bring two copies of Wordsworth’s poetry (cf. Nelson 2017, online) to the oil/tar sands, including Wordsworth’s famous epic poem “The Ruined Cottage” and “Evening Walk”.

Later in the text, the Romantic poet is again directly addressed, but the atmosphere has changed: at the end of the healing walk, and thus towards the end of the poem, the extent of destruction has taken its toll on the lyrical persona:

Wordsworth there are things That are fucked up That we live among That we are New lives wanted (lines 253-256)

The threefold anaphora underlines and support the lyrical persona’s growing frustration and highlights that the destruction of the landscape inevitably leads to the alienation of the self. Plus, the passage above describes in plain words the lyrical persona’s realization that the degree of devastation and pollution of the environment has not only altered the landscape, but has also led to an internalisation of negative emotions, culminating in the wish for a ‘new’ self.

Throughout the long poem, Collis continues to ‘borrow’ lines from Wordsworth’s poems. For example, line 57: “And I thought I thought of dying” strongly reminds of Wordsworth’s poem “Home at Grasmere”, vs. 12: “And, if a thought of dying, if a thought”. On the content level and in the context of a devastated landscape, Collis’s choice of words portrays the lyrical persona’s hope to become inspired by nature. Yet, as nature has been completely destroyed, the lyrical persona is reminded of decay and decease instead: “And if I thought I thought of dying / Of stone and tombs and pits” (lines 57-58) directly links the mine (“pits) with the powerful imagery of death. Thus, the example portrays Collis’s ability to remove Wordsworth’s lines from their original context and to bestow a new, even darker, meaning on them.

Another reference to Wordsworthian poetry can be found later in line 95: “Dear Imagination – lighten up”, which – again – is taken and slightly altered from Wordsworth’s “Home at Grasmere”, line 44: “And dear Imaginations realized”. This reference is just one example of how Collis repeatedly approaches the poetic ‘heights’ of Wordsworth, only to return to the present and the location of the oil/tar sands in the next moment, as can be seen in the poem’s subsequent line: “Dear

66 Imagination – lighten up! / Your part is human protest” (95-96). The combination of Romantic imagery, Romantic praise of landscape and Romantic imagination with the desolation of a ‘no- place’ like the oil/tar sands has a puzzling effect on the reader: thus, the Romantic excess of positive feelings (‘”Dear Imagination”) is countered, even shattered by the sarcastic prompt to be cheerful and the demand to become active and involved in a protest movement. The importance of taking part and becoming politically active is also stressed in the following lines:

Tell me I’m preaching to the choir I’ll tell you I cannot live Without the choir’s solidarity Tell me I’m flogging a dead horse I’ll tell you I feel every lash Landing on this galloping land (lines 117-122)

Standing out due to the idioms and the threefold parallelisms, these lines underscore the common people’s awareness and their mutual consent with the lyrical persona that the amount of destruction in Northern Alberta has to be decreased. Yet, as line 119 suggests, it is not enough to disagree silently, rather it is the “solidarity” of the mass that is essential for protest to have a far-reaching effect. Lines 120-122 again return to the deep ‘Romantic’ connection between the lyrical persona and the land, mirroring the widely spread notion that one person cannot create change and that any effort to stop the industry is futile; the lyrical persona, however, perceives pain at the sight of the level of destruction of the “galloping” land, which used to be wild like an untamed horse and now buckles out of protest against the development on its back, as Collis’s metaphorical language suggests. These three lines also set the lyrical persona apart from the mass, thus once again returning to the solitude often felt and described by Romantic poets, a connection that is subtly confirmed by the single word “galloping” which also frequently occurs in Wordsworth’s poems (e.g. The Prelude, “Residence at Cambridge”, line 252, or The Prelude, “School-Time”, 37, or “The Idiot Boy, lines 334 and 335).

Yet, the meaning of “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands” and of the poem’s proximity to Wordsworth is not limited to the incorporation of individual lines into the modern poem; rather by repeatedly referring to Wordsworth and by including shattered bits and pieces of his poetry, Collis parallels the Romantic poet’s practice of meditating on landscape by walking; thus, the topicality of the question of land ownership and the concomitant responsibility for the land is discussed on a more abstract, defamiliarized and distanced level in “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands”. The

67 land that Wordsworth was surrounded by was mainly the landscape of the Lake District, which, too, did also not consist of untouched nature, but was extensively used for agricultural purposes. For centuries, the land had been open, hardly any fences impeded both sheep and men from roaming freely. In the process of industrialization, however, enclosure was pushed forward, leading to the privatisation of formerly public land – another parallel to the oil/tar sands, where oil companies continue to buy or occupy the land above bituminous deposits, thus claiming exclusive access rights. That is to say that both the Lake District area of Wordsworth’s days, as well as Northern Alberta’s oil/tar sands have, respectively, been used by the industry. By combining both places and both time levels, the “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands” stresses similarities, yet also differences. Thus, the poem powerfully displays how, through the device of intertextuality, meaningful connections between the pat and present development can be established.

Also in the following passages from Collis’s poem (lines 123-126 and 159-167) the ‘art of walking on public ground’ establishes an evocative link between past and present:

Perhaps I digress – the occasion was a public walk on a public road – but the aesthetics of the place are pure negation (lines 123-126)

While the lyric persona refers to the healing walk, which was open to the public, the very word “public” is given an even deeper meaning not only because it is stressed within the verse through repetition, but also because it – again – refers back to Wordsworth and the question of common land and the process of land enclosure; in the context of the 21st century, and particularly in the context of the healing walk, it also refers to the loss of the common land, especially for First Nations People who lived and roamed the land freely until it was taken away from them due to oil extraction:

Our land is being destroyed at an unprecedented rate, along with our berry patches and medicines, and the homes of so many animals. Now, when we go up to the Conklin- Janvier-Cold Lake area, what used to be berry patches are gravel pits, access roads, camps housing thousands of people, industrial plants and massive equipment, heavy industrial traffic, and signs that say ‘‘no access.’’ (Cardinal 2014: 128-129)

In the last decades, vast areas of land have been taken away from the indigenous population and the public to be owned by oil companies. In the process of bitumen mining, not only the overburden, a term used by the industry to refer to the fauna and flora, but also the First Nations People were

68 ‘removed’. To underline the lasting presence of First Nations groups within the oil/tar sands region, Collis includes references to First Nations Culture into his poem. The following lines are also prominent due to the contrast created within them:

Walking – we were old Technology Biotic and slow moving Dropped into circuit Pilgrims circling on a Healing walk healing All day beating the bounds Of a single vast and dry Tailings Pond (lines 159-167)

The first two lines of the extract allow two interpretations: firstly, when read as a run-on line, it can be read as “we are old technology”; or, if not, it could be interpreted as “we are old”, in contrast to the “Technology” of line 161. When taking the second reading into consideration, the word “Technology”, just as “Tailings Pond” of line 167, are given extra attention as they occupy a whole line on their own. Working with polar opposites and by describing the participants of the healing walk, these lines thus indirectly express everything the oil industry is not: it is not “old”, but a relatively young industry, it is not “biotic” but inanimate, and it is definitely not “slow moving”. Furthermore, these lines are significant not only to due contrast created and the double reference to walking (“walking”; “healing walk”); they also stand out because of their reference to First Nations culture, namely the concept of walking as healing and the symbol of a circle (“circuit” or “circling”), which – again – is given extra attention due the figura etymologica (“dropped into circuit / pilgrims circling” or “healing walk healing”).

References to First Nations culture also define the passage below:

Beside the road offering Prayer on this first stop First of four stop north drumming Singing between two tailings ponds not ponds edged by sands Remembrance that came and went Like a bird to its grave in the water Past the refinery smoke and tanks Fourth stop south and fourth Direction – still drumming and Still singing the elders praying

69 […] Old technology of people together Holding the line against changing weather (lines 226-252, shortened)

Similar to the previous excerpt from the poem (cf. lines 159-160), the author again likens the mass of people taking part in the healing walk to “old technology”, thus creating cohesion within the text. The end rhyme (“together / “weather”) not only sticks in the reader’s mind, but also emphasizes the content level: firstly, it depicts the communal resistance of the participants of the healing walk against a continued development of the oil/tar sands; secondly, the “changing weather” refers to a growing number of natural disasters, such as forest fires (for instance the devastating fire which destroyed large parts of Fort McMurray in 2016) or droughts, thus fulfilling both a documentary, as well as an appellative function: the reader is not only made aware, but invited to leave his/her comfort zone and become active. Additionally, the lines provide information about the procedure of a healing walk, including four stops for each direction (south, west, north, east), the singing, drumming and praying for healing, which are all essential rituals in First Nations culture, led by the elders. Furthermore, these lines also mention the Aurora Lake Incident of 2009, where 1600 ducks confused a toxic tailings pond with a lake, landed on it and died.13

Collis does not only weave lines by Wordsworth into his poem, but also borrows a line from the American band R.E.M., which is known for its socio-critical lyrics. “This is where we walked and swam” (lines 183 and 222) is taken from the song “Cuyahoga”, and adds yet another layer of meanings: similar to the Athabasca River today, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio was heavily used for industry and the sewage from the automobile-, steel- and refining industry in Cleveland were pumped into the river, eventually leading the Cuyahoga to become one of the most polluted rivers in the U.S.14

13 This incident was all over the news in Canada and resulted in a public outcry and a three billion dollar fine for the oil company Syncrude. The motif of the dying ducks has also been used in several texts discussed in this thesis, as for example in Highway 63 – The Fort Mac Show (see chapter 4.4.2.). 14 Due to its pollution, the Cuyahoga was called “a river of many different colors” (NASA, online), and since there was so much oil from the industry on the water, it became very inflammable and when a by- passing train emitted sparks, the surface of the Cuyahoga started to burn in 1969 (cf. Ohio History Central, online). Since then, many regulations have been made and today, the Cuyahoga River is as an example for “a success story and an example for other polluted rivers to follow” (NASA, online).

70 Throughout the poem, the author applies several techniques to highlight and to defamiliarize singular words, thereby charging them with extra meaning. An example for that is can be found in lines 103-107:

[…] When in service of monetary gain and increasing Industries of land liquidation This world is anvil entertainment Bashed First Peoples’ flat land home (lines 103-107)

Within these lines the lyrical persona does not only strongly criticize the methods of the oil industry, highlighted by the alliteration “land liquidation”; they also stand out due to their figurative language which creates a powerful picture of destruction in the reader’s inward eye – First Nations villages being bulldozed by heavy machinery. On a second reading, it is tempting to replace the ‘a’ in “anvil” with an ‘e’, “evil entertainment”, thus again girding the industry. A similar effect is created earlier in the poem: in line 42, the reader witnesses the lyrical persona strolling “across northern desarts”, which stresses the artificiality and unnaturalness of the poem’s setting. On a second reading, one might read the word “desart” as an obsolete spelling of ‘desert’, which again is fitting, as nothing except sand is left once the bitumen has been extracted from the soil. Even more so, the word “desart” immediately implies the opposite of art and beauty, reminding the reader of a distorted, lifeless place.

In addition to numerous references to the act of walking and parallels to Wordsworth, the author uses several other, more conventional techniques of environmental poetry to capture the reader’s attention. One of them is the victimization of the land (“Open maw is no landscape / Ripped wound no terrain”, lines 127-128), in which the poet also underlines the ‘no-place’ of the oil/tar sands. Furthermore, Collis makes extensive use of alliterations (wastes were /fenced former forests / thick dark thoughts / heavy metal music machines) and includes seemingly unrelated semantic fields, like heavy metal music, to defamiliarize the scene and to create a startling effect in the reader:

Before land wastes were fenced former forests of sand thick dark thoughts leaching heavy metal music machines or death metal bands screaming unfathomable ruination

71 inside a sealed steel cube in space (lines 87-94)

Another example for drastic imagery and vivid language used in the poem can be found in the following extract. When describing an average truck driver’s routine in the oil/tar sands, sieving sand with huge trucks that run twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the author again turns to defamiliarization and drastic imagery to capture the reader’s attention and sharpen the reader’s perception:

A slate sky where gawkers careen in tin cans winged while in utter foundries of digital light pounding out templates of data we break to browse disaster porn look death in its vertiginous eye (lines 135-140)

The quote above draws a surreal picture, depicting the everyday routine and also the danger of a job in the oil/tar sands in – again – a very defamiliarized way: the workers are compared to voyeurs who watch and (mis-)handle a mistreated earth from their high up cubicles in their huge 747 trucks. Thus, the land is not only victimized, but the line “we break to browse disaster porn” supports the interpretation that earth is also exploited and feminized.15 The unnaturalness of the scene is highlighted by the grotesque image “foundries of digital light”, thus stressing that man has accomplished to displace the darkness of the night to guarantee a non-stop production of oil production, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Yet, the darkness – representing danger – is still there, albeit looming at the margin (the “slate sky”), waiting to strike (“look death in its vertiginous eye”), which points at the dangers and death tolls of men working and dying in the oil/tar sands.

Throughout his entire poem, Collis does not spare with criticism, which is mostly encoded in fragmented language, defamiliarized form or word plays. Thus, the more graspable description of oil as culprit in the next lines is a welcome change: like a reportage, Collis informs the reader about the status quo of the oil business:

15 The very masculine setting of the oil/tar sands is often critically addressed in petroliterature rendering sexual innuendos, offensive language and the comparison of earth / nature and women a common trope.

72 It is surrounded by fencing And air cannons and clearly Owns the police Its money is heaped In deep black banks It has broken every treaty with life Its ceremony is poison (lines 207-213)

While these lines document the safety devices applied by the industry (for example warning shots, scarecrows, roadblocks), they also include straightforward accusations, most notably the existence of corrupt police forces, bribed with oil money. Similarly, the ambiguity of money in “deep black banks” (see quote above) refers to the bitumen stored in the soil on the one side but could also stand for potentially corrupt bank activities on the other side. Furthermore, the next line (“it has broken every treaty with life”) is particularly rich in meaning, as it most certainly refers to the treaties between the Government of Canada and the First Nations People. Within these treaties, the Indigenous population irrevocably ceded their land to the crown but – on the paper – were promised to continue living off their land as they were used to in return. Among other highly contentious points between the First Nations and the government, the most controversially discussed issue is the right to access the land – even if Indigenous people officially handed over their land, they still have the right to continue hunting, fishing and living on their lands, which, however, has become impossible through the enclosure caused by the industry.

When Stephen Collis finished his poem “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands”, he was looking for inspiration and a more positive environment. He decided to take a trip to Wordsworth’s beloved home Grasmere for a holiday. The first thing he saw when entering the valley was a green BP sign (cf. Nelson 2017, online). Thus, Collis realized that even though he was at a geographical distance from any oil industry, the oil/tar sands have ‘followed’ him, being omnipresent in our Western society, where we depend on oil and oil products in our everyday life. As poet, Collis responded by taking another long walk, and writing a companion poem to “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands”, which he aptly called “Home at Gasmere” – obviously a pun on Wordsworth’s famous poem “Home at Grasmere”. In it, the author again borrows from William Wordsworth, as well as from his sister Dorothy, to reveal that the Lake District, representing any remote area, is not an alternative to the destruction but is, in fact, conditioned, surrounded and structured by it. (cf. Nelson 2017, online)

73 4.1.4. “J28” (2013) by Rita Wong

Rita Wong, born in Calgary and a second Generation Chinese Canadian (cf. Smoot 2013: 55), is an associate professor at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, where she teaches Critical and Cultural studies. She has gained a reputation for her collections of poetry, including monkey puzzle (1998), sibil unrest (co-written with Larissa Lai, 2008), forage (2011), and undercurrent (2015) but also for her efforts in the fight for social justice, decolonization and the conservation of the environment (cf. Milito 2013, online). Wong is a fervent opponent to the Trans Mountain Pipeline Project16 and also a supporter of the Idle No More Movement, “one of the largest Indigenous mass movements in Canadian history” (IdleNoMore, online), determined to fight racism and neocolonialism in Canada. Being both a literary scholar and a political activist, Wong has written numerous pieces of poetry in opposition to the exploitation of natural resources, thereby also “chronicling examples of resistance against diamond mines, uranium extraction, tar-sands, fracking, land dispossession, the Trans-Mountain Pipeline, big dam construction [...]” (Deckard 2017: 100). Particularly relevant for the literary discussion of the oil/tar sands are the poems “#J28” and “Night gift”, which appeared in Wong’s latest poetry collection, undercurrent (2015), and which will be analysed in more detail in this chapter.

In August 2019, Wong’s name became known beyond the literary scene as she was arrested due to her peaceful protest against the planned Trans Mountain Pipeline, British Columbia, a year earlier. The proposed pipeline poses a threat to the fragile ecosystems of British Columbia, but also runs through Indigenous land that was not ceded by any treaty or any form of consent, such as the territory of the Secwepemc Nation (cf. Patterson 2019, online). Wong’s protest thus roots not only in a concern for the environment; the poet and activist is also alarmed by the injustice committed against the female, Native population as “[t]he expansion of this pipeline would pose an increased risk to Indigenous women through displacement and man-camps, as well as everybody on Earth, through further climate destabilization.” (Patterson 2019, online) According to the Secwepemcu’ecw Assembly, it has been noticed that areas in which man camps were built, that is “temporary housing facilities constructed for predominantly male workers on resource

16 If the Trans Mountain Pipeline Project is realised, oil from the oil/tar sands in Northern Alberta will be shipped from Bruderheim, Alberta, to Vancouver, thereby crossing more than 700 creeks. Once in Vancouver, the oil would be transported onwards to Asian and American markets via tankers. A leaking pipeline or an accident in the treacherous waters of the Hecate Strait would be an existential threat to the flora and fauna of the fragile ecosystems of B.C.’s coast and many conservation areas, such as the Great Bear Rainforest.

74 development” (Patterson 2019, online), a considerable rise of violent crimes committed against women was reported.

Wong, who is also referred to as “land defender” and “water protector” (Patterson 2019, online), is an active supporter of the Idle No More Movement, a protest movement which was initiated by four women in 2012 to impede the implementation of Harper’s Bill C-45, which “diminished the rights and authority of Indigenous communities while making it easier for governments and businesses to push through projects without strict environmental assessment” (Marshall 2019, online). Whereas Wong’s political attitude is omnipresent in most of her writing, “#J28” is a particularly significant and expressive poem as it openly criticizes former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s politics. The poem is named after January 28, 2013, a “global day of action” which marked the return of the government after a six-week break of office (Donaldson 2013, online). The demonstrators organised rallies and protest marches in order to protest, sing, dance and drum in numerous cities all across Canada. Among the main reasons for the protest movement was then Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s infamous Bill C-45, which nullified the Navigable Waters Protection Act, thereby giving industrial projects the go-ahead for the planning and construction of further pipelines (cf. Marshall 2019, online).

“#J28” opens with the lyrical I reminiscing in disbelief the multitude of actions of the last twelve months, thereby creating suspense and curiosity in the reader. This information gap between the lyrical persona and the reader is slowly dissolved in the course of the reading process. The nine following lines educate and remind the reader of numerous activities organised by the Idle No More Movement, referring to First Nations People’s dancing and drumming in public places, most notably shopping malls, schools, train tracks (cf. Cole 2013, online). The lyrical persona identifies with the indigenous population, referring to her own inclusion in the protest actions (cf. line 1: “last year i [sic] never thought we would be”, my emphasis). Apart from its content, the poem mediates its message also iconically by means of its layout, which reminds the reader of a wave, thus referring to the undercurrent’s key issue – water, but also indicating the reason for their protest movements: the need for fresh water, which is put at stake due to development, leaking tailing ponds, and pipelines. In addition, the ‘curly’ shape of the poem also visually mirrors the act of ‘round dancing’ or dancing in general:

75

last year, i [sic] never imagined we would be

round dancing in Glenmore Landing round dancing in Chinook Centre round dancing in Olympic Plaza round dancing in Metrotown round dancing in West Edmonton Mall round dancing outside the Cayuga courthouse round dancing on Akwesasne round dancing on Strombo (lines 1-9)

The list of place references (cf. lines 2-26) is followed by four lines written in several Native languages (“hych’ka! / mahsi cho! / welalin! / miigwetch!”, lines 10-13). In the course of my research, I discovered that all these Native words mean “thank you” in their respective Native language. “hych’ka” is a word taken from the SENĆOŦEN and Hul’q’umi’num’ (is Coast Salish; “mahsi cho” is Gwich’in, “welalin” is Micmac, and “miigwetch” is taken from the Ojibwe language (cf. RBSLC, online). The plurality of languages illustrates the need for respect and mutual understanding, as well as the potential for misunderstandings, particularly among First Nations and non- Native Canadians. In addition, the different languages might also symbolise both the diversity and complexity of First Nations Cultures, but it could also be interpreted as an effort to lend demographic groups which remain mostly unheard in popular discourse a voice. In a similar attempt, the next thirteen lines contain a list of both American and Canadian cities and monuments where the protest marches had taken place. Again, the inclusion of both Native communities as well as Canadian and American toponyms suggests a strong feeling of interconnectivity, solidarity and mutual dependence, while emphasising the protesters’ determination and perseverance at the same time. See for example:

drumming in Owen Sound drumming in Thunder Bay drumming in Somba K’e drumming in Chicaco drumming in Chilliwack drumming in Kitimat (lines 22-27)

Following the list of place names, the poem suggests that people should “take […] a pause for thought” (line 28) to rethink these actions and their consequences. Ironically, “#J28”

76 encourages the reader to pause at some of Canada’s busiest places: the railroad, as well as the overcrowded Highway 401 and the infamous Highway 63, which has a startling effect on the reader. By calling the reader’s attention to Canada’s road and railroad network, Wong thus indirectly introduces the topic of transport, fossil fuels and the oil industry of Alberta. The “Ambassador Bridge” (line 33), which connects Detroit (Michigan, U.S.) and Windsor17 (Ontario, CA), has become one of the busiest international borders worldwide with regards to trade volume (cf. Windsor Public Library 2016, online). Wong, being a protector of water, uses the metaphor of “the human river” (line 33) to represent the unstoppable flow of cars and goods that pass between the United States and Canada. Plus, the repeated use of water images throughout the poem highlights human’s dependence on clean water, which however, is threatened by large-scale development and pollution, and also creates cohesion and coherence within the poem itself.

Line 34 invites the reader “to stop & respect” and to allow an alternative world view to unfold including respect for First Nations Cultures. As it is impossible to include all First Nations in one poem, the Indigenous population is represented by the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, who live near Sarnia, Ontario, as ‘pars pro toto’.

taking a much needed pause for thought on tarsands Highway 63 on the 401 on CN rail tracks with Aamiwnaang courage a human river on Ambassador Bridge time to stop & respect remember we are all treaty people unless we live on unceded lands where rude guests can learn to be better ones by repealing C-45, for starters (lines 28-38)

The lines point to a series of conflicts between the Canadian government and the First Nations People: the treaties.18 “#J28” draws upon that conflicting issue, reminding the reader of

17 Di Brandt, a well-known Canadian poet, too mentions this conflicted area in her poems, see for example “Zone: le Détroit”, in: Now You Care, 2004. 18 Made between the European explorers and the majority of First Nations, the treaties marked a landmark redistribution. Without being aware of the consequences, the chiefs signed the treaties and thus officially ceded the land to the British crown. Yet, some tracts of land were left out and thus have remained unaffected by treaties until today, such as is the case with the Coast Salish First Nations. From the

77 wrongs of the past which still have an impact on the present as for example in Windsor, Ontario, which is one of the main industrial centres of Canada, representing a philosophy and a way of life that significantly differs from First Nations values. Wong’s criticism becomes clear by her choice of words, as she refers to non- Native Canadians living on “unceded lands” as “rude guests” (lines 36-37). Interestingly, Wong regards herself as one of these unwelcome guests (cf. Smoot 2013: 56), thinking of colonial times and her own family’s move from China to Canada, to a land once inhabited by First Nations People only. Her invitation to become better ‘guests’ is a powerful way of relating to the relations between First Nations and immigrants, or the term ‘guest’ in general. In addition, her repeated mentioning of First Nations places and the inclusion of Native languages, even if only symbolically, into her poem suggests a process of decolonization, of re-centering First Nations, thus lending them power. Also, by using and re-using First Nations languages, place names and cultural practices, Wong aims at “a linguistic overturning of colonial logics” (Smoot 2013: 56).

In the next stanza, the speaker requests the opponents of the government to consolidate and to offer resistance to further decisions made by that very government. By referring to three days of action (“J11, J16, J28”, which stand for “January 11, January 16 and January 28), Wong both documents the public demonstrations as well as underlining their common goal:

we have to stand together in many places all at once J11, J16, J28 Indigenous Spring Eighth Fire summer autumn wisdom winter sleep to renew Indigenous spring again & again (lines 39-46)

In lines 39-46, Wong’s poem aesthetically connects Native communities in Northern America, demonstrating their need to stand together repeatedly (cf. line 46) to successfully prevent further destruction of their Native land and culture. Using the cycle of the seasons, these lines mediate a strong sense of inclusion and mutual (inter-)dependence as they represent the recurring cycle of life and renewal, starting and ending both with “Indigenous Spring” (line 41 and 45), stressing the importance of indigenous sovereignty and power of decision. The

Canadian government’s view, however, “[t]reaties are a foundational part of Canadian society” and “all people living in Canada are treaty people with their own set of rights and responsibilities” (OISE, online). ‘We are all treaty people’, which is a slogan that Wong incorporated in her poem, became a motto representing that controversial issue.

78 focus is, significantly, on spring which functions as a metaphor for rebirth, resistance and resilience.

The next part of the poem (lines 47-60), lists thirty-three popular human rights activists and peaceful protesters:

it is Gandhi we need to align ourselves with Gandhi and Gaia and Vandana & marbled murrelets & mycorrhizal mats Winona and Ward and Jaggi and Arundhati & phytoplankton & peregrine falcons Naomi and Oren and Toghestiy and Jeanette and Lee & bittermelon and bees (lines 47-53)

The mentioning of Mahatma Gandhi and Gaia, the personified goddess of the Earth, sets the tone for lines 46-54. As the poem first starts with Gandhi, the most prominent and well- known representative for peaceful, non-violent resistance, the reader is lead to realise that the other names, too, refer to people who are, or were, included in peaceful protests and activism.19

19 As a detailed explication of all the thirty-three mentioned activists would go beyond the scope of the chapter at hand, the first ten activists mentioned in “#J28” shall be briefly introduced: Vandana Shiva is an Indian social activist and physicist who works on developing and improving sustainable farming methods (cf. Encyclopedia Britannica 2019, online). Maude Barlow is the Honorary National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and chair of the Food and Water Watch, an organization mobilising people to build political power with the goal to protest and preserve water resources, the soil and climate (cf. https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/). Winona LaDuke is a member of the Mississippi Anishinaabeg who fights for the protection of indigenous communities (cf. https://www.laprogressive.com/protesting-dakota-access-pipeline/). Ken Ward is an ardent opponent of the oil/tar sands and the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline who is also known as ‘valve-turner’ for manipulating the flow from oil from the oil/tar sands towards to the United States (cf. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/04/09/judge-rules-valve-turner-ken-ward-must-be allowed-present-necessity-defense-climate). Jaggi Singh is a Canadian anti-globalization activist, whereas Arundhati Roy is an Indian novelist (The God of Small Things, 1996) and political justice activist, fighting for the environment and human rights. Naomi Klein is a well-known Canadian filmmaker and author, famous for her book No Logo which questions globalization and the cost of the manufacturing of goods for developing countries (cf.https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/naomi-klein). Oren Lyons, a member of the Seneca and the Onondaga First Nation, works both as professor and activist to protect the rights of indigenous people around the globe. (cf. https://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/portraits/oren-lyons). Toghestiy Wet’suwet’en belongs to the Wet’suwet’en First Nation. He is a land defender and is thus known for his struggle to preserve the land, to avoid further development and to preserve his ancestors’ heritage (cf. http://muskratmagazine.com/self-determination-land-struggle/). Jeanette Armstrong is a Canadian author, professor and spokeswoman for First Nations Peoples’ rights. She belongs to the Okanagan Syilx First Nation and is reputed for her effort in founding the En’owkin School of

79 In contrast to Gandhi, the other activists are only named by their forename in the poem, thus both installing a feeling of familiarity, yet also ambiguity. As a detailed research (see footnote 17) has shown, all the names mentioned in “#J28” are associated with a resistance movement and the struggle to fight for social justice and the environment. Yet, it is a diverse group: the poem names both Canadian, as well as international activists, and a considerable number are of Native origin. Thus, the poem aims at both naming and honouring the people who ventured to demand a shifting of values as well as to invite the reader to become more active themselves by showing that change is possible and necessary. Thus, the poem fulfils an appellative function, aiming at mobilizing the addressee. Lines 47-62 follow the same pattern: naming four activists and two animals or plants, their structure is repetitive and remarkable due to their strongly polysyndetic make-up. In these lines, the speaker uses water images to illustrate water’s importance for all living beings, thereby representing interdependency and interconnectedness across species. Plus, the poem draws attention to water’s endangerment through human action and the development which would start after Bill C-45 was firmly established. The listing of the names of activists, animals and plants as if they belonged to the same category suggests a biocentric if not post humanist approach, in the context of which human and non-human entities hold the same importance with regard to a functioning ecological system. The italicized printing of both water plants and animals, as well as the repeated use of alliteration (e.g. “the marbled murrelets & mycorrhizal mats”, line 47, “the phytoplankton & peregrine falcons”, line 48, “the bittermelon & bees”, line 49), and the poem’s wave-like printing help to add an extra emphasis, highlighting on various levels of the poetic text the importance of water for both human beings and the fauna and flora worldwide.

The poem ends with the lines: “it is the children I will never see, but who I hope will drink clean, wild water” (74-75), thereby expressing a notion of hope and fittingly ending with one of Rita Wong’s key issues: water. “#J28” is dedicated to Theresa Spence and the Idle No More Movement, which again highlights the poem’s highly political content and message.20

International Writing, run by and for native people (cf. http://www.nativeperspectives.net/Transcripts/Jeannette_Armstrong_interview.pdf). Lee mentioned in the poem is likely to refer to Canada Lee, a civil rights activist and actor (cf. https://highlandscurrent.org/2015/09/05/actor-activist-canada-lee-is-subject-of-script-reading/). 20 Spence was the chief of the Attawapiskat First Nation who went on hunger strike due to a severe housing crisis, thus enforcing a meeting with politicians to discuss measures to ameliorate the situation for the Attawapiskat First Nation in Northern Ontario (cf. Taylor-Vaisey 2013, online).

80 4.1.5. “Night gift” (2015) by Rita Wong

Rita Wong’s arrest came both as a surprise and a shock to other protesters and activists, not least because the degree of punishment was exhausted completely. Yet, her arrest also launched a wave of solidarity and inspired other authors, such as Stephen S. Collis, to write poems in solidarity for Rita Wong.21 “Night gift”, published in 2015,22 Wong both documents and criticizes our modern civilization’s dependence on oil-based products, the industry’s destructive impact on all life forms on the planet and colonial Canada all at once:

make space and let the night speak through you – what will the darkness say? […] [...] how will the night take you back? […] the globe moves around the sun, unstoppable, feeding pine trees & the petro-state alike, giving us the days and nights by which to stand with the trees, what the oil industry calls overburden, or to die more rapidly, more stupidly, by peak oil. as rivers & oceans fill with carcinogenic wastes from the petroleum-plastic supply chain, the political ego that refuses to stop growing until it reaches the limits of the planet’s patience. […] (lines 1; 3-4; 7-15)

“Night gift” opens with a rhetorical question and directly addresses a ‘you’ in line 1 and lines 3-4. Emphasized also due to its printing in italics, it not only invites, but almost forces the reader to slow down and become actively engaged in the reading and thinking process. “Night gift” then continues to describe nature’s indifference, here represented by the sun, with regard to mankind’s decision: the sun warms and supports both the trees as well as the “petro-state” (line 8), which, in the context of the oil/tar sands, can be read as direct critique of the Canadian government’s policies towards development and industry. Also, the multiple enjambments structurally foreground (lines 7-15) the

21 See, for example, Rob McLennan’s blog (https://www.windsorpubliclibrary.com/?page_id=48101), where several poems written by non-professional writers were published in solidarity for Rita Wong. Stephen S. Collis, a poet and friend of Wong, too, published poems specifically written for Rita on his twitter account (see also https://twitter.com/stephenscollis?lang=de). 22 “Night gift (790km)” was also published in The Enpipe Line, a collaborative project supported and organised by a vast number of poets, most notably the Canadian writer Christine Leclerc, in opposition to the Northern Gateway Pipeline Project started by Enbridge. Due to massive protest by the local population, The Enpipe Line, an anthology of anti-pipeline poetry, emerged. It is worth mentioning that – maybe also due to the poets’ effort – The Northern Gateway Project has not been realised so far.

81 movement of the globe, whereas epanalepsis (“more rapidly, more stupidly”, line 10) and internal rhyme effectively link speed to stupidity. Speed is further reinforced by run-on-line.

The poem exposes the reader’s available options: will s/he take a stand for nature, represented by the trees? Will mankind make ‘the right decisions’ to save the climate/planet, as the poem suggests, or will humanity fail and thus “die more rapidly, more stupidly, by peak oil” (line 10-11)? By provocatively unveiling these two options and the negative result if the ‘wrong’ decision is made, the lyrical persona hopes to instigate a reaction in the reader. Thereby, the poem includes a strong political message and critique of the unabated belief in growth and profit which, in the long run, is both unsustainable and infeasible. Plus, the speaker also suggests that while readers are pondering their options, the environment is slowly but surely poisoned by the oil industry’s toxic waste matter (“as rivers & oceans will with carcinogenic wastes from the petroleum-plastic supply chain”, lines 11-12), which is an obvious comment on the Athabasca River and Lake Athabasca, whose water holds dangerous waste products, thereby polluting not only the environment, but endangering and sickening the Native and local population alike.23 Even though the poem is written in prose, the employment of poetic devices (such as the use of alliterations “petroleum plastic”, line 12, or “the planet’s patience”, lines 14-15) and metaphorical language, creating ambiguity (for example “standing with the trees”, line 9, as discussed below), lends the text a highly poetic character and illustrates both the poet’s concern and thoughtfulness.

“Night gift” borrows terms from industrial language by appropriating the word “overburden” (line 10), which is a key term in the oil industry that refers to the total amount of plants (trees, bushes, moss, lichen, etcetera) which cover the oil/tar sands and need to be cut down before mining processes can start. Its printing in italics emphasizes the option the readers have: “standing with the trees”, metaphorically speaking, represents a process of rethinking, prompting the reader, and thus, society as a whole, to look for alternatives and also to reduce our carbon footprint. If taken literally, “standing with the trees” also refers to protest movements, demonstrations, and also political activism.

The other option entails, as the poem suggests, death (“or to die more rapidly, more stupidly, by peak oil”, line 10-11). It becomes increasingly obvious that the poem is not remotely neutral, as it repeatedly, directly and almost aggressively critiques the status quo and the politics responsible for

23 See, for instance, the increasing cancer rate in communities such as Fort Chipewyan, which is one of the major issues in the novel Hawk (see chapter 4.3.3.) or the fairy tale “Leo” (see chapter 4.2.3.).

82 the current state of affairs, as for example in the following lines: “the political / systems follow, stuffed full of suncorpse & tired old neocolonial / ego that refuses to stop growing until it reaches the limits of the / planet’s patience (lines 12-15).” Noticeable already due to the repeated use of enjambments, which mirror the incessant growth, these lines stand out also due to their direct critique of the former Canadian government and industry’s interference: in this context, “suncorpse” (line 13) could be read as a pun with the name Suncor, which is “the biggest and most influential oilsands company in the country” (Dembicki 2019, online). Also, it evokes the image of the death of the sun, and thus of life on earth, which is further enhanced by the mentioning of darkness and night. Repeatedly, the poem also voices criticism of the eventual ties between powerful companies and politics, suggesting that decisions concerning the oil industry are influenced by certain interest groups and lobbyism. Another poetic device which stands out is the image “the / planet’s patience” (line 14-15). Supported by plosive sounds, this alliteration not only underlines the meaning of its words and the anthropomorphization of Planet Earth; it also hints at the fact that, again, metaphorically speaking, if provoked too long, the planet will take vengeance, thereby warning the reader.

Subsequently, Wong addresses the red-hot issue of (neo-)colonialism, which is particularly relevant to the oil/tar sands industry as resource extraction is conveyed on either treaty land or even on unceded land. Even if the land in question is Treaty 8 territory, which means that is was officially passed from the First Nations to the Crown in 1899, First Nations still have certain rights and privileges (cf. Preston 2013: online). The treaty, even though it was made by colonists with ulterior motives in the first place, still protects First Nations to a certain extent. The treaty reassured, for example, that no extraction would take place without the consultation of the indigenous population; it promised that Native communities would not be harmed by the colonists’ settlement; furthermore, it also affirmed that their way of life would be respected (cf. Preston 2013: online). Yet, “these ‘agreements’ have never been fully upheld by the government and have ultimately been about securing control over land and other resources” (Preston 2013: online). Infringements of Treaty 8 are not prosecuted and with the increasing, global hunger for fossil fuels, the situation has exacerbated in the last years, leading to growing anger and responsiveness among First Nations People. In the 21st century, Preston explains that:

The rapid and massive proliferation of pipelines, refineries, mining and in situ excavation of bitumen, the sheer amount of clean water used in the processes, the oil spills and the billions of dollars made by oil companies working in the Athabasca tar sands have all been made possible by the outright dismissal of Indigenous treaty rights,

83 self-determination and sovereignty. (Preston 2013: online)

It is thus not surprising and no coincidence that many Indigenous Rights Groups came into existence. They aim at fighting for their rights and against injustice and poems like “#J28” and “Night gift” help to present the problems in an affective and tangible way, although the lyrical speaker is aware that resistance against the industry and political system can be dangerous, as the following lines show:

[..] jail the stories & the story tellers, but they will keep speaking the night, until empire expires, with or without the multitudes alive. […] (lines 19-21)

The persona both mentions and accepts the chance of being imprisoned as a consequence of her deeds. The lines quoted above are particularly interesting and also up to date as Wong herself was imprisoned in 2019, as has been mentioned before. Thus, the poem tries to convey the message that openly speaking out against injustice can be dangerous; at the same time, it also points out that neither stories nor poets can be silenced for good. There are people who dare to speak up, even if they are not welcome in dominant discourse. In addition, the words “with / or without the multitudes alive” (see quote above) introduces a posthumanist aspect, thereby adding yet another layer of meaning.

84 4.1.6. The Thematic and Aesthetic Impact of Canadian Petro-Poetry – A Résumé

As I have tried to show in the previous chapters, poets apply a wide variety of different strategies to effectively mediate the complexity and the controversy of the oil/tar sands to their readers. The poems discussed are interesting with regard to both their poetic and documentary agenda, featuring multiple layers of meaning which the reader is encouraged to unveil for a better understanding. The following list seeks to provide an overview of the strategies and aesthetic techniques used in Canadian petro-poetry.

Ambiguity and rhetoric devices Drastic and ambiguous language, as well as the excessive use of rhetoric devices such as alliterations (in particular of plosive or fricative sounds) help to catch the reader’s attention, while also setting the base line for a dark, grim atmosphere for the whole poem, as for example in “Tar Swan”, where the repeated use of /s/ sounds reminds of hissing, thereby helping to install an uncomfortable feeling in the reader. Other frequently used rhetoric devices are anaphoras, rhetorical questions, syntactical structures of repetition, enjambments or onomatopoeia, which add an additional emphasis to the meaning of individual passages. Mari-Lou Rowley’s “In the Tar Sands, Going Down”, for example, features lists of anaphorai and parallelisms, which help to accelerate the pace and also symbolise ‘the fall of man’ , while onomatopoeic elements underline the connection between water, climate change and the oil/tar sands industry. The combination of rhetoric devices helps the reader to visualize the toil as well as the consequences of producing oil from the oil/tar sands.

Anthropomorphization and victimization of Earth Another frequently used feature is the anthropomorphization of earth, which is in parts even intensified by sexual metaphors and imagery (cf. Rowley’s poem “In the Tar Sands Going Down”). Earth, identified with nature, is thus rendered as exploited and victimized (cf. the “brazil waxed forests”, in Rowley’s “In the Tar Sands Going Down”). The obvious sexual references in the poem (“Knees to ground / head to groin / grovel and growl / scourge, gouge / rip it rip it / rip it all out”), or the “disaster porn”, in Collis’s “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands” might refer to the surplus of men in the oil/tar sands, as well as to a degenerated form of sexuality which only offers a short escape from apocalyptic conditions of existence. This is another example of how poets try to mediate the feeling of hopelessness and despair in the oil/tar sands.

85 Defamiliarization and alienation Subtle and deliberate changes in either the spelling of a certain word (cf. “Home at Gasmere”, instead of ‘Home at Grasmere’ or “to stroll across northern desarts”, instead of ‘to stroll across northern deserts’, see “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands”), or the odd, even wrong use of words or settings in a defamiliarized context lead to a feeling of alienation, which may evoke threatening, uncanny impressions in the reader.

Directly addressing the readership Some poems break the fourth wall and thus directly address the readers (cf. “In the Tar Sands, Going Down”, “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands”, “Night gift”, and “Tar Swan”) to draw the reader into the poem and to refer to each citizen’s responsibility in the oil/tar sands debate.

Iconicity Water, an element which particularly defines the natural environment of Northern Alberta, is also symbolically used in petro-poems, most obviously in Rita Wong’s poem, “J 28”. The poem’s wave- like layout catches the reader’s attention, thereby non-verbally referring to the topicality of fresh water for both the oil/tar sands debate and for the survival of every living creature in general. Other poems, as for example “Night gift” or “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands”, feature parts written in italics to highlight certain passages.

Inclusion of real-life events Some politically motivated poems (“Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands,”; “J-28” and “Night gift”) display the names of real-life and/or historical events. An example can be found in “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands” (see, for example “a world of dead birds”), or in “J28”, which refers to a date of anti-development protest meetings, real place names or monuments to document and remind their readership that even though the oil/tar sands might appear to be far away, they are still present.

Intertextuality Intertextuality is another device which is deliberately used to add yet another layer of meaning. The literary pretexts used for that purpose are all classic texts, such as for example Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Virgil’s Aeneid, poems by the Romantic poet William Wordsworth (most notably already in the title of Stephen S. Collis’s “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands”, but also apparent in “Tar Swan”) or the Bible. The chances that an educated reader is familiar with these texts are

86 high and, therefore, the readers are most likely to identify these intertextual references. By following the footsteps of the original work, the readers are invited to ponder the parallels and differences between the reference text and the original poem.

References to popular culture Some of the poems discussed include quotes from and reference to famous movies (e.g. Apocalypse Now! in Rowley’s poem “In the Tar Sands, Going Down”) or famous pop songs (cf. Olivia Newton- John’s song “Physical”, which is quoted in Rowley’s poem “In the Tar Sands, Going Down”, or also R.E.M’s song “Cuyahoga”, which is quoted in “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands”).

Irony Mari-Lou Rowley’s poem “In the Tar Sands, Going Down” is full of irony as it seems to suggest to the reader to keep on living recklessly and thus destroying the natural environment if s/he wishes (cf. “Let’s wade in the tailing ponds / slather our bodies with sludge and sand, light a cigarette, keep the motor running/ roll over like fish in the Athabaska / bloated bellies toward a dazed sky”), while at the same time evoking apocalyptic scenarios of the consequences in the long run. Of course, the irony applied here aims at starting a process of rethinking of values in the readership.

Juxtaposition of cultural differences and (neo-)colonialism By explicitly referring to First Nations ceremonies (for example healing walks, in. “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands” or round-dancing and drumming in “J-28”), as well as by incorporating words from Native languages into the poem (cf. “J-28”), the poets intend to render First Nations culture as vital part of Alberta and thus the oil/tar sands issue. Furthermore, by emphasizing the contrasts between Native and “Euro-Canadian culture” (for example, the Native notion of sharing the land as opposed to the Euro-Canadian understanding of owning the land, as for example, in “J-28” or “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands”) the readers are aware of the obvious cultural differences, while they are also reminded that fresh water and air are vital for people of all cultures alike. At the same time, some poems (most notably Wong’s “J28” and “Night gift” and Collis’s “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands”) document and openly criticize Canadian politics, thereby explicitly referring to neo-colonialism (cf. “Night gift” by Wong). By aesthetically connecting Native communities (cf. “J-28”), the poet seeks to encourage people(s) to stand together and become active in the anti-development resistance movement themselves.

87 Symbolism and metaphorical language Powerful images such as metaphors, similes and the symbolic uses of language, constitute a particularly potent element in petro-poetry. Water imagery is also found, for example, in Mari-Lou Rowley’s poem “In the Tar Sands, Going Down”, as the carcinogenic effect of residual water is implied by metaphorical language (fish with bloated bellies…) , thereby again evoking an uncanny, grim picture of death and disease. In addition, metaphorical language (cf. the elephant in “Tar Swan”, which symbolizes the huge country Canada, or the catheter which stands for the pipelines running through the animal’s body, which in turn refers to the soil itself) helps to add yet another layer of meaning. Take, for example, the handkerchief, which, since Othello (see also intertextuality) symbolizes betrayal and deceit. Another frequently used image is the reference to technology and to the heavy machinery of the oil business (cf. “Tar Swan”), which emphasizes the necessary skills and knowledge on the one hand, but on the other hand also our civilization’s dependency on technology and alienation from nature in the long run. There are many strategies applied to mediate the dangerous side-effects and risks of the oil industry. In “Tar Swan” or “In the Tar Sands Going Down”, for example, symbolic colour imagery is used to create a dark, even apocalyptic atmosphere (cf. the black egg in “Tar Swan”). The black colour underlines the menacing atmosphere, as the colour black is traditionally associated with death in our cultural milieu, while it also refers to the natural colour of the bituminous sands themselves.

Warnings All poems also feature an inherent warning that nature might strike back in the long run. In the poem “In the Tar Sands, Going Down”, this warning is further intensified by distorting typically North-American symbols for freedom (such as cars, cigarettes, beaches), which, by means of their alienation, suddenly appear uncanny. The poets may seek to disturb and to remind their readership of their own responsibility concerning the climate crisis.

88 4.2. Short Fiction

In the following, an overview of both the short story and the fairy tale, a particularly interesting variant of short fiction, will be provided.

Even though a number of scholars have tried to define the short story, Ferguson, in the 1980s, still claims that there is “no large and distinguished corpus of short story theory” (Ferguson 1982: 13). This may be explained by the fact that initially, the bigger part of available theory concerning the short story did not stem from literary scholars, but rather from short story writers themselves, such as – most notably – Edgar Allan Poe or Herman Melville. (Cf. Patea 2012: 2) Since Poe, the short story has been characterised by its focus on brevity, unity, and coherence which create an effect of totality. Yet, there is “no single characteristic or cluster of characteristics that the critics agree absolutely distinguishes the short story from other fictions” (Ferguson 1982: 13), but a number of differences which have been observed by numerous theorists alike and which all arise from the short story’s “calculated brevity” as Barbara Korte has so aptly put it (Korte 2003: 5).

Thus, the most obvious difference between the novel and the short story is also the most obvious one – its brevity. Ejxenbaum notes in this context: “the story is a problem in posing a single equation with one unknown; the novel is a problem involving various rules and soluble with a whole system of equations with various unknowns in which the intermediary steps are more important than the final answer.” (Boris Ejxenbaum, quoted in Patea 2012: 9) Furthermore, the short story is considered a hybrid form of both poetry and the novel, borrowing prose narration from the novel, and its ambiguity and metaphorical language from poetry, thereby creating a genre on its own. (Cf. Shaw, qtd. in Patea 2012: 9) So whereas a uniform definition of the short story cannot be found, some of its characteristic features have been discussed by multiple scholars. One of them, Ferguson, claims that “the ‘best’ short stories give us a sense of the inevitability of each sentence and persuade us that they are as complete as possible, that any addition or deletion would destroy their aesthetic wholeness” (Ferguson 1982: 14).

In the Canadian context, the short story holds a prominent position. Even though the Canadian short story is considered “a relatively recent literary phenomenon, spanning a little more than 100 years by now” (Nischik 2007: 1), it is also referred to as “the most active ambassador of Canadian literature abroad” (Bonheim 1981: 659). Similarly, short stories are also referred to as “heartbeat” (van Herk, qtd. in Löschnigg 2014b: 1) or “flagship genre of Canadian literature” (Nischik 2007: 1). The popularity of Canadian short stories is further proven by a considerable number of short story

89 collections, as well as by the fact that Alice Munro, who devoted herself to the writing of short stories exclusively, was the first Canadian writer to be awarded with the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013 (cf. Löschnigg 2014b: 2). Nevertheless, it is remarkable that relatively little scholarly attention has been given to the Canadian short story (cf. Nischik 2007: 2, cf. Löschnigg 2014b: 3f.) so far, which can also be claimed for the whole genre of the short story in general.

The popularity of the Canadian short story may also be explained by its antecedents and influences, such as the sketch, the anecdote and, most notably, the Canadian animal story “which became the epitome of the Canadian short story” (cf. Nischik 2007: 3f), its main representatives being Charles Roberts and Ernest Thompson Seton. In addition, the short story’s “protean variety” (Hanson, qtd. in Löschnigg 2014b: 4), as well as its “great elasticity” (Korte qtd. in Löschnigg 2014b: 5) may contribute to its success. In other words, the genre owes its popularity to its diversity and plurivocality (cf. Löschnigg 2014b: 11), qualities which are particularly in demand in a modern, highly individualized society, as well in the Canadian context specifically, as Canada is proud of its reputation of being a cultural mosaic. With regards to the concept of “the Canadian cultural mosaic” (Löschnigg 2014b: 11), Löschnigg underlines that Native voices and influences, which are often omitted in the discussion of Canadian multiculturalism, play a significant role in both the genre’s, as well a the country’s, diversity (cf. Löschnigg 2014b: 11). That being said, the Canadian short story would not be the same without its Native writers and Native protagonists, who, by turning from mainly oral to written forms of storytelling, have opened “new aesthetic possibilities for Native writers in particular, and for the contemporary Canadian short story in general” (Löschnigg 2014b: 11).

Whereas the Canadian short story displays many parallels to the English and American short story, it also has some remarkable, unique features. Bonheim made a list of topoi occurring in Canadian short stories and revealed that in terms of time frame or ending, the Canadian short story considerably differs from the American or English short story (cf. Bonheim 1981: 663f.). Among many other features, Bonheim notes that some of the characteristic features of a Canadian short story manifest themselves in the story’s final sentence, which typically starts with a conjunction, is very short (consisting of less than six words) or contains a negation or question (cf. Bonsheim 1981: 664f.) He also observes “a strong incongruence between the social class of the characters in Canadian short stories and the class of the intended readers” (Bonheim 1981: 661) as “the fictional figures described are only rarely the sort of people who could be imagined reading a collection of short stories” (Bonheim 1980-81: 662). This observation holds true for the two Canadian short

90 stories which will be analysed in this chapter and also ties in with Adrian Hunter’s understanding of the short story as “minor literature” (cf. Löschnigg and Schuh 2018: 37). Instead of regarding the short story’s limitations as deficiencies, Hunter stresses these limitations, particularly “its openness, ambiguity, and versatility” (Löschnigg and Schuh 2018: 38) account for its popularity.

Numerous scholars have come to conclude the short story has become “a form of the margins” (Hansen, qtd. in Patea 2012: 7) whose “[...] protagonists have been collective groups of submerged populations” (O’Connor, qtd. in Patea 2012: 7), thus endowing the short story with “the vindicating powers of the wronged and underrated” (Patea 2012: 7). The scholar Marie Louise Pratt follows a similar idea, arguing that the short story prospers particularly “in colonial contexts, and is linked to marginal people, women, or outsiders, all of whom are plagued by a sense of exile and existential isolation” (Patea 2012: 7-8), whereas O’Connor defined the short story as the “lonely voice of “outlawed figures wandering about the fringes of society” (qtd. in Patea 2012: 7). Patea confirms this opinion by adding that, “[r]elying on intensity and tension, the short story also aspires to transpose the incommunicable into aesthetic forms” (Patea 2012: 14). Concluding, the short story is a particularly suitable genre which takes the reader on a dream-like journey, leading away from everyday life to the realm of fantasy and mystery, and to a moment of epiphany. Of all the criteria that scholars have identified as possible constituents of the short story, the most important its “[…] momentary realization that marks the passage from ignorance to knowledge” (Patea 2012: 15).

With regards to the two short stories discussed in the following pages, these characteristics could not be more to the point as both the “The Angel of the Tar Sands” as well as “An Athabasca Story” stage the impossible while allowing voices which remain disregarded in dominant discourse to be heard.

Oral folk tales have been told in Europe and other parts of the world such as India for thousands of years. Yet, the literary fairy tale is a relatively young genre which started to emerge and flourish from the 15th century onwards (cf. Zipes 2015, online) and which is almost impossible to define as a literary genre (cf. Zipes 1988: 7) at the same time. Fairy tales take their origin in the oral folk tale; however, the authors of fairy tales were well-educated and also included elements, motifs and plot scenarios (cf Zipes 2015, online) from other literary texts. During the Middle Ages, the fairy tale was mostly written in Latin, but also in Middle English or old forms of Spanish, French, German or Italian. Written from a didactic point of view, it informed – and often entertained – the reader about “miraculous encounters, changes, and initiations” (cf Zipes 2015, online). As the most commonly

91 used language for fairy tales was Latin, fairy tales were written by and for the educated class. Authors such as Giovanni Boccacio (The Decameron, 1349-1353) or Geoffrey Chaucer (The Canterbury Tales, 1387-1400) helped to pave the way for the development of the literary fairy tale as independent literary genre.

In the German-speaking world in particular, fairy tales have been popular since the Romantic era, most notably since the Grimm Brothers and the publication of their Kinder- und Hausmärchen in 1825 (cf. Stobbe 2018: 148). However, even before that, fairy tales became popular due to exposure to the above-mentioned French fairy tales or the German translation of Märchen aus Tausendundeine Nacht (1823-24) (cf. Stobbe 2018: 147-148). That being said, fairy tales were and are not only common in Europe, but they are commonly found in all human societies around the world, and their origins can be traced back to oral story telling traditions. The process of “textualization” (cf. Finish critic Pertti Anttonen, qtd. in Zipes 1988: 1) is characterized by the ‘appropriation’ of numerous traditions and customs borrowed from oral culture.

Today, in the twenty-first century, fairy tales are still popular; moreover, the fairy tale “has become totally institutionalized in our society […]. We initiate children and expect them to learn the fairy- tale code as part of our responsibility in the civilizing process” (Zipes 1988: 29). The fairy tale’s initial impetus for “hope for better living conditions” (Zipes 1988: 29) has not yet vanished, on the contrary as Zipes explains:

As long as the fairy tale continues to awaken our wonderment and project counter worlds to our present society where our yearnings and wishes may find fulfillment, it will serve a meaningful social function not just for compensation but for revelation: for the worlds projected by the best of our fairy tales reveal the gaps between truth and falsehood in our immediate society. (Zipes 1988: 27)

Today, unifying factors for fairy tales are, for example, their brevity, simple structure and their use of flat, one-dimensional characters, supernatural abilities, talking plants or animals, and the character’s altruism concerning the natural world (cf. Stobbe 2018: 147-148). According to Stobbe, nature plays a vital role in fairy tales for three reasons: they are often set in nature, which allows for mysterious encounters to occur. Furthermore, the story’s protagonists are often characterized by a distinct closeness to the natural world. Fables are usually clearly structured and make use of “clear dichotomies” (Stobbe 2018: 147), stereotypical, flat characters: good vs. evil, flat, one-dimensional

92 characters, stereotypical patterns of behaviour (cf. Stobbe 2018: 147). Whereas characters who mistreat plants or animals are punished severely, characters who show a certain respect towards their human counterparts and the natural world succeed in the end. Furthermore, writers of fairy tales avoid distinct time references, which makes them timeless and thus time-transcending (cf. Stobbe 2018: 148). Finally, fairy tales also provide a counter-image to the rational conception of the world (cf. Stobbe 2018: 149) and offer a retreat to the world of fantasy and supernatural powers.

93 4.2.1. “An Athabasca Story” (2012) by Warren Cariou

Warren Cariou, author of “An Athabasca Story”, was born into a family of both European and Métis background. In his hometown Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, the oil development has had a lasting impact on everyday life and work. Today, Cariou is an author, film director and professor in the fields of English, Film and Theatre, Creative Writing and Oral Culture at the University of Manitoba (cf. Warren Cariou, online). Furthermore, he is also an artist, who invented the technique called “petrography”‘ in 2014, which he describes as “an embodied attempt to utilize petroleum as a medium of representation – to see the world quite literally through a film of heavy crude oil” (cf. Warren Cariou, online).24 The bitumen necessary for this process is taken from the Athabasca River itself.25

The main character of “An Athabasca Story” is Elder Brother, a figure that is also known as “the Cree figure of wîsahkêcâhk” (Gordon 2015: 108). Elder Brother is a trickster, a figure which features prominently in First Nations literature. Whereas a uniform definition of trickster figures is not available yet, numerous scholars have tried to provide their own. For example, the trickster figure is claimed to be “a wordly being of uncertain origin who lives by his wits and is often injured or embarrassed by his foolish imitations and pranks” and seems to “act customarily without apparent plan or forethought” (Linscott-Ricketts 1966: 343). Radin, similarily, argues that a trickster acts from an impulse “over which he has no control” (qtd. in Innes 2014: n.p.). Yet, the trickster’s actions reveal values and teach a moral lesson (qtd. in Innes 2014: n.p.). Thus, they express values which are at the core of a certain culture. However, trickster figures often get into trouble as they frequently break the laws, rules and expectations (cf. Ballinger, qtd. in Innes 2014: n.p.). In Cree and in Ojibe stories, the figure of Elder Brother is more than a trickster, as Elder Brother may also be regarded as “a cultural hero” (cf. Innes 2014: n.p.). According to the scholar James Zion, Elder Brother stories reflect the society of “pre-contact Aboriginal people”, whose aim was to maintain “harmony in the family, the camp, and in the community.” (qtd in Innes 2014: n.p.) The Cowessess people used Elder Brother stories to pass on their knowledge about moral and values, calling these stories also “the law of the people” (Innes 2014: n.p.) Typically, a trickster does not hesitate to break the laws or rules or to speak his mind, which may result in dire consequences. All these

24 See also chapter 5 “Other Art Forms”. 25 Detailed information about the complex procedure of petrography can be found on Warren Cariou’s homepage http://www.warrencariou.com/petrography/.

94 qualities of the Elder Brother figure are reflected in the short story called “An Athabasca Story” which will be analysed in the following.

The story opens with the main character Elder Brother walking through a forest on a cold winter day, when he suddenly realizes that he has walked further west than ever before and thus finds himself alone in an unfamiliar environment. Hoping to find hospitality among fellow humans, Elder Brother continues to walk, but as the day fades and the cold is increasingly badgering him, he grows desperate. It seems as if he had already accepted his fate of dying in the cold when he suddenly perceives a familiar and yet strange smell:

It was smoke, almost certainly, though a kind of smoke he’d never encountered before. And though it was not a pleasant odour at all, not like the aromatic pine-fire he had been imagining, he knew that it meant warmth. (Cariou 2012: 70)

Attracted by the strong scent, Elder Brother cannot help but follow the smell. Exhausted, he eventually arrives at the top of a hill from which he has a great view on an “empty valley” and “a huge plume billowed from a gigantic house” (Cariou 2012: 70). In the following lines, Cariou describes this valley as an alien, hostile place. No plant, animal or human being catches Elder Brother’s eye, “[t]he only things moving on that vacant landscape were enormous yellow contraptions that clawed and bored and bit the dark earth and then hauled it away toward the big house.” (Cariou 2012: 70) These “contraptions” refer to huge 797 trucks, which are widely used in Alberta’s bituminous sands and which also figure in other pieces of contemporary Canadian petro- literature.26 Applying the tool of cognitive estrangement, which is used to present familiar objects or situations in an alienated, defamiliarized context helps the reader to slip into a character’s mindset and thus understand their motives. (cf. Nodelman 2009: 24) In “An Athabasca Story”, this tool is used, for example, when describing the heavy machinery and dump trucks on site: “enormous yellow contraptions that clawed and bored and bit the dark earth and then hauled it away toward the big house.” (Cariou 2012: 70) Whereas the reader is aware that this description refers to long-haul trucks and excavators, typical vehicles used for oil/tar sands exploitation, it becomes apparent that these objects are very unfamiliar, even frightening for Elder Brother. The text thus promotes the reader’s awareness of different worldviews and empathy, a typical quality and potential of literary texts. Cariou symbolically breathes life into those trucks as, from the point of view of Elder Brother,

26 Cf. chapter 4.3.3. Hawk: in Jennifer Dance’s piece of young-adult fiction, Adam/Hawk’s father, who also works in the oil/tar sands industry, drives one of these massive trucks every day. Another parallel to the short story discussed above is that the bituminous sands are described as a hostile place too.

95 they are pictured like ravenous predators and therefore appear very intimidating. At the same time, earth is victimized and portrayed as the powerless ‘prey’ of the colossal 797 trucks, whose relentlessness is emphasised by the polysyndeton (“clawed and bored and bit the dark earth and then hauled it away”, my emphasis).

Gazing at the valley, Elder Brother feels uncomfortable in this hostile place. It is not only the sight of this inimical place that baffles him, but also and foremost the pungent smell27 arising from the refinery, which the character naively calls “the big house” (Cariou 2012: 70). Furthermore, the intensity of the prevailing odour is described in a very figurative language with that element of humour that is typical for trickster stories:

It was worse than his most sulfurous farts, the ones he got when he ate moose guts and antlers. It was like being trapped in a bag with something dead. (Cariou 2012: 70)

Already the beginning is likely to leave the reader startled, maybe even repulsed, both by the description of the destructive oil industry, as well by the industry’s unsavoury and straightforward side effects: through addressing the reader’s sense of smell, the narrative voice ensures a lasting impression while also creating curiosity and disgust, an unusual combination which might encourage the reader to read on. In addition, the narrative voice leaves the reader with a grim picture of the oil sands industry already at the beginning of the story: the valley is described as a place of emptiness and death. Furthermore, monstrous machines furrow the victimized earth, a motif which has also been used by authors in the ancient times, and which will be familiar to educated readers.28 To intensify and increase the negative atmosphere beyond the field of semantics, the author evokes and combines both the sense of sight and smell to create a lasting impression in the reader. Even though Elder Brother feels uncomfortable and even scared in this unfamiliar environment, he still pushes on, unwilling to spend the night in the bitter cold. He wants to reach

27 Cf. Fred Stenson’s novel Who by Fire (2014) which addresses the highly problematic situation of farmers living close to liquified natural gas (LNG) extraction sites in Northern Saskatchewan. The sulphurous exhaust gases pose a significant health risk for both human beings and livestock, leading to out- migration, as numerous farmers give up and move to the city instead. Due to substantial natural gas deposits in Northern Saskatchewan and Northern Alberta and the immense energy demand of the oil/tar sands extraction sites, a lot of LNG facilities are to be found in Alberta and Saskatchewan. 28 Cf. for example Ovid: in Ovid's Metamorphoses (1, 89-150), the decline of mankind is described in four ages of the world. This decline starts with the golden age, followed by the iron age, the brazen age and ends with the iron age, which is dominated by fraud, deceit, guile, violence and avarice. (Cf. 1, 131f.) Furthermore, these verses also reveal the picture of a victimized earth, whose intestines have been cut open to release precious resources. These resources, so Ovid claims, are the incentives for war and discord and were not meant to be touched by human hands in the first place (cf. lines 1, 137-150).

96 the big house as he can even “see the heat rising in fine wiggly lines from the newly naked earth itself” (Cariou 2012: 71), thereby leading the reader’s attention to a victimization of earth.

On his way to the ‘house’, Elder Brother realizes moving “creatures”, each single one of them “giving off its own smaller stream of smoke”. Elder Brother naively mistakes the huge 797 trucks used in the Alberta oil/tar sands as living entities, before he realises that there are people sitting inside, wondering whether these huge entities could be houses – “warm, comfortable houses that by some magic were also capable of digging and hauling the earth” (Cariou 2012: 71). Elder Brother, portrayed as the naive trickster, plans to stop one of the moving houses which “rumbled past, shaking the ground at his feet.” (Cariou 2012: 71) He is deeply astonished when he notices that the driver of one of the 797 trucks is only wearing a T-shirt. Thus, what has come to be normal by Western societies is critically defamiliarized. Elder Brother, in turn, is still shivering and desperate for help. Using contrasting imagery, the difference between the driver and the trickster figure is emphasized: the driver, pictured as part of development and progress, seems to be on the winner’s side, whereas Elder Brother, representing the old traditional ways of living in Northern Alberta, seems to be on the loser’s side.

When Elder Brother finally manages to stop one of the ‘moving houses’, i.e. one of the 797 trucks, he is met with aggression and disbelief by the driver (cf. Cariou 2012: 71). Elder Brother, on the other hand, is very polite and repeatedly asks for help: “Oh my brother, my dear relation, Elder Brother said. I’m very cold and hungry and I was hoping... to come and visit you in your house.” (Cariou 2012: 71) The contrast between the oil worker and Elder Brother could not be more drastic: the worker is portrayed as impatient, unfriendly and extremely rude, whereas the trickster is described as a reluctant, respectful person, which is underlined by the fact that he addresses him as his “brother” and even “his relation” (see quote above). This choice of words expresses Elder Brother’s understanding of an interconnectedness between human beings beyond family boundaries. Additionally, his politeness is one characteristic feature of a trickster figure: by serving as a role model for the driver and representing his culture’s values, such as respect, Elder Brother hopes to invoke a similar reaction in his interlocutor, i.e. the man working on the bituminous sands. The driver, however, does not care for Elder brother’s helplessness and lack of familiarity with the oil sands industry. In the following conversation, the oil worker is portrayed as disrespectful and distrustful and the first question he asks Elder Brother is whether he belongs to an environmental protection organisation (“Are you Greenpeace?”, Cariou 2012: 71). It is obvious that the oil worker feels disconnected from both the natural environment and Elder Brother too – he has no relations at

97 all. On the contrary, he ignores Elder Brother’s urgent need of comfort and warmth, threatening him to leave the area immediately:

Well you’ll be a lot worse than cold, the man said, if you don’t get the hell out of my way and off this goddamn property. (Cariou 2012: 71)

Elder Brother is aware of his opponent’s inhospitality (cf. Cariou 2012: 71), but still asks if at least he could get a ride to the big house. The oil worker, unable to cope with the present situation and Elder Brother’s naive persistence, laughs and threatens to call the security service and to put Elder Brother to jail if he does not make a move immediately:

I don’t know what you’re on, buddy, the man said. But you need to snap out of it right this goddamn minute. Cause if you don’t step aside I’m gonna call Security, see, and they’re gonna come out here and throw your ass in the slammer with all other yahoos from last month and the month before. (Cariou 2012: 72)

In contrast to Elder Brother, who addresses the truck driver formally, the driver repeatedly uses vulgar and abusive language (“goddamn minute”/ “gonna”/ “throw your ass in the slammer with all other yahoos”, see quote above). Even more so, he also threatens to overrun Elder Brother with his huge truck, if he does not disappear. This utter contrast between Elter Brother and the oilworker evokes a powerfully disconcerting effect in the reader (cf. Cariou 2012: 73). Elder Brother remains polite but fails to see the larger picture. Thus, he has one last question for the oil worker:

But before I go, I just want to know one thing: what are you doing with all that earth? We’re burning it, the man said. Burning. But earth doesn’t – This stuff does, the man interjected. You really are a moron, aren’t you? It’s very special dirt, this stuff. We dig it up and take it over to the big house, as you call it, and we mix it around in there and after a while it’s ready to burn. […] You can tell that by the smell of the air around here. Just like napalm in the morning!29 (Cariou 2012: 72)

Gordon argues that Cariou deliberately emphasizes the motif of burning earth as it refers to an actual encounter between Crowfoot and the negotiations of Treaty 7. In his book, Gordon recounts the story of that very meeting:

29 Cf. Apocalypse Now, Lieutenant Kilgore: “I love the smell of Napalm in the morning” and “Ah, the smell of crude oil in the morning” in Mari-Lou Rowley’s poem “In the Tar Sands Going Down” (chapter 4.1.2.).

98 Crowfoot took some earth in one hand and, throwing it into the fire, said the earth would not burn. He then said that if he took money and threw it in the fire, it would burn and disappear. Finally, he said that he would rather keep the earth because it will not burn. (qtd. in Gordon 2015: 110)

The different attitudes towards earth once more emphasise the cultural differences existing between First Nations People and Euro-Canadians. It seems as if Elder Brother wants to tell this story to the oil driver, but he is not given the change as he is interrupted and, again, insulted by the driver who calls him a “moron” (Cariou 2012: 72). In every single dialogue between the driver and Elder Brother, the driver is rendered as rude and even malicious towards his unwelcome visitor. The trickster figure, on the other hand, remains polite and even accommodating, trying to prevent any further conflict. Thus, the reader is likely to empathize with Elder Brother and to condemn the driver’s actions.

In their dialogue, the oil worker continues to praise the development of the oil sands, displaying a highly arrogant and derogatory attitude towards nature and the indigenous population:

We’re gonna burn it, and burn it, and burn it, until we make so much heat that the winter never comes back! And then even you and the rest of your sorry kind won’t be cold anymore. (Cariou 2012:72)

The quote above reveals the driver’s hubris and godlike self-assurance, which is emphasized by the repeated use of an inclusive ‘we’, thus lending him more significance. Furthermore, the lines above also capture the driver’s enthusiasm, representing the whole oil industry, by the three-fold use of “burn it”. The driver’s – and thus, the company’s – self-assurance is increasingly highlighted as the driver is convinced that through their deeds, they are going to expel winter from the Canadian North, a claim which – especially in days of climate change – seems to be extremely provocative. The driver’s arrogance reaches its peak in the final words of the quote given above, as he addresses Elder Brother and First Nations people as a whole as “sorry kind”. Not only could this be regarded as an affront; the driver apparently also aims at presenting his actions, and thus, the oil industry’s actions, as beneficial to First Nations people. That is to say that in the driver’s ideology, which stands for the industry as a whole, the aboriginal population should be grateful towards the oil companies as they are working on easing the living conditions in Northern Alberta.

99 The driver does not stay long with Elder Brother. Their brief encounter ends rather abruptly only a few lines afterwards, when the driver interrupts Elder Brother, starts the engine of his 797 truck and shouts:

Now get off this land! The man yelled as his house roared away. It doesn’t belong to you. Go back to the bush or wherever it was you crawled out from. I’m calling Security right now! (Cariou 2012: 73)

As shown in the quote above and found in many other examples throughout the story, the oil worker, representing the Euro-Canadian way of life, is characterised by aggression (cf. Cariou 2012: 72f.) and disrespectful behaviour concerning both Elder Brother and the natural environment. Cariou uses the two characters to illustrate their different notion of ownership and possession of the land: Elder Brother, who represents the whole of First Nations and Métis People and their mindset, feels related and part of the land, willing to share it. The oil worker, in turn, is disconnected from both land and people. He has no emotional attachment to the land and, as the story suggests, is thus able to exploit it, feeling legitimized to do so because of the company’s deed of ownership. Out of apparent perplexity, the oil worker is quick to threaten Elder Brother with imprisonment and security services (cf. Cariou 2012: 72f.), which might be interpreted as an indicator for weakness and the fact that he cannot explain or justify the development from a reasonable perspective. Along these lines, Gordon claims that “maximizing profit through utilization of land and animal is not rational. The man cannot rationally explain or justify what is happening and quickly resorts to threats and name- calling” (Gordon 2015:111).

The question of property, which is touched upon in the quote above (cf. “It does not belong to you”, Cariou 2012: 73), is a rather delicate issue in relations between First Nations People and Euro-Canadians. In the worldview of First Nations, it is impossible for human beings to ‘own’ a piece of land. Rather, it is shared with other people and living creatures. From a Euro- Canadian perspective, however, the impulse and even desire to ‘own’, and thus to control, land is part of their cultural heritage. Thus, the clash of cultures has led to conflicts for centuries and continues to do so. It may be traced back to the days of the treaties, more

100 precisely, to areas of Northern Alberta which are affected by Treaty 8, including an area of 121,000 square miles (cf. Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada).30

Crystal Lameman, spokeswoman for and member of the Beaver Lake First Nation who lives on Treaty 6 land, accuses the Canadian government of breaking the treaty conditions as it allows oil companies to develop oil resources on treaty land. This land, however, has been home for generations of First Nations People, who find themselves driven off their very land. This, as Lameman argues, contradicts the treaty conditions, which entitle native people to live on and off their lands, to hunt and to fish “for as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the rivers flow” (Lameman 2014: 123).

Cariou’s story, as Gordon observes, “reveals a contradiction between the continuation of pre- treaty means of living and taking up tracts of land for the purpose of burning them” (Gordon 2015: 110). This is particularly reflected in the driver’s demand: “Now get off this land! […] It doesn’t belong to you.” (Cariou 2012: 73)

The driver’s last quote reflects one of the crucial and conflict-ridden differences between First Nations cultures and the Euro-Canadian way of living, i.e. the question of ownership and belonging. Whereas owning a piece of land has been of fundamental importance for a person’s social status in Europe, the notion of owning land is unfamiliar for many indigenous people, as the speaker Crystal Lameman points out in a public speech:

[I]n our language there literally is no word for ownership of land. […] But we can share what our creator has given us that’s what the old people said. (Lameman, qtd. in Peters 2016: 9) or:

30 Treaty 6 was signed in August 1876 at Fort Carlton and September 1876 in Fort Pitt. The treaty declares that all the “Indians” are obliged to “cede” their lands to the queen (cf. Taylor 1985, online). However, the treaty also entitles First Nations to “pursue their avocations of hunting and fishing”. (Taylor 1985, online) Yet, this privilege is subject to regulations from the crown. The treaty also declares that the same land may also be used “at any time” for “public works or buildings, of what nature soever (sic)”. (Taylor 1985, online) As this wording leaves room for interpretation, it comes as no surprise that there have been tensions between First Nations People and the government for decades.

101 The treaty did not speak of owning the land, which nobody can own. (Lameman 2014: 123

Returning to the short story, the character Elder Brother, too, comments on the notion of belonging. For the first time in the story, he is described as “angry” (Cariou 2012: 73) as he wonders: “How could this man tell him that the land wasn’t his? How could this “company” keep all the magical dirt for itself?” (Cariou 2012: 73) This quote also marks a turning point in the story. Furious because of the driver’s arrogance and rudeness, Elder Brother, too, decides to benefit from the bitumen, which is called “the magic dirt” in the story (cf Lake 2012: 73; 74). Almost as an act of defiance, the trickster decides not to leave the lifeless valley, but to move to its center instead. Thus, he waits next to “the moving houses”, i.e. the 797 trucks, for an opportunity to take his share of the bituminous earth. The earth, again, is described as vulnerable, abused victim of the oil development (cf. Lake 2012: 73). Once arrived, Elder Brother, too, violates the earth by digging into the “soft” (Lake 2012: 73) earth. At the same moment, he perceives a wailing voice:

Ayah! A voice said. What are you doing, Elder Brother? Sssshhhhhhh, he answered. I’m taking what’s mine. (Cariou 2012: 73)

Similar to the oil driver, Elder Brother becomes greedy and cannot stop himself from digging deeper and deeper into the earth, thus violating it even more. Even though his instincts tell him to stop, as the strong bituminous smell almost causes him to vomit, he still pushes on, driven by the desire to collect enough bitumen to keep him warm for a year or even longer (cf. Cariou 2012:73f) . Again, the voice tries to stop Elder Brother:

Elder Brother, you’re hurting me! The voice cried out. Not nearly as much as they are, he said […]. (Cariou 2012:73f.)

Defending his actions by letting them appear as less harmful than those of the oil company’s, Elder Brother justifies his change of behaviour. In this scene, earth is not only victimized, but once again anthropomorphised and feminized, and even given a voice to express ‘her’ feelings. Elder Brother, on the other hand, is finally described as content, even proud of his brilliant idea of collecting as much ‘magic dirt’ as he can (cf. Cariou 2012 :74).

102 Elder Brother’s feeling of self-satisfaction is not meant to last long. His greed and willingness to collect more and more bituminous dirt has led him to dig too deep. The trickster eventually finds himself stuck in the earth, unable to move:

He pulled and pulled at the soil, flexing his arms and his legs all at once, but nothing moved. The only thing that happened was his limbs seemed to sink a little deeper into the ground. He grunted and panted, flexed again, shimmied his buttocks for extra oomph. However it didn’t make a bit of difference. (Cariou 2012:74)

Similar to being caught in a swamp, Elder Brother is trapped and cannot get out anymore. This unexpected change of events is further intensified by the author’s next move, the breaking of the fourth wall, as the author directly addresses the reader:

I imagine you can guess how that worked out. Right. It didn’t. Elder Brother was stuck fast in that Athabasca Tar. By this time he couldn’t even move a finger or a toe. (Cariou 2012: 74)

Growing desperate, he screams for help, tries to arouse the yellow truck drivers’ attention, even apologizes to earth: “Help me! I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. I’ll leave now without anything at all” (Cariou 2012: 74). However, the truck drivers either do not notice him, or they do not care for this sorry human being trapped in the oily earth. Earth, too, remains silent. In the following lines, Elder Brother is portrayed as helpless human being deceived by his own greed and now surrounded by a very indifferent nature. Elder Brother is stuck in the earth for two days and, ironically, he is unable to see anything except “the clump of oily dirt his nose was resting on” (Cariou 2012: 74).

On the afternoon of his second day in captivity, the huge 797 trucks draw nearer. Finally, they lift Elder Brother up, but he is not rescued. On the contrary, Elder Brother is thrown onto the truck together with the oily earth, “encased there in the tar as if he was a fossil” (Cariou 2012:75) and transported to the “big house” (cf. Cariou 2012: 72), which is the refinery, at last. Using the strategy of irony, the author comments on Elder Brother’s initial wish to warm up again: “And inside the refinery he was made very warm indeed.” (Cariou 2012:75)

Being a trickster figure, Elder Brother is immortal and thus does not die. Yet, as the author concludes, he is still not set free:

103 He’s still alive even now, after everything he’s been through. It’s true that people don’t see him much anymore, but sometimes when you’re driving your car and you press hard on the accelerator, you might hear a knocking, rattling sound deep in the bowels of the machine. That’s Elder Brother, trying to get your attention, begging you to let him out. (Cariou 2012: 75)

Again breaking the fourth wall, the reader is directly addressed and thus involved in the story. The surprising end is likely to have a disturbing effect on the reader: indirectly, the author Cariou holds his readership accountable for what happened to Elder Brother. According to the ending of the story, everybody who drives a car is connected to the very oil industry and thus to the destruction of habitat and displacement of First Nations People in Northern Alberta and Saskatchewan. The chosen wording of “begging you to let him out” seems to represent despair and the urgent need for a large-scale rethinking of values defining the consumer society. Critic Gordon, who defines oil development as “a form of torture to the earth” (Gordon 2015:113) interprets the story’s end differently. In his view, the story urges people living in the present to be aware that even though we as humans are mortal, “our actions cause pain to our relations who cannot die, to those who will be left to continue on after the Anthropocene ends” (Gordon 2015: 113).

104 4.2.2. “The Angel of the Tar Sands” (1982) by Rudy Wiebe

Another example for a short story dealing with the oil/tar sands in Northern Alberta is “The Angel of the Tar Sands” by Rudy Wiebe. It was published in his volume of short stories The Angel of the Tar Sands and Other Stories (1982) and is, in fact, a ‘super-short short story’, covering only four pages. Yet, it is rich in meaning and leaves ample room for interpretation, or, to quote Gordon, it is “calling attention to what is left unspoken by the dominant narrative of technological progress” (Gordon 2015: 19) Similarly, Jonathan Kreutzer explains that “The Angel of the Tar Sands” demonstrates “how the matter-of-fact must yield to the marvellous” (qtd. in Gordon 2015: 20). This effect is achieved by a reversal of power: intellectual capacity and ‘technological rationality’31 are silenced by supernatural and religious motives, at least on a short-term basis, as shall be shown in this chapter.

Set in the oil/tar sands to the north of Fort McMurray, the landscape surrounding town is portrayed as vivid, vast and teeming with life. In contrast to all-powerful nature, the presence of the oil industry’s plants appears to be vanishingly small, as can be seen in the passage below:

Spring had most certainly, finally, come. The morning drive to the plant from Fort McMurray was so dazzling with fresh green against heavy spruce, the air so unearthly bright that it swallowed the smoke from the candy-striped chimneys as if it did not exist. Which is just lovely, the superintendent thought, cut out the visible crud, shut up the environmentalists. (Wiebe 1982: 188)

By using contrasting imagery, the narrator subtly informs the reader about the industry’s impact on the environment from the beginning: at first glance, as the quote above suggests, the industry’s fumes and the pollution vanish into the air without causing any harm. However, the reader is already made aware of conflicts existing in the area too, as can be seen by the mentioning of the conservationists and the superintendent’s wish for them to keep silent. The superintendent, who is, obviously, not an environmentalist, is portrayed in rather negative terms throughout the story, which

31 According to Jacques Ellul and the critics Kowalsky and HaluzaDeLay, technology has shaped and changed our society, permeating all aspects of living, thus pushing ethics and moral values to the margin. As our lifestyle depends on the use of modern technology, it has become part of our identity as “techno- logical beings” (Kowalsky and HaluzaDeLay 2015: 76). Therefore, criticizing development or technology, especially in the oil/tar sands, equals criticism of one’s identity and is thus considered as irrational.

105 can be seen by the author’s choice of words (e.g. “quickly annoyed”, “swearing”, “yelling”, Wiebe 1982: 188). Thus, the author directs the reader towards a critical perspective of the oil industry from the start.

On the content level, the superintendent rushes into his office only to be interrupted by Tak, the Japanese-Canadian day operator who informs his boss about an unusual finding in the industrial area. Annoyed by the likelihood of a delay in the oil production, the superintendent fears financial loss, which might explain his reluctance and impatience. Along these lines, Gordon states: “The production of oil is of tantamount importance so that any other story is too costly to listen to.” (Gordon 2015: 22) The superintendent, annoyed by the threat of a complete shut-down, unwillingly rushes to the site of the unusual discovery, where Beth, another oil worker, carefully excavates what at first glance seems to be a body. The superintendent is shocked and taken aback, as the mysterious finding brought into the light of the day are not the remains of a dinosaur, but is, “plain as the day now, tucked tight into the oozing black cliff, an angel” (Wiebe 1982: 189).

The surprising, other-worldly discovery leaves Tak, Bertha and the superintendent in a state of shock. Its surreal appearance leads to a reversal of power, as the superintendent, Bertha’s and Tak’s boss, is suddenly portrayed as humble. He falls onto his knees and is deprived of his authority due to the angel’s presence, “feeling like an altar boy, the angel suspended above him” (Wiebe 1982: 189). He is even unable to build sentences, stuttering and rambling incoherent Latin words once heard during a mass. The superintendent’s loss of language is more than a mere silence, but rather “suggests a failure of reason, an inability to comprehend something beyond the rational understanding of bitumen mining as oriented toward human ends: fuelling the economy, feeding the human needs” (Gordon 2015: 21). The appearance of the angel belongs to the supernatural and irrational; moreover, the fact that this creature belongs to the sphere of religion is inexplicable and thus leaves the superintendent, who up until this point solely believes in scientific evidence and numbers, baffled. Bertha, on the other side, grew up in a Hutterite colony and is thus familiar with the Bible. She is the first to recover her voice and, reminded of the Book of Isaiah, she explains that the creature in front of them is seraphim, an angel with three sets of wings.32 The superintendent, “overwhelmed by the unscientific shape uncovered there so blatantly”, fails to put his thoughts into words (Wiebe 1982: 189). In contrast to him, the angel moves and suddenly begins to speak: “[t]he

32 The Bible differentiates between different types of angels, e.g. archangels, cherubims, powers, virtues, etc. Those who are closest to God and who are circling around his throne are called seraphims, meaning ‘fiery serpents’.

106 voice rumbled like a thunder, steadily on” (Wiebe 1982: 189). Thus, this seraphim does not fit the stereotypical idea of a bright, friendly angel, but radiates danger and anger, which can be seen by the description of its voice “rumbling like a thunder” or the description of its glance: “the obsidian eye of the angel glared directly at him and it roared something, dreadfully” (Wiebe 1982: 190).

Bertha is the only one to understand the seraphim’s words as it speaks Hutterite German (cf. Wiebe 1982: 190). The content of the angel’s sermon, however, remains unknown to the reader and thus “its words are an absence, a silence in the text” (Gordon 2015: 21). Bertha carefully listens to the angel’s sermon, yet, as much as she tries, she is unable to recount or even translate the angel’s words to English, helplessly stuttering: “‘I… I can’t…’ Bertha confessed to it at last, ‘I can understand every word you… every word, but I can’t say, I’ve forgotten...’” (Wiebe 1982: 190) Without the Bible’s subtext, Bertha’s inability to repeat or translate the words into English or speak can be interpreted as a state of shock or horror. However, when considering the scriptural passage mentioned in the text, Isaiah 6, Bertha’s inability to repeat or translate the angel’s words is given a deeper significance: in the scripture, Isaiah sees god on his heavenly throne. As seeing god with one’s own eyes is regarded as a sin, Isaiah, who speaks of himself as “man of unclean lips” living “among people of unclean lips” (Isaiah 69), volunteers to become a servant of God, who instructs Isaiah in the following way:

Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ 10 Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes [...]. 11 Then I [=Iesaiah] said, “For how long, Lord?” And he answered: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged, 12 until the LOrd has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken. 13 And though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste. But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land. (Isaiah: 6; 8-14)

107 To a certain extent, the story’s character Bertha shows parallels to Isaiah: like Isaiah, she is a messenger who is sent to Tak and the superintendent, who both represent the public. Yet, while Bertha is able to hear the seraphim’s words, she fails to pass on its message, thus impeding a change of thinking in her colleague and boss, while also – keeping the intertextual reference to the Bible in mind – fulfilling God’s order (e.g. “Make the heart of this people calloused / make their ears dull and close their eyes [...]”, see quote above), which results in a dystopian vision of Alberta’s north. Considering climate change and a growing number of natural disasters as side effects, “ruined cities, deserted houses, ruined and ravaged fields”, as mentioned in the quote above, have already become reality. Keeping Isaiah 6 in mind, Bertha’s inability to pass on the information suggests that the destruction of the environment will continue until “the land is utterly forsaken” (Isaiah: 6;12).

However, the reader never gets to know the content of the angel’s speech, but it stands to reason that it includes criticism or even warnings about the development of the Alberta oil industry, as Bertha quits her job immediately after the angel has disappeared into the sky: “I quit, she said. Right this minute.” (Wiebe 1982: 191) Thus, as Gordon claims, Bertha represents “the possibility to choose to change our relationship to bitumen: walk away or continue to sacrifice” (Gordon 2015: 21). While she chooses to distance herself from her job, and, in a metaphorical sense, from a lifestyle based on the consumption of oil, Tak and the superintendent choose to stay. With the seraphim gone, the superintendent slowly finds his voice and regains his power. While sympathising with Bertha’s decision to quit, (“Of course, I understand”, Wiebe 1982: 191), he simultaneously instructs Tak to remove the angel’s imprints in the sand as fast as possible. Bertha, who seems to be relieved, adds for consideration: “It doesn’t matter how fast you do it […] It was there, we saw it.” (Wiebe 1982: 191) Thus, she reveals the superintendent’s wish to erase not only the angel’s imprints, but also its memory in order to forget the incident and to continue as if nothing happened. In her comment (“we saw it”), Gordon sees a reference to the infamous incident on Syncrude’s tailing pond which has already been mentioned in other texts discussed in the thesis,33 when thousands of ducks died as they landed on poisonous waste water: “People were presented with images of death and suffering on a relatable scale clearly and directly tied to bitumen extraction and associated industrial activity.” (Gordon 2015: 22)

As Tak removes the angel’s imprints in the sand, the superintendent has a vision of Alberta’s north:

33 See also chapter 4.3.4. Highway 63 – The Fort Mac Show and chapter 4.1.3. “Reading Wordsworth in the Tar Sands”.

108 He saw like an opened book the immense curves of the Athabasca River swinging through wilderness down from the glacial pinnacles of the Rocky Mountains […], and all the surface of the earth was gone, the Tertiary and the Lower Cretaceous layers of strata had been ripped away and the thousands of square miles of bituminous sand were exposed, laid open, slanting down into the molten centre of the earth, O misere, misere, the words sang in his head and he felt their meaning though he could not have explained them, much less remembered Psalm 51, and after a time he could open his eyes and lift his head. (Wiebe 1982: 191)

In his vision, the superintendent foresees the future the Athabasca river valley in northern Alberta. He is aware that a continued development and the thorough exploitation of the bituminous resources will lead to a devastated landscape as described in the quote above. The choice of words, combined with the passive structure, underlines the depiction of a victimized earth, which is described like an animal killed by beasts of prey (“strata had been ripped away and thousands of square miles of bituminous sands were exposed laid open”), while the fire-imagery (“slanting down into the molten centre of the earth”) which has been used throughout the story (e.g. the mentioning of the plant’s chimneys that swallow the industry’s smoke or the seraphim) culminates in the superintendent’s hell-like vision of the oil/tar sands. While the superintendent is aware of the region’s future, he is also aware of his own responsibility and role in it. Again, the author uses the Bible as a subtext to add a further layer of meaning by mentioning Psalm 51, in which David asks God for mercy and for forgiveness for his sins:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, [...] [...] 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. (Psalm 51)

In the context of the short story, the reference to the psalm is particularly meaningful as it underlines the superintendent’s discomfort or even sense of guilt for the environmental degradation caused by the industry. Subconsciously, he is aware of the destruction that goes hand-in-hand with

109 the development of the bituminous sands and he knows that he is a small cog in the big machine of the oil industry. The quote above suggests that while he “feels” that the development is not right, he is – like Bertha – unable to put his feeling into words and thus into action for a rethinking (“he could not have explained them”). Thus, the superintendent is incapable of conceiving the oil industry’s consequences on a rational level, but his intuition tells him that something is wrong. While Bertha dares to listen to her feeling and thus quits her job, the superintendent suppresses his intuition. After his vision is over, the superintendent opens his eyes and is relieved that everything seems to be as it used to be before the seraphim’s unexpected appearance:

The huge plant, he knew every bolt and pipe, still sprawled between him and the river; the brilliant air still swallowed the smoke from all the red-striped chimneys as if it did not exist; and he knew that through a thousand secret openings the oil ran there, gurgling in each precisely numbered pipe and jointure, sweet and clear like golden brown honey. (Wiebe 1982: 191)

With the angel gone, the superintendent finds himself reassured as, to him, the present situation resembles the starting point. By the mentioning of “each precisely numbered pipe and jointure”, the author stresses the superintendent’s trust in rationality, technology and accuracy and “the efficient mastery of nature” (Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay 2015: 75). By euphemizing oil as “golden brown honey” (Wiebe 1982: 191) he evokes the idealised picture of Western Canada as a land with an abundance of resources, “flowing with milk and honey” (Francis and Kitzan 2007: x) only waiting to be exploited by settlers, a myth which attracted thousands of European migrants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the first place. The image of honey thus represents the abundance of bitumen locked in the ground, promising wealth to those who work for the industry and comfort to those whose lives are based on the daily consumption of oil products. The superintendent’s illusion is quickly destroyed by Bertha, who, in the story’s final lines, tells Tak: “Next time you’ll recognize it […] And then it’ll talk Japanese.” (Wiebe 1982: 191) Thus, Bertha suggests that once the nonrational, or to put it in Gordon’s words, “the divine” (Gordon 2015: 21) is accepted in people’s lives, it will provide food for thought and the possibility for a rethinking of values. Yet, the short story suggests that the majority of people, as exemplified in the superintendent or Tak, fail to understand their own short-sightedness, which comes as no surprise as Kowalsky and Haluza- DeLay argue: “The active neglect of environmental ethics [which is personified in the character of the superintendent] is the result of a technological mindset that has come to increasingly dominate the globe”(Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay 2015: 96) and which is particularly present in northern Alberta.

110 With his short story, the author Rudy Wiebe portrays that while the oil industry’s impact on the environment of Alberta’s north cannot be seen immediately, its large scale industrial development inevitably transforms and alters the environment, leading to the formation of a place hostile to life in the long run. Wiebe, whose work is strongly informed by his Mennonite background, typically includes religious motifs into his work (cf. Athabasca University 2015, online). In “The Angel of the Tar Sands”, he uses the figure of the seraphim to represent “the divine” (Gordon 2015: 21) and the nonrational and supernatural, both areas which that have been silenced by our society based on technology, profit and continuous growth. Tak and the superintendent represent the broad mass of Western society who live in a world of a dominant “technological rationality” (Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay 2015: 76), meaning that they come to rely on rationality and technology rather than on their ethics and their own intuition, which is widely considered as “subjective, misinformed, inefficient, and irrational” (Kowalsky and HaluzaDeLay 2015: 87). Thus, the preference and high status of technology within society makes it easy for the superintendent to block out the seraphim’s appearance and his own vision. Similarly, Kevin Garrison claims that “modern techno-logic is a continued move toward rationalizing all aspects of human life, placing those aspects within a technical sphere, and destroying all possibilities for thinking or acting outside that sphere” (Garrison, quoted in Kowalsky and HaluzaDeLay 2015: 82). Therefore, the superintendent cannot but ignore the ‘irrational’ signs and Tak, too, cannot help but fulfil commands as if nothing happened. Nevertheless, the story offers the reader an alternative which is manifest in the character of Bertha. Using Bertha as a foil, the author stresses that there are some who do understand the problematic nature of a lifestyle that is based on the burning of oil.

Wiebe’s short story “The Angel of the Tar Sands” is an excellent example for “literature as imaginative counter-discourse” (Zapf 2017: 108) as it provides the floor for the recognition of supernatural and religious/transcendental phenomena which are often neglected and excluded from the dominant discourse in a capitalist society. Moreover, Wiebe’s short story may also be considered as an example of “literature as reintegrative discourse” as it combines utterly different characters: the “techno-logical” (Kowalsky and HaluzaDeLay 2015: 76) superintendent and the other-worldly seraphim. Whereas their encounter does not lead to a solution or a moment of epiphany in the superintendent, it is Bertha’s reaction – her notice of termination after her encounter with the angel – which represents the possibility for change, for “self-corrections and potential new beginnings” not only within the story, but also “in its interaction with the reader” (Zapf 2017: 115).

111 4.2.3. “Leo: A Fairytale” (2011) by Robi Smith

Written by the Vancouver-based artist, educator and writer Robi Smith on the occasion of ReMixed 2011, an annual art exhibition in Vancouver which focussed on fairy tales that year, “Leo – A Fairytale” meets many of the above mentioned formal requirements, such as brevity, flat characters, clear dichotomies between the forces of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, the main character’s proximity to nature and his ability to communicate with the natural word. On her homepage, Robi Smith explains her motifs for writing a fairy tale on the Canadian oil/tar sands in the following words:

I wrote and illustrated this fairytale in response to my own grief about the short- sightedness and greed at the heart of the Alberta tar sands, and the greater and greater environmental devastation it’s causing every day. What story could I tell that would explain what is happening and offer a glimmer of hope for the future? The fairytale format allowed me to make believe and come up with a nice clean fix with my magic wand! (Smith, online)

In only seven pages, the plot evolves around Leo, both protagonist and hero of the short fairy tale. Starting with the typical opening “Once upon a time” (Smith 2011: 1), the reader is introduced to the world of Leo. Like any true fairy tale hero, he seeks adventure, encounters danger and proves his courage. The content of the fairy tale is quickly told: The protagonist Leo lives in a small village which is situated next to an old forest. The town’s proximity to the forest, representing the natural world, serves as ideal setting for a fairy tale. Leo’s home, the small village, is part of a kingdom ruled by a king who suddenly became greedy after a visit from businessmen from abroad. Clearly, the king is the fairy tale’s villain and Leo serves as his antagonist. The king’s behaviour is meant to resemble former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his wide-reaching influence on the development on the oil/tar sands (cf. Smith 2019, email). Furthermore, the foreign businessmen and the king’s workers are meant to illustrate “the evil external influences” (Smith 2019, email), which refer to the multitude of foreign oil companies in Northern Alberta in real life. From the beginning, the reader is aware of the fairy tale’s dichotomy: the king represents the villain, the evil, whereas Leo, an innocent child, serves as hero, representing good forces. As Robi Smith also illustrated her fairy tale, some significant drawings will be added to demonstrate how the author uses visual elements to facilitate the reader’s understanding and to provide additional evocative images that support and expand on the verbally transmitted story.

112 The king, whose castle strongly resembles the parliament building in Ottawa (see image 10), decides to cut down the forest due to the precious oil that is caught in the sandy floors. Leon witnesses the destruction of the forest and the nature surrounding him, realising that the air suddenly smells “of oil and gas” (Smith 2011: 2). The citizens feel increasingly uncomfortable and disturbed by the ongoing destruction:

Fig. 10: Leo and the King's Castle

“Day and night, all the villagers could hear the sounds of enormous trucks moving earth and drilling holes.” (Smith 2011: 2) Also, the drinking water has changed its colour and is no longer pure and fresh, but murky and polluted (cf. Smith 2011: 2). Then, Leo’s mum “turns “painfully ill. She had a mysterious disease the doctors could not name, let alone cure. She became sicker and sicker” (Smith 2011: 3). In the context of rare and uncommon illnesses, it is very likely that Smith hints at the unusually high number of cancer patients who live in the immediate vicinity of the oil/tar sands. By sickening the protagonist’s mother, Smith tackles the delicate issue of a growing number of cancer patients in Northern Alberta, a device frequently found in other genres of petro-literature.34 Yet, the reader does not learn which disease threatens to kill Leo’s mother, thereby allowing room for interpretation and ambiguity, which are both characteristic elements of fictitious, literary texts.

34 See, for example chapter 4.1.2. “In the Tar Sands, Going Down” by Mari-Lou Rowley, chapter 4.3.2. The Bears (2012) by Katie Welch and chapter 4.3.3. Hawk (2016) by Jennifer Dance.

113 Due to his mother’s serious illness, Leo is deeply concerned and has the same recurring dream every night: he meets the animals of the forest who tell him of “the evil spell that the King has been put under” (Smith 2011: 3) and that he would destroy the whole forest to get hold of the oil trapped in the floor below. Thus, following the typical fairy tale pattern (cf. Zipes 2015, online), the main character, Leo, is presented with a seemingly insoluble problem and situation: in Leo’s case, his challenge is to stop the king and the evil forces from destroying their forest and environment. Including another typical element of the fairy tale, Leo’s allies are not fellow human beings, but rather the animals of the forest. They encourage Leo to visit them in the remaining part of the forests and to bring an elixir to the king, an elixir which would disperse the king’s curse, stop the destruction and pollution and ultimately also save his mother’s life. Again, Smith inserts another typical fairy-tale element, – the elixir, a magic potion which is meant to “bring about miraculous change” and which “the [p]rotagonist makes use of […] to achieve his […] goal” (Zipes 2015, online).

Leo is afraid, but as he continues to have the same dream every night, he decides to take the risk. He starts his journey all by himself, thus displaying a significant amount of courage and bravery when he ventures into the dark forest where he soon meets the other protagonists: “a black bear, a deer, a family of snowshoe rabbits, a woodchuck, a gray wolf” (Smith 2011: 4). They give him the ingredients for the elixir. Leo carefully mixes these ingredients and returns to his village with the elixir in his backpack. His mission is to travel to the king’s castle, which is surrounded by the moon-like landscape of the tar sands. It is also surrounded by a thick moat, posing an insurmountable barrier. Following the instructions of the animals, Leo empties the elixir into that swampy water which immediately transforms from a murky, liquid into crystal clear drinking water. Surprised, the guards show the change to the king who immediately reacts. With the spell broken, the king commands that the “natural order” must be restored as soon as possible, and his greed has disappeared too. Back home, Leo puts the last drops of the elixir into their water cooler.

After drinking clean, fresh water, Leo’s mum recovers and the forest, too, returns to the village. As Zipes writes: “The success of the protagonist usually leads to marriage and wealth. Sometimes simple survival and acquisition of important knowledge based on experience form the ending of the tale.” (Zipes 2015, online) It is thus no surprise that “Leo” ends shortly after the mother’s recovery. Although very short, this tale contains many of the typical fairy tale elements, such as a king, a villain, talking animals, the protagonist’s ability to talk to animals, the journey, magical potions and a happy end.

114 4.2.4 The Thematic and Aesthetic Impact of Petro-Short Fiction – A Résumé

In my analysis of Canadian petro-short-fiction, I have tried to reveal different, genre-specific strategies applied to mediate the topicality and intricacy of the Alberta oil industry to a wider readership. In the following, I shall provide a compact résumé of the main literary strategies applied to induce a critical thinking about the Alberta oil/tar sands in the reader.

The supernatural Supernatural powers and religious elements feature prominently in the stories analyzed in the previous chapters. The seraphim in Wiebe’s “The Angel of the Tar Sands”, Elder Brother as trickster figure in “An Athabasca Story”, and Leo’s elixir and his ability to talk to animals in “Leo – A Fairy Tale” introduce the reader to a world in which the impossible becomes possible. These stories make deliberate use of transcendental and spiritual phenomena, elements which are usually ridiculed or neglected in modern society and which create fear and unease in the human protagonists, eventually also leading to a reversal of power. Wiebe’s “The Angel of the Tar Sands”, in particular, demonstrates the characters’ helplessness when confronted with seemingly illogical, miraculous figures, leading to a loss of language, stuttering, and panic. Alternatively, the truck driver, Elder Brother’s antagonist in “An Athabasca Story”, turns to abusive language and threats (see, for example. Cariou 2012: 71), which also represent a loss of control. By means of these conditions, the authors visualize the finite nature of man’s influence, thereby illustrating nature’s superiority and mankind’s inferiority in the long run.

Native culture The use of Native elements allows the reader to gain insights into First Nations culture. The juxtaposition of both First Nations and Euro-Canadian manners of life invites the reader to compare these two very different philosophies, for example with regards to the notion of property and (un-) sustainable land use. This comparison further reveals significant differences, thereby guiding the reader’s sympathy towards an appreciation of First Nations Culture, while also foregrounding the negative aspects of a predominantly profit-oriented society. This strategy is particularly noticeable in “An Athabasca Story”, in which Elder Brother represents traditional First Nations Culture. His antagonist, the truck driver, symbolizes development and the oil industry. Their depiction could not diverge more as Elder Brother’s politeness clashes with the truck driver’s aggression.

115

Another typically Native characteristic feature used in “An Athabasca Story” is Elder Brother himself, a trickster figure that surprises the reader due to his unpredictable defiance of rules, his seemingly naive approach towards life and his shifting of shape. Elder Brother visualizes the key differences between Native and Euro-Canadian culture, while, as his name suggests, representing the traditional, pre-contact philosophy of First Nations People. Due to his good nature, combined with recklessness and a respectful demeanour even towards his opponents, the reader is likely to sympathize with Elder Brother, while feeling repelled by the oil industry’s arrogance and self- assurance.

Cognitive estrangement In both short stories every-day situations are depicted in a strongly alienated context. This has a puzzling effect on the reader and leads to defamiliarization, thus also prompting the reader to examine modern society’s traditions and his/her individual consumerist behaviour.

Sensory level By also appealing to the reader’s senses (“You can tell that by the smell of the air around here. Just like napalm in the morning!”, Cariou 2012: 72), the authors manage to create both curiosity and disgust, thereby adding yet another layer of meaning as quotes also refer to popular movies (e.g. Apocalypse Now!) or other literary texts (cf. Mari-Lou Rowley’s poem “In the Tar Sands, Going Down”).

Historical references Historical references hidden within the stories add yet another layer to the already complex web of meanings, as for example the burning of earth in Cariou’s story, which refers to Chief Crowfoot and the Treaty 7 negotiations. Also, certain characters are meant to represent certain types familiar from real life or even particular politicians, as for example the king in “Leo – A Fairytale”, who symbolizes former prime minister Stephen Harper (cf Smith, email).

116 Breaking the fourth wall

Similar to some petro-poems, the narrative voice might also directly address the reader, such as in “An Athabasca Story” (cf. Cariou 2012: 74). As a result, the reader is directly involved in the story and feels urged to position him/herself between these two conflicting cultures.

Flat characters

Contingent on their genre-specific brevity, the stories rely on flat characters and clear dichotomies between ‘good’ and ‘evil’. Particularly “Leo: A Fairytale” introduces the reader to these stereotypical characters: ‘good’ characters are those who oppose the industry, while the ‘evil’ characters support the industrial development of Northern Alberta. In comparison to the ‘good’ characters who live in harmony with nature, characters representing the oil industry are depicted as greedy, rude, non-reflective, and disrespectful, as can be seen both in “An Athabasca Story” and “The Angel of the Tar Sands”.

Disease Cancer and other serious diseases are presumed to be an unwelcome side-effect of the oil/tar sands industry. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that literary texts dealing critically with the oil industry deliberately use the topic to appeal to the reader’s emotions, thereby leading to a disapproval of the oil production. In “Leo – A Fairytale”, Leo, the young protagonist, is confronted with his mother’s serious illness. Without naming the disease, the reader is likely to identify the illness with cancer, as the industry’s exhaust fumes and its pollution of soil and water has led to an increased number of cancer patients in Northern Alberta, thereby shedding a negative light on the development on the oil/tar sands.

Illustrations

In “Leo – A Fairy Tale”, evocative illustrations support and expand on the verbally transmitted story.

117 4.3. Petro-Novels

About a hundred years ago, Canadian novels were widely considered as unpopular, as Harvard Professor Douglas Bush claimed: “No-one reads a Canadian novel unless by mistake” (Bush qtd. in Löschnigg and Löschnigg 2019: 9). In addition to Ghosh’s observed lack of the petro-novel in general (see chapter 3.3.2. “Petrocultures and Petroliterature”), this negative attitude resulted in a particularly difficult starting position for the Canadian petro-novel. However, the following chapter aims at refuting Bush’s and Ghosh’s propositions insofar as three powerful and distinct Canadian petro-novels will be presented. Each of these novels features a unique narrative situation and point of departure, while belonging to and/or borrowing elements from climate fiction, the coming of age novel, young adult literature, the gothic novel or the eco-thriller, thus depicting the petro-novel as a particularly hybrid form of contemporary petro-literature.

Mikhail Bakhtin once described the novel as “a diversity of social speech types, sometimes even diversity of languages and a diversity of individual voices, artistically organized” (Bakhtin 1981 [1941]: 262). This observation certainly holds true for the petro-novel, in which not only different opinions, for example those of supporters and opponents of the industry, but also languages (Native languages, English, French, and ‘animal languages’) collide. Similarly, Ejxenbaum defines the novel, in comparison to short fiction, as follows: “[T]he story is a problem in posing a single equation with one unknown; the novel is a problem involving various rules and soluble with a whole system of equations with various unknowns in which the intermediary steps are more important than the final answer” (Boris Ejxenbaum, quoted in Patea 2012: 9). It is exactly the novel’s complexity and variety of topics and modes which contributes to its popularity “even in an age of visual and digitial media” as Johns-Putra argues, thus making it an “enduringly popular art form” (Johns-Putra 2018: 7).

Up to that point in time, there is no authoritative definition of the petro-novel and it seems to be impossible to speak of the petro-novel as such. Rather, a wide variety of different approaches has led to a highly diversified, multi-faceted sub-genre with fuzzy boundaries, sharing many (obvious) parallels to cli-fi, which is “usually limited to works reflecting scientific knowledge of the effects of fossil fuel consumption and the resulting increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations” (Goodbody 2020: 132). Yet, cli-fi itself cannot be described as a genre of its own (cf. Goodbody 2020: 136), but also borrows elements from different genres.

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As environmental issues and climate change have become omnipresent in public discourse, it thus comes as no surprise that a growing number of cli-fi novels has recently been released. However, Goodbody observes a “striking disjunction between cognitive knowledge and willingness to act” (Goodbody 2020: 132), a phenomenon which Amitav Ghosh calls “‘the great derangement’ of our time” (Ghosh, qtd. in Goodbody 2020: 132), and which can also be compared to Seymour’s notion of “doomsday fatigue” (see chapter 3.1. “Ecocriticism and the Need for Ecological Genres”). This observation once more emphasizes why writers are challenged to find ever new forms of approaching conflicting issues, e.g. our society’s dependence on oil, in their novels in order to reach out to their readers and to create both the much-needed awareness and the willingness for change in their readership.

Due to their substantial overlap – as climate change is considered the result of the massive combustion of fossil fuels – petro-novels share many characteristic features with cli-fi which “extrapolates from present trends and speculates with varying degrees of realism and fantasy, often conveying a measure of factual information in the process” (Goodbody 2020: 132). Other similarities found both in petro-novels and cli-fi, are among others, “the apocalyptic mode, which is associated with a strategy of warning by arousing fear” (Goodbody 2020: 135), or the pastoral, which “seeks to facilitate grieving and motivate resistance by making us aware of the value of what is being lost” (Goodbody 2020: 135). To meaningfully contribute to the present discussion of climate change in public awareness, “novels must depart from the traditional near-exclusive focus on human characters and their actions, either by depicting the limits of human agency, or by conveying nature’s agency” (Goodbody 2020: 138).

Environmental issues, climate change and the problems arising in an oil-addicted society have also found their way into young adult literature. The teenage protagonist, often characterized as innocent human being (cf. Stemmann 2018: 283), is presented in contrast to the adult world and is confronted with an increasingly destroyed environment. As opposed to the world of grown-ups, the teenager appears to be more sensitive to both environmental and social injustice. The need for change, the quest of identity and the unwillingness to accept present society have always been topics relevant for young adult literature. However, since the beginning of the twenty-first century in particular, an ongoing process towards hybridization of the genre of young adult literature has been observed: young adult literature is not only read by teenagers, but also by an older, more mature readership, a

119 trend which is also called “All-Age” or “Crossover-Literature” (Stemmann 2018: 283), which offers authors an additional opportunity to mediate their message.

Young adult literature also typically includes coming-of-age stories, featuring a main character in his/her mid-teens who is confronted with the challenges of maturation, acculturation, loss of innocence or a quest for the purpose of life (cf. Stemmann 2018: 280f). As young adult literature is influenced by many sub-genres and modes, it is considered “a meta-genre” (Stemmann 2018: 281), featuring topoi such as an endangered environment, destroyed nature, and climate change (cf. Stemmann 2018: 282), issues which also figure particularly prominently in petroliterature.

When considering the depiction of nature in the petro-novel, opposing forms of representation become visible, as more often than not, nature is victimized and exploited. However, some petro- novels portray nature as the great sublime, which is also the key element of the gothic novel. In these novels, unfamiliar, sublime and powerful nature forces human protagonists to reposition themselves in an altered environment, thereby also forcing them to a rethinking of their own, human position and reminding them of their own, limited scope of possibility (cf. Kluwick 2018: 185). Confronted with nature’s power and their own, human insignificance, the gothic novel’s protagonists are left to shudder with fear. The hierarchy between man and nature is reversed, and in the end, human beings are forced to bend and to bow to nature’s supremacy (cf. Kluwick 2018: 187- 188), an element which will also be explored in the following chapter.

Against the initial odds, Canadian petro-novels have proven to be a valuable contribution to Canada’s literary history and cultural heritage. As has been outlined in this short subchapter, and will be explored in detail in the following chapters, the petro-novel is a particularly modern, hybrid art form which borrows characteristic elements of other sub-genres, thereby making it particularly attractive for a large, diversified readership.

120 4.3.1. Long Change (2015) by Don Gillmor

Don Gillmor is a renowned Canadian journalist, children’s book author and novelist who received several awards for his outstanding contributions in the fields of environmental-, business-, or travel- journalism, for his children’s books, as for example, The Boy Who Ate the World (2008) or The Time Time Stopped (2011) (cf. Gillmor, online.), as well as for his pieces of nonfiction35. Gillmor’s latest novel Long Change (2015) combines fiction with historical facts and autobiographical material: when Gillmor was a student at the University of Calgary in the 1970s, he used to work as a roughneck in the Alberta oil/tar sands himself during the summer months. In an interview, Gillmor explains that ever since he graduated from university, he wanted to write a book about the oil business (cf. CBC Radio-Canada 2016, online). As a student, he was drawn to this “terrible, dirty and dangerous job” (cf. CBC Radio-Canada 2016, online) out of monetary reasons. Yet, he claims that he was also intrigued by the “subculture” (Volmers 2015, online) of the oil workers, which he describes in the following: “[…] it was that whole ethos you saw in the oilfields – driving around in pickup trucks, listening to mournful country music – it was a really interesting place.” (Volmers 2015, online) After university, however, Gillmor was occupied with other projects, but the idea of accomplishing a novel about the oil industry remained in the back of his mind. When he read a newspaper article about an oilman being shot by his alcohol dependent wife in their Calgary home in 1995, he felt the urge to write that very novel: “When I saw that piece, I always thought there was something of a civic zeitgeist wrapped up in this. […] I mentally filed that story. I always thought it seemed like a quintessentially Calgary story in some ways. When I sat down to write that book, I wrote that scene.” (Gillmor, quoted in Volmers 2015, online)

Apart from his own personal relation to the Alberta oil industry, another incentive to write a novel about the oil industry was oil’s significance for modern society. In an interview, Gillmor even compares oil to “the only world religion we have, really, because it is the only thing that binds all those otherwise warring countries, because it is involved in so many things we consume, not just energy, but all the manufacturing things, that it really permeates almost every life on the planet” (CBC Radio-Canada, 2016). Similarly, the critic Imre Szeman argues that “[o]il is a substance whose impact has left traces everywhere” (Szeman 2012: 3). Regarding the current omnipresence of

35 This chapter has been published in a slightly modified version as Melanie Braunecker (2019). “Drilling for Oil with No Holds Barred: Don Gillmor’s Long Change (2015)”. In: Maria Löschnigg and Martin Löschnigg, eds. The Anglo-Canadian Novel in the Twenty-First Century. Interpretations. Anglistische Forschungen. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter. 466: 105-112.

121 oil and its impact on society and economy in the Canadian context, it seems surprising that there is hardly a Canadian novel dealing with the Alberta tar/oil sands. Thus, the journalist David Berry wonders in his article “If oil is so central to our identity, where is our petro-lit?” why no approved author before Gillmor dared to write about the Alberta oil industry. (Berry 2015, online; cf. chapter 3.2. “Petrocultures and Petroliterature”) The need for a novel focussing on the oil industry has already been certified by the writer and critic Amitav Ghosh in his influential essay “Petrofictions” in 1992, albeit in the American context (cf. Macdonald 2012: 7). Ghosh tried to explain the apparent absence of oil as a topic in Northern American literature, among other reasons, by the hidden production of oil and the disinterest of oil companies to inform the citizens about mining methods. The average person did not and still does not know how exactly oil is produced, and the rigs are not open to the general public. It seems particularly odd that our society has become dependent on a resource whose production methods seem to be familiar only to an ‘elite’ who works in the very industry. Similarly, Macdonald explains, “oil’s entire infrastructure ensures a level of corporate and political hush, supplemented by peripheral extraction sites distant from most metropolitan population centers” (Macdonald 2012: 3), which is definitely true for the Alberta oil/tar sands.36 Yet, it could be argued that many years have passed since Amitav Ghosh’s essay, and that, today, “we are no longer as blind as we once may have been to the simple fact that oil matters, and matters a great deal” (Szeman 2012: 3). Therefore, it is not surprising that quite a substantial body of texts dealing with the oil industry (i.e. petroliterature, respectively petrofiction) has emerged since then. Don Gillmor’s novel Long Change might fill Ghosh’s diagnosed gap of petrofiction in the Canadian context.

Long Change, named after the one day when oil workers change from the night to the afternoon shift (cf. Volmers 2015, online), was published in 2015 and is split in three parts, each named after a geologic era: the Paleocene, the Eocene and the Pleistocene. The author chose these eras deliberately as each one is significant for the oil industry. Sediments of the Paleocene are relevant for offshore oil drilling, whereas the climate warming of the Eocene facilitated the petroleum generation, whereas oil and gas were chemically composed particularly during the Pleistocene (Cf. Kroeger 2012, online). Content-wise, there is also a connection between this era and the novel: it does not seem to be a coincidence that the protagonist Ritt and his colleagues have a serious accident due to leaking gas on an oil rig in the very last part of the book, named after the

36 From my own experience, I can confirm that it is virtually impossible to visit the oil fields of Northern Alberta as a layperson. Only through a friend who works in the industry was I allowed to visit the office buildings and the laboratory of one of the biggest oil companies in the north of Fort McMurray. Cameras were strictly forbidden; my friend never let sight of me and access to the rigs or oil fields was prohibited.

122 Pleistocene. Apart from geologic eras, each part of the novel is also dedicated to one of Ritt’s marriages (his first wife Oda, his second wife Deirdre and his last wife, Alexa), thus allowing a very personal insight into an oilman’s life. With each marriage and each geologic era, Ritt’s life gradually turns grimmer and lonelier. Even though the novel points at negative side effects of the oil industry, it does not only criticize it, as Gillmor explains in this context:

The oil industry isn’t just one thing. […] The oil industry in Alberta, for example, bears so little resemblance to the oil industry in Nigeria or Equatorial Guinea, where I think it is a destructive and impoverishing force for the most part. […] It (= oil) has been a negative force in all kinds of places, but it has also been a positive force in all kinds of places […]. (Gillmor in an interview with CBC Radio, 2016)

Still, Long Change portrays the brutal, yet fascinating mechanisms of the oil business, including blackmailing, theft, murder, booms and busts, meetings with despots and corrupt politicians. Thus, concerning the settings, the novel is not only a Canadian novel as Ritt’s frequent business trips to other oil producing countries (e.g. Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Azerbaidjan or Russia) show. Yet, Calgary remains his ‘home base’ to which he always returns to work and live, portraying the city’s importance in the oil patch and confirming Macdonald’s notion that novels dealing with the oil industry (= petrofiction) are “simultaneously global and domestic” (Macdonald 2012: 31).

Using the main character Ritt as a focalizer, the reader experiences the oil industry through his very eyes and is thus torn between a general unease about the development in, for example, Alberta’s north or the Arctic, and sympathy for Ritt’s motives at the same time. Referring to the novel’s main character, the author Gillmor himself describes Ritt as “essentially a sympathetic guy in what’s largely perceived as an unsympathetic industry” (Berry 2015, online), which enables the reader to feel sorry for Ritt’s losses and to share his thrill when he proves to be successful. No matter the circumstances, the novel’s main character Ritt Devlin behaves immaculately: he always stands his ground, is unafraid of carrying responsibility or inconvenient truths and he does not hesitate to make difficult decisions when nobody else dares to. At the same time, Ritt remains unattached, distanced, at times even uninvolved in human issues. His true passion belongs to geology, as his second wife Deirdre once remarks in a fit of anger: “Your affair is with the earth, Ritt. You wooed it, you fucked it. Your love is six miles underground.” (Gillmor 2015: 198)

123 As already mentioned, Long Change opens with the scene in which the main character Rittinger (Ritt) Devlin is shot into his back five times by his third wife Alexa in their kitchen. The reader experiences the opening of the novel from Ritt’s perspective, including his astonishment for his wife’s deed and the flashbacks of significant moments of his life. Considering that Ritt is aware of his imminent death, it is remarkable how much time he spends on thoughts connected to oil and geology rather than on memories of his loved ones. The atmosphere thereby created already foreshadows the importance of energy and fossil fuels for the remainder of the novel. The author beautifully verbalizes Ritt’s seemingly final thoughts on his life, thus creating a morbid atmosphere, yet stirring curiosity in the reader to continue reading the novel at hand. Surprisingly, Ritt survives, and the novel starts with its first part, named after the Paleocene.

Due to his violent home and problems with the law, fifteen-year-old Ritt, flees from his home in Texas to start as a roughneck in the Canadian oil industry. He finds a job close to Fort McMurray, a town that was even on Austria’s news due to massive forest fires in 2016. Ritt learns to stand on his own two feet very quickly and appears to the reader as a very mature young man who – in strong contrast to the majority of his colleagues – avoids being involved in scandals. Instead of spending his money on girls and alcohol, Ritt is passionate about drilling and finding oil sources in Alberta, where no man has been able to find oil before. During his first months of work at the mines, he becomes even more ambitious, and he has an epiphanic moment when he meets one of the geologists on site:

He was coming to understand that oil was a living thing, it breathed and moved and gathered like a lynch mob, and to find it took a combination of science and vodoo. [...] Ritt had asked what he saw there. Everything, the man said. You learn how to listen, rocks will tell you every damn thing. […] Geology is the story the earth tells itself, the geologist had said. People tell stories. The difference is, the earth can’t lie. Every story is true. (Gillmor 2015: 24-25)

Thus, the reader realizes that oil is more to Ritt than simply a fossil fuel: for him, finding oil equals the ability of reading the story the rocks and the earth tell, and this is where Ritt, who soon gains the reputation of both “a contrarian and magician” (Long Change: 101) feels that he belongs. Already as a roughneck, it is one of his biggest dreams to drill in the Arctic and thus to declare mastery over even the country’s most remote frontier.

124 In the novel, the lack of women and the prevailing masculinity in the industry is apparent, or to quote from the novel: “Testosterone seeped out and filled the corners of the room like sour gas, seeking the ground.” (Long Change: 150) In fact, the only women who feature in Long Change and are described in some detail are Ritt’s wives, and even they are rather flat characters. The author further illustrates this masculine setting by a frequent use of obscene language, sexual allusions and curse words throughout the novel, as for example in a conversation with the geologist Breton, who declares: “We are literally fucking the earth. Ooh baby do me all night long.” (Long Change: 120); or, to give another example, Ritt’s main rival in the oil business, Pete Manchauser who wonders at a party: “You still freezing your dick in those northern holes, Ritt?” (Long Change: 127) It is in particular with such sexist imagery that the novel critically foregrounds analogies between the exploitation and that of nature.

Overall, Ritt is portrayed as a loner until he falls in love with the hope-to-be-librarian Oda, a local farmer’s daughter whose Germanic name means wealth or fortune (cf. Förstemann (1968 [1900]). Thus, Gillmor leaves nothing to chance and the meaning of his wife’s name is a subtle comment on her character and reflects her importance to Ritt. Oda and Ritt are both characterised as outsiders: Ritt is absolutely ambitious about oil, whereas Oda is passionate about books. Both start attending university in Calgary and Ritt continues to work in the Alberta oil/tar sands during the summer months – an autobiographic parallel to Gillmor – to finance their home and his tuition for university (cf. Long Change: 51-52).

One of the novel’s strengths lies in the author’s ability to describe not only the rough atmosphere of the oil industry, but also Ritt’s sensitive character, for example when it comes to describing his feelings for Oda: “He liked being her only admirer. Where others saw a tall, gangly bookworm, he saw beauty and grace. He loved to hear her tell him about a book she has just read, in her beautiful voice. Ritt could not imagine that reading the book on his own would ever be as interesting as this.” (Long Change: 40) The combination of both aspects of Ritt’s character – the tough, hard-working and clever oil man and ‘his softer side’, the sensitive, caring boyfriend and later-on husband make the novel’s main character an interesting and appealing person, even though the reader is likely to disapprove of some of Ritt’s methods (e.g. the kidnapping of a spy to shut down his opponent Manchauser, cf. Long Change: 73-77.)

In their spare time, Ritt and Oda enjoy the great Canadian outdoors, as they do for example when they set off to paddle the Mackenzie River towards the Arctic Ocean, a trip that almost ends in a

125 catastrophe as their canoe flips over and both are exposed to the current and the freezing water of the river. Without their canoe and their tools, the couple is suddenly helpless and exposed to the elements and the power of nature in Canada’s north. Even in life-threatening situations Ritt does not lose his mind but is portrayed as calm and rational. This impression is intensified by Oda’s passivity – she is almost described like a helpless child, as a person that Ritt has to act and care for:

Oda lay curled and shivering. Ritt used four matches, all with the same heart-breaking result, watching the optimistic flame grow falter. He examined the next match, wondering if his life depended on it. They needed to dry their clothes or they would die. […] This time the flame caught, and Ritt added more kindling, carefully arranging it, calculating the breeze, estimating what the fire could handle, what it wanted from him. […] He took off the rest of his own clothes and when he was confident the fire had caught he lay beside her and held her to him and wondered if this was how they would be found. (Long Change: 53)

The couple eventually manages to regain strength and they find their canoe upstream the next day. Knowing that they have a chance of survival only when moving, they enter the canoe again and paddle towards the delta of the Mackenzie River. Their ‘survival story’ bestows the novel a typically Canadian atmosphere, as Margaret Atwood revealed that “the recurring theme of Canadian literature is survival” (Ridout 2009: 23).37 When they finally reach the delta, Oda is overwhelmed by its beauty and size. Ritt’s thoughts, on the other hand, are with the industry:

Ritt wondered if there was oil down there. So much oil had been found in the world’s deltas: Mississippi, Orinoco, the Persian Gulf. He could be paddling over underground rivers of oil. […] He would come back here. (Long Change: 57)

Repeatedly, the author stresses Ritt’s diligence and talent, which is at the same time alarming, as he even anthropomorphises his company: “He dreamed his oil company the way he dreamed his child – growing, gaining strength” (Long Change: 79). Indeed, Oda finds out that she is pregnant, and the couple is overjoyed. With his life established in Northern Alberta, being successful in his job and happily married, it seems as if Ritt had found his place in life. However, his luck does not last long, as his beloved wife Oda, pregnant with their child, finds out that she has terminal cancer. The couple is devastated, and they spend their last weeks together:

37 Even though Ritt and Oda manage to survive, it might be relevant to add in that context that Margaret Atwood discovered in her analysis of Canadian texts that “death by drowning and freezing” is the most often found “death by nature” in Canadian literature (Atwood 1972: 55).

126 Ritt stopped going to work. They walked during the days, noting the last geese flying south, spying a coyote in the park one evening, grateful for the cold wind on their faces. They watched the river coagulate, the chunks of ice grinding against one another, fighting before finally knitting together. They went to bed early and Ritt read to her. (Long Change: 84)

With his unadorned style, Gillmor manages to capture the sadness and helplessness felt by Ritt. In those last weeks of Oda’s life, even the oil business and Ritt’s career are secondary. Similar to other far-reaching situations in the novel, the author uses imagery of nature to support the content and meaning of certain passages. The ice chunks’ struggle in the current of the river, their struggling and revolting against their place in the river emphasises Oda’s and Ritt’s struggle and their revolting against their fate, against the fact that their time is running out. However, like the ice “finally knitting together” (see quote above), Ritt and Oda have to give in. After Oda’s early death, Ritt is devastated and finds solace in his own company which he names Mackenzie, the name Oda and himself had chosen for their unborn daughter after their memorable trip on the Mackenzie River. Trying to cope with his losses, Ritt dedicates himself even more to the oil industry, which he calls “a chess game, the world ruled into squares, hundreds of companies quietly dividing millions of square miles.“ (Long Change: 80) Thus, the author Gillmor subtly comments on the immense power that oil companies wield over pieces of land, which could either be read as a slight criticism of the industry or as being realistic.

Even though Ritt realizes that there are downsides to oil extraction, such as the exploitation of workforce or the pollution of the environment, his interest in geology and oil is a relief, because in contrast to fragile human lives, “it was immutable, a foundation” (Long Change: 101). With his reckless partner Tate, Ritt steadily manages to expand his company and his influence and importance in the industry. While Ritt’s passion for the oil industry is at the centre of the novel, Gillmor does not whitewash the negative aspects of oil development, but also mentions one of the casualties of the oil/gas industry mentioned in the novel: Adam, a farm boy who dies because of water pollution caused by the oil industry. After his own loss, Ritt feels truly sorry for Adam’s mother and expresses his condolences to her in person (cf. Long Change 189-191). The story becomes even more dramatic when Adam’s mum is claimed to be involved in the murder of Pete Manchauser, the boss of a competitive oil company and Ritt’s main rival, later on in the story and commits suicide. While Ritt feels that the oil industry is responsible not only for environmental, but also for social injustice, he never questions it, but accepts its sacrifices without a comment.

127 Years later and in the second part of the novel, named after the Eocene, Ritt meets the beautiful, but reserved lawyer Deirdre. Gillmor turns to nature imagery when describing their first encounter: “Ritt saw Deirdre standing by a window, staring west. The clouds were being pushed eastward, bunched into a chinook arch, the wind powerful enough to rattle the glass. Behind the arch – that perfect drawn line of cloud – there was blue sky. Deirdre was wearing a sharply tailored suit jacket and skirt and heels.” (Long Change: 134) The attentive reader will realise by the first mentioning of Deirdre that she is a different type of woman than Oda: her choice of clothing underlines her straightforwardness and ambition, and the “blue sky” (see quote above) subtly comments on her reserved personality while an analysis of her name reveals that the name Deidre is of Gaelic-Irish origin and means “sorrowful wanderer” (Wimon, online). At first, Ritt is attracted by her toughness, beauty and success. Deirdre and Ritt marry and spend two happy years, enjoying each other’s wealth, dining in fancy restaurants and attending numerous dinner parties organised by the oil industry. Yet, in contrast to Ritt’s marriage with Oda, their relationship is based on rationality, rather than on real affection.

In stark contrast to Deirdre’s successful career as a lawyer and Ritt’s prospering company, their marriage remains childless. In spite of frantic efforts, hormonal treatments and several procedures of artificial insemination, they remain unable to conceive. During this difficult time, Ritt tries his best to support his wife, but he remains strangely distanced at the same time, working even harder to become more successful in his job – an escape from his barren marriage. Unemotional and distanced, Ritt turns to the only reliable absolute term in his life – rock formations – as a way-out. Mackenzie Oil continues to flourish and enables Ritt to fulfil one of his lifelong dreams – drilling in the Arctic.

Eocene, the second part of the novel also portrays the duties that go hand in hand with being a successful businessman: parties and social get-togethers. When arriving at one of his colleagues’ parties one night, Ritt observes the guests and muses:

128 This was oil; five hundred people dressed in black evening clothes. In the dim light, they formed an amorphous dark pool; they looked like oil. And like oil, Ritt thought, they often flowed uphill (with a little help, under the pressure of gas) and here were hundreds trying to move uphill, hoping to make contact with those above their own station – a bigger company, a better connected wife, a board member. The party was a geological formation and – depending on permeability – people flowed toward the money. (Long Change: 123)

Strangely, Ritt does not enjoy taking part in these parties – they are a dreadful obligation to him, consuming increasingly more of his scarce free time. His discontent is shared by Deirdre who considers herself in a deadlock situation due to her childlessness, the growing alienation from her husband Ritt and her work: “My job bores me to death but it’s the only thing that gives me any definition right now.” (Long Change: 156) As Deirdre cannot be as a mother due to her involuntary childlessness, she strives to find an identity in the oil patch, which is even more difficult as she is constantly in the shadow of her powerful and successful husband.

Long before Ritt and Deirdre themselves realize that their marriage has come to an end, the author foreshadows their growing alienation, as can be seen in the following scene: “At breakfast the next morning he and Deirdre read their separate sections of the newspaper, a wall of bad news between them.” (Long Change: 183) Yet, Ritt still believes in their marriage and is astonished, yet – again – in a strangely unemotional manner, when Deirdre confesses having an affair and files for a divorce.

The third and last part of the novel, the Pleistocene, introduces the reader to Alexa, an alcohol dependent woman in her late forties who intrigues Ritt with her laughter and self-confidence. Regarding her name, Alexa means ‘the defender of man’, which is highly ironic, as Alexa turns out to shoot her husband later in the novel. They marry, but the brutality of the oil business catches with Ritt shortly afterwards when his business partner Tate, a ruthless bookkeeper and yet the closest he could ever get to a true friend, is murdered by a contract killer on a business trip in Baku, Azerbaijan. (Cf. Long Change: 273) In the oil patch, Tate and Ritt were referred to as “the Gold Dust Twins” (Long Change: 275): Ritt’s talent for geology and his feeling for hidden oil reserves, and Tate’s talent for accounting made them a team second to none. When Ritt flies to Baku to hire a detective to solve the case and to bring Tate’s body home, Alexa does not prove to be of any support: even though Ritt has recently married, he finds himself coping with the situation alone. For the reader, it is therefore no surprise that Ritt’s third and last marriage is bound to fail too,

129 culminating in Alexa shooting her husband in a state of drunkenness. Ritt survives and continues to work until his seventies. Ritt’s expertise concerning geology and his deliberateness is sought in the oil patch on an international basis and he continues to travel to oil producing countries to test ever new techniques and tools to extract. Instead of close relations to family and friends, oil always remains the number one priority in Ritt’s life, even as he grows older and forgetful. Ritt is also aware of his loneliness, but it does not seem to bother him much. The only regret he feels is that he was not given more time with Oda, the one and only true love of his life. Stoically, Ritt accepts his loneliness and even in old age, Mackenzie Oil, his company, remain his refuge and primary concern.

The third part of the novel, Pleistocene, also recounts historical events, e.g. the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 and the fall of the Soviet Union, the ice-free Northwest Passage in 2007. It also features numerous episodes abroad, e.g. in Russia or on exploratory trips on a Japanese supertanker in the Barents Sea in 2014, which ultimately end in disaster as a broken pipe leads to an explosion of epic proportions. With Ritt as focalizer, the reader is taken to the scene of the accident and witnesses the immensity the explosion, an effect which is highlighted by Ritt “rendering his view as an experience of the sublime” (Löschnigg 2017: 544). Both metaphorically and poetically, Gillmor describes the aftermath of the devastating explosion in large detail, thereby creating suspense. Like a crescendo, the tension builds up, only to dramatically release the reader to his/her own thoughts after the novel’s final sentence:

He landed hard on his back and lay there winded, staring up. The flare arced above him, an umbrella of light, the northern sky suddenly blazing. The perfect landscape illuminated for one glorious moment before the dark returned. Ritt lay on the snow and the thought that came to him was, It’s time to go. (Long Change: 351)

The quote, which is also the end of the novel, visualizes both the wild beauty of the North, while also depicting its untamed power and danger, thus reminding of Burke’s concept of the sublime (cf. Löschnigg 2017: 544). Through Ritt’s eyes, the reader witnesses this intense, terrible yet at the same time also ‘peaceful’ moment, which is characterized by the main character’s astonishment at the marvellous beauty surrounding him. Along these lines, Burke states:

The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of terror. […] Astonishment, as I have said, is the effect of the sublime in its highest degree; the inferior effects are admiration,

130 reverence, and respect. (Burke 1767: 96).

Even though Ritt seems to be aware of his imminent death, he cannot help but marvel at the scenery and the sublime nature surrounding him, an impression which is confirmed by Burke’s theory of the sublime in the quote above. In the final part of the novel, Ritt realizes and accepts his own unimportance in the large scale of events while also paying respect to nature. This shift of power cannot pass unnoticed, and, in combination with the abrupt ending, the puzzled reader is left to ponder his/her own (un-)importance and is likely to realize that ultimately, nature still has the final say in the large scale of events.

Like its author, the novel Long Change is incredibly diverse: it is not only an autobiography of the fictitious main character Ritt Devlin, but also provides a considerable amount of information on the rise of the oil industry in Alberta while also allowing insights into the oil business in Nigeria, Azerbaijan, the Arctic or Russia. The wide range of topics addressed within the novel (e.g. finding one’s place in society, the first true love, death, illness, divorce, loneliness, professional success, passion, travelling or old age) affect each reader at some point in their lives and, thus, Long Change is likely to appeal to a broader readership. Throughout the novel, the author confronts the reader with the ruthless methods applied in the industry, while demonstrating the destructive fascination of money and power on both relationships and individuals. In the context of the novel, it is Ritt who has to make sacrifices: his failed marriages, his childlessness and his inability to build deeper, meaningful relationships represent the futility and superficiality of the seemingly all-powerful industry. Moreover, the novel educates the reader on oil’s omnipresence and our society’s dependency on oil, which is regarded as one of the fundamental qualities and tasks of petrofiction (cf. Szeman 2012: 3). Thus, Long Change helps the reader to realize that we have still a long way to go until both our individual consumerist behaviour as well as our energy supply have changed.

131 4.3.2. The Bears (2012) by Katie Welch

Katie Welch’s novel The Bears38 addresses a wide variety of issues concerning the conflict-laden situation of the Canadian oil industry and its impact on both nature and the local population. Set mainly in the region of Kitimat, a small seaside town on British Columbia’s North West Coast, the novel envisions the dystopian aftermath of a massive oil spill in a pipeline running from the Albertan oil/tar sands to the Pacific Ocean. In the novel, the spill happened in the town of Kitimat. In reality, due to public resistance, the pipeline it has not been built so far. However, the company Enbridge Inc. has been trying to realize the construction of such a double pipeline running from Edmonton towards Kitimat, called the Northern Gateway Project (cf. Atkins 2014: 149). Once in Kitimat, the oil would be loaded on supertankers and shipped mainly towards Asian markets. To understand the risks of an oil spill, it is important to mention that Kitimat is not located at an open coast, but at the end of the very narrow Douglas channel. Tankers would have to navigate through narrow canals and waters which are known for their shallow banks, unpredictable currents and persistent fog. Among locals, this region is infamously called ‘the graveyard of the Pacific’. If a pipeline was built indeed, the likelihood of a catastrophe as the one envisioned in the novel is given. In the novel, the imminent danger is described in the following words:

Over a long enough time span, there was a one-hundred-percent chance of an accidental rupture or spill occurring. The fragile and unique ecology of the coastal temperate rainforest would be irreparably damaged for the forseeable future. (The Bears: 11)

Katie Welch, who moved to British Columbia after finishing her studies, worked as a tree planter and is therefore familiar with many of British Columbia’s remote areas. It was during that time that she started to appreciate nature and the beauty of the wild, Northern environment. Wanting to make a change, she explains her motivation for starting her novel The Bears:

The impetus I felt to write became an imperative in the face of an indecent environmental threat: An oil pipeline proposal to transfer Alberta tar sands crude bitumen through pristine, precious coastal rainforest, then on to China via a preposterously dangerous tanker route. […] I wanted to show them exactly how their plan would impoverish us – not just our species, Homo sapiens, but every living thing

38 In 2017 Katie Welch published a new edition of The Bears. While the plot and the story remain the same, she decided to change the title into Ursocrypha: The Book of Bear to appeal to a wider readership because, as the explains in the preface to the new edition, the original title caused some misunderstandings as “everyone thought it was a children’s book” (Welch 2017: n.p.).

132 on Earth. (Moon Willow Press 2015, online)

In the lines above, Katie Welch not only criticizes the planned Northern Gateway Project, but she also emphasizes that an oil spill in that region would not only affect the immediate environment of the spill, but humanity, fauna and flora in the long run. Thus, she stresses the existing interconnectedness between species, an approach which is not only theoretically explained in the concept of ecocriticism, but in the special relationship between the spirit bear Moksgm’ol and Gilbert Crow in the novel.

Due to massive protests from both non-native Canadians and First Nations members, the pipeline has not been built yet. The goal of the Northern Gateway Project would be to facilitate the export of Albertan oil to mainly Asian countries and thus to attract foreign customers and markets. For years, the Haisla, among them their former chief Gerald Amos, have argued that the risk of building a pipeline from Alberta’s oilsands to Kitimat is too high. In addition, the devastating consequences of an oil spill would also put their feeling of identity at risk:

“Our connection to this place that we call home is really important,” says Amos as he pulls three Dungeness crabs from his trap, tossing two in a bucket and holding the third up for his two young granddaughters, who shriek and giggle as the crustacean wriggles its legs. “If these little ones can’t witness us doing what we’ve done for generations now, if we sever that tie to the land and the ocean, we’re no longer Haisla. (Gordon, 2014)

Many members of First Nations communities still live on their lands, often in very remote regions. They are the first to be affected by a natural catastrophe such as an oil spill, as they would be cut off from their primary food staple, i.e. fish. However, their culture is also closely connected to their traditions of fishing:

“When you’re going out to collect the seafood, that’s when you’re exercising your culture,” said Haisla chief Ellis Ross.” [...] You’re teaching the next generation — this is where you go to fish, this is how you fish, this is why you fish — that’s our connection. It’s more than just a food product.” (Gordon 2014, online)

Furthermore, Henry Amos argued that the review panel organised by Enbridge Inc. is not valid because the tribes had no representatives in the panel. On top of that, the officially allowed languages were English and French, whereas Native languages were not taken into consideration wholeheartedly (cf. McCreary 2014: 155). Thus, as Amos argues, “the review process had from its

133 outset systematically disadvantaged Haisla people” (McCreary 2014: 156). Due to massive protests, flashmobs and campaigns to raise awareness for the problematic situation, the Northern Gateway Project has come to a standstill at present.39 Even though the author Katie Welch is of Euro- Canadian origin, her novel incorporates a lot of First Nations culture and symbolism. Most obviously, the main character Gilbert is a member of the Haisla First Nation, a tribe living on B.C.’s North Coast.

As the title The Bears suggests, Welch’s novel circles around the lives of three very different examples of bears: the polar bear Tlingit, the spirit bear Moksgm’ol and the panda bear Yukai. All of these bears, which are the animal protagonists, are linked to a human being, the three human protagonists. Thus, the three bear and the three human protagonists are in a very close, even totemic relation to another. The three human main characters are Anne, a middle-aged, soft-hearted Arctic researcher who is connected to the polar bear Tlingit, which lost its cub due to a lack of food and melting icebergs. Gilbert, a Kitimat local, activist and First Nations member, feels particularly connected to the spirit bear Moksgm’ol, which roams through the forests of Kitimat. Yukuai is of special importance to the young German Jonathan Fuhrenthal, a volunteer who travelled to Kitimat to help in the environmental clean-up following the oil spill. All the human protagonists meet in Kitimat to help reducing the damage. Therefore, it can be claimed that The Bears is a novel which foreshadows positive attributes of humanity, such as solidarity and compassion.

The novel consists of multiple storylines which are intertwined and overlap at times: figural narration is used in the subchapters featuring human protagonists, thus helping the reader to empathize with these characters; other parts, however, are told by a ursine first-person narrator, aiming at providing a direct insight into the ‘minds’ of Tlingit, Moksgm’ol and Yukuai, the three bear protagonists.40 In addition, the author also added short chapters written by an omniscient narrator who informs the reader about First Nations mythology and the mythological creator ‘The Great Bear’, thus emphasizing a strong contrast to Western anthropocentric culture. The beginning of each subchapter is marked with the name of the respective character to facilitate understanding, and the passages written from a bear’s perspective are written in italics. The polyvocality achieved by numerous narrators and focalizers presents a challenge for the reader on the one other hand, whereas it also allows the reader to slip into various positions. No matter the perspective, the novel

39 It needs to be mentioned, however, that the Haisla people are not against all kind of development in their home region (cf. Jang 2014; online). 40 Compare Sid Marty’s documentary The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek (2008) for another example of writing from a bear’s perspective.

134 stresses the negative impact of the Enbridge Pipeline Project (which is called Enpipe Project in the novel) on all living creatures in Northern Canada, but also worldwide. The unusually high number of perspectives invites the reader to sympathise, maybe even identify, with one of the main characters, and to gain a multifaceted view of this complex situation. Thus, the emotional engagement with the novel might lead to a rethinking of values and attitudes – a desired effect as the The Bears features “an obvious morale imperative” (Reuters 2016, online).

Welch’s novel is framed by mythological stories, as the novel both starts and ends with a creation story of the ‘Great Bear’. These creation stories are a typical element of First Nations culture. The fact that Katie Welch, who is of non- Native descent, includes a creation story herself highlights the importance of First Nation Culture for Northern BC and her own cultural interconnectedness. As the storyline itself is interrupted by numerous short chapters which portray the mythology of the Great Bear in more detail, the reader is introduced to a significant symbol of First Nations culture. In contrast to European culture, where the animal is considered to be the object rather than the agent, the Great Bear chapters tell a very different story: in these parts, the animal, i.e. the Great Bear, is presented as an active agent.

The first chapter of The Bears is called “The Great Bear Creates the World.” Its starting sentence reminds the reader of the beginning of the Bible: “‘In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) In Welch’s novel, however, the Great Bear is the creator: “In the beginning there was only the Great Bear.” (The Bears 2012: 1) Thus, the mythological creature shows parallels to the Christian God, appearing powerful and almost omniscient. Yet, in contrast to the Bible and also as example for an alternative world view, an animal, not a man-like God, is depicted as the creator of life on earth. The importance of wild animals, or rather, the minor part of man, is highlighted even more so by the fact that The Great Bear creates bears prior to people. Furthermore, in The Bears, mankind descends from bears:

It was summer and the Brown Bears of the earth were very, very warm. The year’s cubs began to cry because they were so hot, and they begged their mothers to cool them down. […] But when the Great Bear licked the Brown Bear cubs, all of their fur came off and they were naked. […] Wolf was there, as well as Coyote. Cougar was lurking nearby. Overhead, Eagle was circling, anticipating a feast. The Great Bear saw that all of the naked cubs would soon be eaten if she didn’t intervene. She had to act quickly to save their lives. She pulled all of the cubs up onto their hind legs, took away their tails, and gave them the gift of intelligence so that they could escape from their enemies. With the blessing of intelligence came the curse of self-consciousness, and the cubs, realizing that they were naked, grew ashamed. They

135 ran and hid themselves in the bushes. (The Bears: 6-7)

Again, both striking parallels and differences to the Bible are found in the creation story above. First of all, the creator in The Bears is female. Another noticeable detail is that not only bears, but the typical North American animals, such as the eagle, the wolf or the coyote, existed before man did. According to the bible, of course, it was man who God created first before the animals and plants followed. Again, the minor importance of man is highlighted, and the importance of wildlife promoted. Plus, the author pictures mankind as potential prey, and it is only through the help of the Great Bear that they are able to survive. The “curse of self-consciousness” mirrors the biblical original sin. After the first humans hide, The Great Bear instructs the first human beings: “Walk lightly and quietly on the earth so that your enemies will not hear you. Use the abundance of the earth to feed yourselves, to stay warm in the winter, and to house yourselves and your young.” (The Bears: 7) This is a very different message than the one transmitted by the Bible: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:28) The novel’s alternative creation story puts bears in the centre of attention and power, thus inviting the reader to question the conventional, modern ideology and lifestyle.

Later in the novel, Welch included a chapter which is called “The Great Bear Punishes People”. In this chapter, human beings are described as exploitative and selfish:

The people she had created from brown bear cubs now had the intelligence and cunning she had given them to survive. Even so, they were immature. They needed skins for clothing, trees for fuel and housing, feathers for decoration, and stones for weapons, and they took all of these things wastefully and thoughtlessly. […] They left animals slaughtered and stripped of their skins, and they left the rest of their bodies to decay. […] The people felled trees and carved their trunks into canoes. They left branches to suffocate the forest floor. They shot birds with arrows; the birds toppled from the sky only to have the largest of their feathers yanked roughly from their bodies. (The Bears: 63)

Even though the Great Bear warned people by sending droughts and floods, she saw that they would not change their behaviour until “she taught them a long, hard lesson” (64). The Great Bear sends an ice age which killed most, but not all of the human beings. Those who survive, change their behaviour and the Great Bear starts to warm the planet again. (The Bears: 64)

136 In the novel, the main character Gilbert, too, thinks of that warning and cannot help but think of the present situation and the warnings that have already been sent to his fellow human beings:

He thought about how the Great Bear would surely punish people again for their wastefulness. His eyes widened as he thought about the global warming: the punishment had already begun. A terribly symmetrical natural disaster was warming up the planet instead of cooling it off. […] People needed to learn a lesson. They would keep on extracting their oil, driving their cars, flying their planes, and running their factories until the world was a parched, arid, and hostile place. Only then would they learn their lesson and give thanks for every drop of rain that fell and every calorie of energy that gave them the energy to transport themselves across modest and moderate distances. (The Bears: 65)

In the quote above, the author uses drastic language which may intimidate or even scare the reader. Furthermore, the last line passes criticism on our fast way of living, using fossil fuelled vehicles like cars or planes to travel vast distances within a short amount of time. After they have learned their lesson, to put it in Welch’s words, people will return to a slower, more humble way of living than today.

By dedicating a lot of room to bears and mythological, ursine creator figures, Welch promotes the bears’ importance and limits the power and importance of human beings. Her novel presents First Nations Culture, in which the bear is – to put it in Gilbert’s words – ‘‘the spiritual mother of us all’’ (101), as an alternative to Western ways of living. Throughout the novel, Welch provides the reader with a deep insight into her bear protagonists’ minds, as she includes interior monologues of the bears – Yukuai, Tlingit or Moksgm’ol – in her novel. Her motivation for using this technique is to bond the reader to the bears lot and to create empathy for their struggles. In an interview, Katie Welch explains: “I gave the bears human voices because I want readers to identify with them, to consider what today’s environmental challenges are like for other living things.” (Moon Willow Press 2015, online)

Next to the bears Yukuai41 and Tlingit42, Moksgm’ol is the third bear protagonist and also the one who is described in most detail in the novel. Such as Tlingit or Yukuai, the name Moksgm’ol has a

41 The panda bear’s name was chosen carefully. Yukuai is a word taken from Chinese yú kuài, 愉快, meaning “cheerful” or “happy” (cf. Wang and Huang 2017: 2). As the bear lives a very unhappy life in a German zoo, the name stands in strong opposition to its bleak living conditions. 42 The name Tlingit, too, was not chosen randomly. Tlingit refers to both a group of native people as well as to their language. They live on the Pacific Northwest Coast, in southern Alaska, the Yukon and British Columbia. Their language is part of the larger Na-Dené linguistic family. The name Tlingit translates to “people” in English. (Native Languages of the Americas, online)

137 special meaning. It is a First Nations word used for the so-called spirit, ghost, or Kermode bear. The Moksgm’ol is a subgenus of the blackbear, which has a creamy or white fur due to a rare, recessive gene. Its outstanding, creamy coat and its rarity have always fascinated people and thus it is no surprise that this special bear figures prominently in oral traditions of coastal people in B.C. By now, the Moksgm’ol, or the spirit bear, has also attracted the attention of non- Native Canadians and it was chosen to be the provincial mammal of B.C. as well as the mascot of its home, which is the Great Bear Rainforest. (Cf. BC SpiritBear, online)

The name Moksgm’ol stems from the language of the Tsimshian people of the Gitga’at community and can be translated as “the spirit of the rainforest” (Valhalla Wilderness Society 2003, online). According to the Tsimshian people, Raven, the Creator, wanted to remember all living creatures of the last ice age, a time when British Columbia was still covered in ice and snow. For that purpose, Raven visited the black and brown bear people and turned every tenth of them white. These white bears, so Raven wished, should live together in peace and harmony. The spirit bears, the Moksgm’ol, were born. Up until today, the Moksgm’ol represents the spirit of the rain forest and is revered in many dances and stories. (Cf. BC SpiritBear, online) By choosing Moksgm’ol for her main bear protagonist, Katie Welch again promotes First Nations culture and raises the reader’s interest in the culture of B.C.’s coastal people.43

In contrast to the chapters where the mythological Great Bear is the actor, the bears in the main plot are pictured as victims of humankind in the long run: Tlingit lost her cub because of a lack of food due to climate change. Yukuai leads an unhappy life in a zoo in Cologne, and Moskgm’ol, the former ruler of the forest surrounding Kitimat, is driven crazy by the oil spill, approaches humans and needs to be relocated to Princess Royal Island to avoid being shot. (Cf. Welch 2012: 191) Due to the Canadian focus of this thesis, special attention will be given to Moksgm’ol and his human counterpart.

43 Bears play a crucial role in Greek and Roman mythology as well. The most famous legend is the one of Callisto, which was written by the Roman author Ovid. (Metamorphoses II, 405-531) Jupiter, married to the goddess Juno, fell in love with the beautiful nymph Callisto. By means of a trick, he defeated the chaste woman who conceived a child. Diana expelled the nymph because of her pregnancy, and Juno, in a rage, transformed Callisto into a bear. Later, Callisto gave birth to her son Arcas. Arcas became a hunter, and years later he almost killed his own mother, as he did not recognise her. Jupiter, filled with remorse, saved Callisto and put both mother and son amongst the stars where they can still be seen today in the constellation of Ursa major and Ursa Minor.

138 There are some striking parallels between the bear protagonist Moksgm’ol and human beings. At the beginning of the novel and before the oil spill happens, Moksgm’ol regards himself as the ruler of the forest, an attitude which reminds the reader of human hubris and their mission to subdue the world.44 When the spirit bear Moksgm’ol is fishing by the river, he ‘thinks’ of himself: “Moksgm’ol who eats – nay, feasts – at my leisure and my pleasure! Moksgm’ol, Keeper of Dreams, Keeper of Memory! Moksgm’ol who reigns, shining white crown, stalking unhindered throughout my Great Rainforest Kingdom.” (Welch 2012: 3) By a three-fold anaphora and self-aggrandisement of the bear, the author emphasises Moksgm’ol’s unambiguous dominance over the creatures of his “Great Rainforest Kingdom”, which stands for the Great Bear Rainforest. In this quote, the reader is prompted to witness the bear’s pride and self-confidence.

Moksgm’ol is particularly connected to the human protagonist Gilbert, a First Nations member living in the town of Kitimat. Welch named this particular bear character Moskgm’ol, and not spirit or Kermode bear as the Euro-Canadian custom suggests, which – again – leads to an emphasis on First Nations Culture in the novel. In addition, Gilbert is a First-Nations member and is particularly connected to Moskgm’ol, his totemic animal. It seems as if the author chose to stress the importance and relevance of First Nations culture as an alternative to the Euro-Canadian way of life, as well as an interconnectedness across species.

One of the main characters, Gilbert Crow, is a vivid opponent of the oil industry and suffers from insomnia as he spends his nights worrying that something terrible might happen.45 By depicting Gilbert’s anxiousness, Welch anticipates the coming catastrophe at the same time: “His terrible fears of impending disaster and doom were perhaps just that – fears and nothing more. One had to hope for the best and avoid living in a perpetual state of paranoia.” (The Bears: 13) By foreshadowing an impending catastrophe by using dreams, Welch creates suspense in the reader. Also, the focus on Gilbert and Haisla culture presents the – most-likely – Euro-Canadian reader with an alternative worldview and an idealised, even simplified version of what is considered ‘good’ and ‘bad:

There were dirty forms of energy and clean forms. The clean ones were simple, and the Creator offered them freely. The sun offered warmth with orange hands, sending it down to be captured and enjoyed without stipulation. Opening their soft green arms, the great cedars of the forest flourished and thrived by capturing this fuel. The great lips of the Creator blew steady winds that wise Eagle used to his advantage, capturing the fuel

44 Cf. Genesis 1: 28: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” 45 Gilbert’s family name Crow reminds the reader of the well-known Crow People, Native people who once inhabited the plains of what is today Montana and Wyoming.

139 of movement under his brown and white wings. Ocean tides surged in and out. There was so much kinetic energy and fuel that was freely given. (The Bears: 10)

The lines above portray an almost paradisiac state, a situation in which nature and both fauna (represented by the Eagle, a typical animal for both North America and First Nations culture) and flora (represented by the cedar trees) flourish in harmony, even across the different species. The novel includes numerous other scenes in which the author presents the reader a different, more balanced and harmonious world view, while, at the same time, also showing Gilbert’s inner conflict as he, too, depends on energy sources:

This wood that was burning in his stove with little flames licking at its sides was a hundred-year-old tree. The tree had been struck down for the fuel inside of her. This grand old lady of the forest shed her grey, sooty robes of ash to remind those benefitting from her time-accrued energy – the efforts of all her years – that she was a dirtier fuel, dirtier than the sun’s warm hands or the wind’s fresh breath. When she stored energy in trees the Creator had not given her fuel away freely, it came at an environmental price. But the Creator had also not relinquished her fuel as reluctantly as she had when she buried oil, the black blood of the Black Snake of Death. (The Bears: 11-12)

The lines above are striking due to their victimization and anthropomorphization of the old cedar tree (“the grand old lady of the forest”), which lived a hundred years but was cut down to provide energy in the form of heat. Secondly, using vivid imagery, Welch describes the pipeline as the evil par excellence, calling it “The Black Snake of Death” and its freight, the oil, the “black blood” (see quote above).46 By referring to the planned pipeline as snake, the author deliberately uses a very ambiguous metaphor which may elicit both fear and also respect in the reader, as a snake is often connected to wisdom and temptation,47 sexuality and power, but also to death or betrayal in Western culture. Furthermore, snakes shed their skins and moreover, they appear to be invisible but may still lie in ambush – a quality which holds also true for the pipeline. Buried in the ground of remote regions, it may be forgotten or easily overlooked. However, only a tiny rupture is enough to unleash a catastrophe, as the author seeks to warn the reader. Yet, it needs to be mentioned that Gilbert is on

46 See also Sid Marty’s The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek in which the narrative voice alternates between a first-person narrator and a figural narrative situation, in which Marty writes from a bear’s perspective and therefore invents new terms to describe the human world. For instance, humans are “Twolegs” (Marty 2008: 79; 80; 109; 101), the town Banff is “Twoleg den” (Marty 2008: 80; 221), whereas the train is called “the iron serpent” (Marty 2008: 254) or “the great broken back snake” (Marty 2008: 221), and the highway is referred to as “meatmaker” (Marty 2008: 63; 75; 76; 112). 47 Cf. The Expulsion from Paradise, Genesis 3:22.

140 his own in his fight against the Enpipe pipeline. As has already been mentioned above, the Haisla people have taken legal action against the construction of the Northern Gateway Project in real life.

In the novel, the pipeline rupture is not mentioned right away. Instead, the author chose to describe its smell and its effect on the insects and animals surrounding the spill site in the following words: “The smell in the air felled the bees. It fouled the bees. It confused, sickened, and grounded the bees.” (The Bears: 34) Interestingly, the bees were the first to notice the change in their environment. Using drastic language (“fouled” / “confused” / “sickened” / “grounded”), the oil’s toxic effect on the small insects is described. Apart from the bees, the spill passes unnoticed at first, and Welch uses a rhetorical question to highlight this very lack of awareness:

It happened in the little forest between Kitimat town centre and the Kitimat River. When a pipeline ruptures in the forest, does anybody hear it? Nobody heard it this time. […] The oil worked at the injury of the pipe, wearing away at the little compromised spot until it broke free. (The Bears: 34-35)

The author’s intention, once again, seems to be not only to warn their readership of the aftermath of an oil spill, but also that a spill might happen without anybody noticing it. An oil spill in a pipeline in a very remote region will only be recognized once a lot of terrain has been polluted and thousands of litres of oil spilt. Under these premises, and given the strong probability of an oil spill, the author seeks to highlight that the construction of a pipeline is irresponsible.

To Gilbert, the news of the oil spill does not come as a surprise, as he saw it coming. Yet, the author uses an extraordinary method to inform Gilbert about the catastrophe: “The smell reached him in his dreams.” (Welch 2012: 35) In this dream, Gilbert is playing happily with his two kids Charlotte and Max,48 when suddenly the jolly atmosphere turns dark and gloomy:

48 Gilbert is a lone parent as his wife Clara died from cancer. (cf. Welch 2012: 86f.) Even though the author does not go into much detail here, the mentioning of Clara’s cancerous condition reminds the reader of a rising level of cancer in areas where oil is produced. (Cf. Nikiforuk 2010: 72; 84; 88f; 97-101, 125f.)

141 Suddenly, the smell of raw, dirty fuel grew pungent in the playground. […] Oily, black tears were streaming down Max’s face, coursing from his black-brown eyes. Two black lines of tears were beginning to stain the collar of the boy’s yellow T-shirt. Gilbert looked at his daughter. She had stopped swinging, and she was merely hanging motionlessly with black rivulets flowing down her face as well and ruining her favourite green dress. The overpowering smell of the fuel was choking him. […] He was no longer dreaming. (The Bears: 36f.)

Using vivid and contrasting imagery, the author manages install the picture of Gilbert’s nightmare in the reader’s mind. The happy, colourfully dressed and playing children represent life, innocence and vitality – an idyll destroyed by the overpowering smell of fuel. The children start crying, yet they do not cry tears but oil which destroys their bright, green clothes, thus symbolically capturing the destructive effect of the oil enterprise. The fact that Gilbert dreams about the oil spill before hearing the news underlines the atmosphere of an interconnectedness and spirituality which permeates the whole novel. Gilbert is part of the ecosystem and is still connected to his environment, an ability that – as the author seems to suggest – has been lost by the majority of human beings living in the civilised world of the twenty-first century.

The author’s careful wording and her powerful use of metaphorical language can be witnessed several times throughout the novel, thus creating a lasting impression on the reader, as can be seen when Gilbert rushes to the spill site and realises the enormity of the damage:

So this is the epicenter. Gilbert imagined a crystal vase falling onto a tile floor and smashing spectacularly. He imagined the skittering of a hundred thousand splinters of clear glass, each one containing its own tiny rainbow. He imagined bigger shards of crystal right where the vase connected with the floor. He imagined tiny specks reaching the far corners of the room, where they would remain undetected until a hapless bare foot or a child’s curious hands discovered them in a sharp shock of pain. He imagined mysterious drops of blood spilling from invisible, insidious wounds. (The Bears: 39)

The scene is described meticulously and in slow-motion, emphasised by the fourfold anaphorai (He imagined) and the pictorial language: the oil spill is compared to glass, a particularly suitable metaphor as probably everybody can relate to the breaking of glass and the nuisance of finding each and every splinter before it can do harm to anyone. This harm is made graphically tangible by metaphorically evoking human vulnerability (“hapless”, “bare”, “child”) and the uncanny in connection with blood and wounds. Similarly, the quote suggests, it is almost impossible to retrieve the initial situation and to remove every drop of oil once the

142 spill occurred. The gravity of the oil spill is even further emphasised for the reader as Gilbert thinks of funeral rites:

Gilbert’s internal soundtrack to the oil spill disaster on the day it happened was the mournful chanting of his ancestors and the loud, low, sombre beat of a funeral drum. (The Bears: 41)

Shortly after the readers are presented with Gilbert’s reaction to the spill, they are confronted with Moksgm’ol’s reaction to the spill:

I wake and a vile man-smell assails my nostrils. It is a sharp, sour smell, similar to the stench of their hard-grey roadways, but it is somehow fresher. […] It is an assault of man-smells. (The Bears: 42)

Like his totemic human counterpart, Moksgm’ol too awakens from the pungent smell caused by the oil spill. Its gigantic extent is underlined by the repeated alliteration of [s]-sounds (sharp, sour smell, similar... stench) which creates an uncomfortable, even threatening, atmosphere. Furthermore, the lines also show mankind’s intrusion into the bear’s territory. The smell and the unusual presence of men in his forest (“the forest is rank with men”, Welch 2012: 43) set Moksgm’ol’s teeth on edge, and he tries to scare them away with threatening gestures (“I am on my hind legs and I roar my displeasure.” The Bears: 43). The bear is unable to escape the impact the oil spill had on his home and on his own life in the long run, and the tension builds up, which the author mediates by accelerating the pace and by describing the bear’s growing panic which culminates in his panic-stricken escape:

Men – many men – break and blunder and block one way to escape. There are other ways to escape from here, all dangerous […] Running I am running crushing crashing wanting away from the man, and then there are more men. I smell a smack of stink again. I veer away to find another way! When I come upon a line of yellow metal machines, I turn and crash. […] Not seeing anything, I am crashing around, crashing through. I want only the quiet green of a man-less forest. I only want to be away from men. I only want to be somewhere that is for bears. (The Bears: 44f.)

In these lines, the author tries to capture the bear’s feelings by using the stream-of-consciousness technique, trying to allow the reader a glimpse into the wild animal’s ‘mindset’. Leaving out punctuation marks, it is easy for the reader to empathize with the haunted animal. The repeated use

143 of alliterations and repetitions (“running” / “running” / “crushing” / “crashing” / “man” / “more men” / “smell a smack of stink”) underlines this effect.

Even though Moksgm’ol is a very proud animal and the top of the food chain in the forests, he does not have a chance in a conflict situation with man. In the aftermath of the massive oil spill, the forests around Kitimat are crowded with people: TV reporters, newsmen, politicians and volunteers all leave their traces in Moksgm’ol’s formerly undisturbed kingdom. Keeping in mind the majestic description of Moksgm’ol at the beginning of the novel, his transformation into a chased animal and victim is striking.

Moksgm’ol’s situation becomes even worse as he steps into a pool of oil. Its smell is extremely irritating and agonizing:

The infernal slick blackness cannot be purged from the paws of the mighty Moksgm’ol! My polluted paws fouled the cold white snow, yet the blackness and the reek remain. Again and again I have passed my muzzle against the poison and attempted to remove it. My eyes smart and weep, and my nose burns. I am angry and I roar with displeasure. (The Bears: 111-112.)

In the next lines, the bear directly addresses Man, accusing mankind for disturbing and destroying his territory:

O Man, your noises despoil the rustle and hum of the forest. […] O Man, your hard grey roads bring flashes of speeding light and sudden death to all manner of creatures. O Man! O man, your machines rip down the trees that are my home, and the forest which has for all time been Moksgm’ol’s sanctuary and birthright. O Man, you tear away all the berry bushes. [...] O Man, what manner of madness is this evil toxin that violates the purity of my paws, spead out in sinister silence among the very ground where we must walk? (The Bears: 112)

This incantation with its repeated accusatory apostrophe of mankind can hardly fail to affect the reader, who merges with the intratextual addressee.

144 4.3.3. Hawk (2016) by Jennifer Dance

Hawk, a piece of young-adult literature, is a novel which operates on several layers. In its centre is Adam, a teenage boy, long distance runner, First Nation member and also cancer patient suffering from leukaemia. The novel’s setting is the Wood Buffalo Region in Northern Alberta. Most of the plot takes place either in Fort McMurray, where Frank – Adam’s father – works for the fictitious oil company Energyse, or in Fort Chipewyan where the family lived together until Adam’s parents moved to Fort McMurray, leaving their son behind with his grandfather. “Fort Chip”, as the town is often shortened in the text, represents the old way of living, whereas FortMcMurray is connected to progress and development (cf. Hawk: 38). Similarly, the character of the grandfather represents old traditions and the way First Nations members lived before the arrival of the Europeans, and in particular, before the oil sands development around Fort McChip started. Adam’s parents are part of a newer generation, seemingly embracing development and desperate to find recognition and to cast off the ‘stigma’ of being First Nation members. Adam, their son, is torn between the old and new ways of living, struggling not only to find his position in life, but also to survive his cancerous condition, which may or may not have been caused by the exposure toxines emitted by the oil industry (cf. Hawk: 166f.). Throughout the novel, Adam matures as his personality is shaped by his illness and the acceptance of his Native roots.

In many ways, Hawk is a novel which describes the typical hardships of teenage life: coping with a difficult relationship to his parents, feeling insecure next to girls or struggling to find recognition. On top of that, the reader witnesses Adam’s struggle to beat his life-threatening disease and the family’s struggle to overcome this challenging situation. At the same time, a major message of the novel is to raise awareness for the Canadian oil/tar sands and the powerful industry behind them. Undoubtedly writing from an environmental perspective, the author informs and educates the reader not only about the impact the oil industry has on nature and the health of locals; the author Jennifer Dance also aims at creating a bigger picture of and a deeper understanding for the situation of First Nations members living next to the oil/tar sands in towns such as Fort Chipewyan. The desired effect is achieved by sensitively educating the uninformed reader about connections between the oil sands industry, the environment and the Native community.

Even though Hawk is a fictitious text, the novel is based on real-life events and historical facts, for example when Hawk’s/Adam’s grandfather refers to Treaty 8, by which the Native population ceded their lands to the queen (cf. Hawk: 40ff), or the residential schools, traumatizing Frank’s mother.

145 Another outstanding feature is the emphasis on the existing interconnectedness between different species, and on a connection between natural phenomena and human lives. This becomes apparent, for example, in the annual breaking of the ice on the Athabasca River in Fort Mac, which is celebrated:

I remember the last Saturday in April, the day that the ice broke on the Athabasca River. This is always a big deal for everyone who lives in Fort McMurray. It happens each spring, but it’s still a shock, jolting us all back to what we were doing when the river broke the previous year or the year before that, or in my parents’ case, fourteen years before. (Hawk: 36f.)

The fact that the ice melts earlier and earlier every year is also mentioned, as Angela, Adam’s mother talks about climate change (cf. Hawk: 37). Another example for the frequently occurring connection between nature and humans can be seen in the scene where recently cancer-diagnosed Adam flies to Fort McMurray for his first chemotherapy, comparing the landscape of the oil/tar sands to himself:

Briefly, before the plane turns, I see the oil sands to the north, a strange, dull emptiness merging with distant horizon. No forest. Nothing green. Just hazy brown sky and a landscape the colour of mud. In some strange way I feel as if I’m looking at myself... used up, depleted, empty. (Hawk: 12)

The story is told from Adam’s point of view; however, in contrast to conventional first-person narrations, this homodiegetic narrator renders most of the events in the present tense, thus making them more immediate and the story more immersive. Also, Adam’s adolescent, and at times naïve vision helps the reader to create a lasting impression and unconventional vision of the oil sands industry. When entering the oil company’s ground, the family passes a reforestation zone which Adam describes as ‘‘a road lined with spruce trees that are all the same height, width, and colour. They remind me of soldiers on parade.’’ (Hawk: 42) Thus, the author emphasises the artificiality of the reforested area, an impression, which is even intensified when Adam spots a patch of plastic lilies at the entrance to Energyse’s property: “They must be plastic because it’s too early for real ones , but it’s impossible to tell for sure because they’re covered in the same mud-coloured dust that’s everywhere.” (Hawk: 44) Narrated from the perspective of an adolescent, the reader is confronted with the issue of oil development and how it affects the population. It stresses not only the growing destruction

146 and pollution of a once-pristine landscape, but also emphasises conflicts arising among the different generations: whereas the grandfather is still clings to old traditions and values, (cf. Dance 2016: 18f.), Adam’s father Frank has accepted the oil development seemingly without questioning it. He depends on his job in the oilsands, as he needs the money to support his family, and even more so as his son suffers from leukemia. In order to cope with his demanding job, Frank denies the fact that oil development has a negative impact on both landscape and the health of the local population. Frank, representing the majority of inhabitants of Fort McMurray, is afraid of drawing attention to these problems and of criticizing the oil industry, as is shown multiple times in the story. His discomfort is seen most clearly when his family is invited to a tree-planting day for a reclamation site on the grounds of the oil company Energyse. His son Adam feels uncomfortable too, as he describes the oil company’s land in the following words: “The landscape looks about as welcoming as the surface of the moon.” (Dance 2016: 40) Whereas Frank tends to whitewash the impact of the oil industry, he is afraid that his father might criticize the oil industry in public, as can be seen several times in the course of the novel:

Frank snaps. “Look Dad, this company pays my wages, remember. It pays for the roof over our heads, and the food that goes in our bellies – yours too!” (Hawk: 46)

or:

‘‘Watch what you say today, Dad. I know you have strong opinions about the mining, but keep them to yourself... for my sake.’’ (Hawk: 48)

or:

Frank glares at me and my grandfather. […] “I don’t want you and Adam getting into trouble. And I don’t want you making me look bad, either.” (Hawk: 56)

Frank, representing the majority of Albertans, not only whitewashes the effect of the oil sands industry, he also sets great value on status symbols like his new, bigger truck (cf. Hawk: 37, “the new pickup truck”) and feels proud to drive in huge 797 “monster trucks” (Hawk: 47) when working on the oil/ tar sands. Furthermore, he is also naive and credulous when it comes to the company’s responsibility towards the environment and thus hands over the responsibility to others to make decisions:

147 “The delta is a World Heritage site,” my father explains. “They’ll look after it.” My grandfather’s voice is angry. “Sometimes, Frank, I think you’re blind.” (Hawk: 147)

Similarly, Frank is rather blue-eyed when he proudly tells his family about new systems that should deter incoming birds from the tailing ponds: “I’m sure they have an answer for that too.” (Hawk 2016: 63) When his father refers to Dr. O’Connor, a doctor revealing the connection between the oil/tar sands and unusually high cancer cases, and who figures not only in the novel but exists in real life, Frank fends off: “They laid complaints against him, remember! They wouldn’t have done that without a good reason.” (Hawk: 167)

In all these examples, Frank passes the baton to a dubious authority, to which he refers as ‘they’, but never explains who these persons are or what ‘they’ do. By presenting Frank’s naivety, the author encourages the reader to form their own opinions and to take responsibility, instead of handing over the reins of power and decision-making.

In contrast to his son, the grandfather clearly represents the old way of thinking, mourning after times when “[w]e ate real fish and real game, not these hot dogs and hamburgers you call food. We drank water from the lake too, not from plastic bottles.” (Hawk: 46) Initially, he is the only character who criticizes and questions the oil industry, whereas his grandson Adam fails to understand his grandfather’s complaints at first (cf. (Hawk: 46). Yet at the same time, the grandfather is the person Adam most closely relates to, as his relationship to his parents is rather tense: “My grandfather is the only one I feel any affection for, but he’s so stuck in the old ways that it’s like he’s from another planet.” (Hawk: 18) Initially, the grandfather is the only character asking uncomfortable questions, for example at the tree planting event organised by the fictitious oil company Energyse. Whereas the other visitors are impressed by the scale of the oil sands and the seemingly well-conceived tree planting event, the grandfather does not get tired of asking questions (for example: “What happens to the sediment?”, Hawk: 54) or commenting on the supervisor’s statements:

148 […] And once the trees have grown up a little, animals will come back. It’s already happening over at the East Mine. They have a herd of bison grazing there.’’ ‘‘Wild?’’ my grandfather asks. ‘‘Not exactly. They’re fenced in. We’re concerned about overgrazing.’’ ‘‘You mean you let them out now and again for photographs to put in the newspaper,’’ my grandfather says. I scowl at him, trying to tell him to shut up. (Hawk: 55f.)

The novel’s main strength lies in its unique story line and plot. Repeatedly, the story line alternates between the past (e.g. Adam’s childhood memories, his grandmother’s death or his grandfather’s stories about the old days), events of the present, and – because of Adam’s leukemia as well as the continuing destruction of nature in the oil sands region – the story is also filled with anxiety about the future.

The novel’s plot is split in two parts, yet, these two parts are still connected, as they influence and refer to each other: whereas the main plot evolves around Adam’s family and their struggle to overcome both the hardships, i.e. Adam’s cancer and differences of opinion about the oil industry, the second plot centers around the lives of two fish hawks. Thus, the novel tells two stories: a first- person narrative situation with Adam representing the human perspective, whereas an authorial narrator provides the reader with an avian, ‘hawkish’-perspective in the second story line. This part is told by an omniscient narrator providing the reader with the story of the female osprey Three Talons, her mate, White Chest and their offspring trying to survive in the industrial area of the Albertan oil/tar sands.

Positioned at the beginning of each chapter, printed in italics and separated from the main plot by the symbol of a tiny feather, these bird episodes clearly stand out. Within the ‘hawk subchapters’, Dance repeatedly uses the technique of foreshadowing, thus anticipating difficulty for the hawks already at the beginning of the novel and creating suspense, as can be seen in the following quote:

From high in a clear blue sky, the fish hawk scans the land for one particular fish- bearing river. She sees its familiar shape and knows she is nearly home. […] She continues searching, but something isn’t right. (Hawk: 17)

Repeatedly, the author stresses the hawks’ difficulty of coping with and living in an area that has been altered by the oil industry. Massive development of Alberta’s northern landscape for the oil industry, including cut-down forests, air and water pollution, leads to disorientation, lack of habitat, retreat areas and food, as can be seen in the next lines:

149 The female fish hawk can still see the big river, but the thick forest that should have lined its banks and provided her with a nesting site for the summer is mostly gone. Only a narrow band of greenery remains, not enough to offer her protection and seclusion. (Hawk: 35)

Similar scenes can be found on page 21 (“[…] beneath her wings, nothing is recognizable. Everything has changed.”), or on page 26 (“She has learned that this is not a good place to hunt. Not a good place to be.”) or on page 37 (“She loses her bearings. She doesn’t know how high she is flying. She doesn’t know what direction she is going. She is simply flying.”). Here, the authorial narration becomes figural displaying the female bird’s disorientation The hawk’s struggle and the exploitation of earth create a very dark, threatening and desperate atmosphere, which is intensified even more by a victimization and anthropomorphization of earth (“the naked earth ripples”, Hawk: 35), with the oil industry being the offender.

The most remarkable feature of Hawk is the unusual, strong connection between Adam and a particular fish hawk. Adam’s special connection started already when he was a small boy, when his grandfather gave him the nickname ‘Hawk’. The boy’s and the bird’s lives are clearly connected, as Adam and his grandfather find and rescue an oil-covered hawk from a tailing pond on Energyse’s property. This very fish hawk survives and turns out to be the male hawk White Chest, which figures prominently in the ‘hawk subchapters’. Thus, the reader realises that there is a connection between humans and nature, a connection between the lives of animals and people living in towns. It seems as if the author wants to stress interconnectivity among the species, which is further promoted by the fact that the grandfather named Adam Hawk when he was a small child. Only when Adam and his parents moved away from Fort Chip – and metaphorically speaking also from the traditional way of life – did the boy accept his ‘modern’ name:

‘‘It wasn’t just chance that you rescued this bird. I called you Hawk when you were a kid, remember?’’ […] ‘‘You never looked like an Adam to me,’’ my grandfather continues. ‘‘You looked like a bird! A newly hatched one. And a mouth that opened wide, looking for food.’’ (Hawk: 62-63.)

After the rescue mission, Adam’s and the bird’s fortunes are closely connected: whereas the fish hawk struggles to survive his landing on the tailing pond and to find a mate, Adam undergoes several chemotherapies. Furthermore, the teenager develops a real attachment to the bird. Months later, when Adam slips in and out of consciousness in hospital, he has a vision of being an osprey himself (cf. Hawk: 95f.) or dreams of being the osprey’s companion, flying side by side. Dreaming

150 about the hawk helps Adam to keep strong and maintain a desire to live despite being in a great deal of pain. The teenager feels deeply attached to the rescued hawk, almost relating to him as his kin. In his intense dreams, Adam joins the fish hawk to fly side by side through the skies of northern Alberta, providing the reader with a bird’s eye perspective of the extent of the Albertan oil industry:

‘‘I’m flying – riding the thermals above Lake Athabasca, the King of Osprey at my side. I’m thrilled to see him again, but he brings heaviness. I know that he’s going to lay something on my heart.’’ […] The King of Osprey tells me to look south toward the horizon, to where a band of cloud hangs above the desolate land. At first I don’t understand what he wants me to see. He tells me to look harder. It’s only then that I see that the band of cloud is not a normal cloud. It comes from the smoking chimneys. (Hawk: 147f.)

In the course of the novel, Adam not only battles his disease, but moves away from the urban city teenager and eventually returns to Fort Chip where he manages to find stability again. As he regains his physical strength, he feels the need to speak up for the hawks and to inform the public about the negative impact of the oil industry on health, wildlife, and landscape. Thus, the teenager does not only change his location, but also turns away from the boy and son he once was, embracing the old ways of Fort Chip again. This can be seen in the scene where he fights with his father: “And stop calling me Adam. I’m Hawk!” (Hawk: 167)

On the level of sensory perception, Adam and the hawks also show parallels, feeling disturbed by the strong smell of oil:

Beneath the fish hawk’s weary wings, man-machines belch smoke and kick up swirling dust. She blinks and flies on through the haze. The scent of pine gives way to a smell that she recognizes from her southern home: the smoky stench that billows from the metal trees that grow in the warm ocean: the reek of the flossy slick that sometimes floats on the balmy water there, making it shimmer with rainbow colours. (Hawk: 27)

When visiting his father’s company on a tree-planting activity in the introductory chapters of the novel, Adam, too, perceives the gasoline smell, which even overpowers his bug repellent:

151 “You can barely smell the DEET because there’s something stronger in the air, like when you drive past a road crew filling potholes, only much more powerful. Then I realize it’s the smell of the oil industry: summer road works.” (Hawk: 46)

Throughout the novel, the episodes featuring the pair of ospreys gain more importance and turn out the be longer, at times demanding more than fifty per cent of the whole chapter. With these chapters, the author confronts the reader with the oil industry’s impact on wild animals such as predatory birds like the eagle or hawk. With the expansion of mines, forests and muskeg are being repressed and the habitat of wild animals diminishes, leaving barren lands behind where once majestic forests grew:

Despite the unrecognizable landscape, the two birds find it hard to leave the area. Instinct still tells them that this is their home, so they choose a tree that is as close to their birthplace as they dare to go. […] But the birds know that time is growing short. (Hawk: 77f.)

In a clever move, the author names the female and male hawk in chapter ten. For the rest of the novel, the female bird is referred to as Three Talons, and the male bird is called White Chest. This is a powerful device, as these two birds become more than only birds – from the moment they are named, they become characters of the novel, and the reader is likely to empathize with them. Furthermore, hawks are not any kind of bird, but a typically Canadian animal, representing power and freedom. The reader is likely to feel sorry for their struggle, especially for their fruitless breeding efforts. On the one hand, these episodes are clearly separated from the rest of the story, as they are printed in italics. The symbol of a tiny feather, which is printed between the hawk episodes and Adam’s story, stresses that disconnection even further.

On the other hand, however, the storylines and thus the human and avian spheres are also repeatedly connected. This is the case, for example, in chapter 14 (p. 86-89), where the destructive effect of the oilsands industry on wildlife is illustrated and where the two storylines – the human and the avian plot – overlap: after struggling to find a suitable breeding place, Three Talons and White Chest try to raise their three osprey chicks when all of a sudden machines approach, threatening to cut down the forest and the bird family’s tree:

Before long, the youngsters are almost the size of their parents. […] Man-machines come. They roar and belch fiery breath. White Chest takes to the air and circles overhead, screaming at them. He dives low,

152 trying to drive away from his family. But the machines keep coming. (Hawk: 86)

The machines and lumbermen come closer and closer, stopping only when one worker realizes the hawks’ nest and the alert hawk parents. Unsure what to do, he calls his boss and asks for advice.

‘‘They should have fledged by now,’’ the boss replies. ‘‘The rules say we have to wait until then, but after that it’s fair game. We’d never get any work done around here if we waited for every freakin’ bird to leave the nest.’’ (Hawk: 87)

Clearly, this scene is meant to show the ruthlessness of the lumbermen who cut down the forest for further development of the oil industry. Nature, symbolized by the fish hawk family, has no chance, is victimized, destroyed, even murdered. In both these passages the third-person narratives move from external to internal thus powerfully featuring the birds’ point of view and making the reader empathize with their struggle. In the following, the heavy machinery is described like a malevolent, unstoppable monster, which “grabs”, “bites” and “tramples” through the former peaceful forest:

Three Talons stays with her offspring as long as she dares. The machines lumber closer. The noise is terrifying, but she stays... until the forest starts to fall around her. […] A man-machine grabs the trunk of the tree that holds their family. It bites into the trunk and throws it down, tossing the young birds out. They flap helplessly as they plummet to the ground. The angry man-machine doesn’t stop. It keeps eating its way through the forest, leaving a mess of branches... and three young fish hawks trampled into the ground. (Hawk: 88)

Three Talons, on the other hand, is anthropomorphized, her chicks are described as her family: she is brave and remains as long as possible but has to flee in the end. Despite her struggle, her offspring does not survive, their young lives find a brutal end (“trampled into the ground”, see quote above). With her wording, Dance makes an effort to portray nature as ‘good’, whereas men and their machinery are considered as evil and indifferent to suffering, focussed only on material growth.

Adam’s grandfather has a vivid memory, and always spends a lot of time with his grandson, setting great value on telling him about the old days before European contact and about the treaties: “‘He told me the treaty story many times when I was a kid. He must have told it really well, because the treaty was signed over a hundred years ago – even before he was born, yet in my memory I was

153 there.” (Dance 2016: 40) The grandfather is an avid opponent of the Catholic church, which may be explained by the fact that his wife, like thousands of First Nations children, was taken to residential school (Dance 2016: 58). Additionally, he feels that priests helped to trick his ancestors to sign the treaty, by which they also signed over their land to Queen Victoria:

“For some crazy reason,” my grandfather always said, “the people trusted that black robe. They believed him when he said that our lives would remain more or less unchanged and that we’d still be able to hunt, and trap, and fish, just as we always had. There was a lot of land, and there were very few people, so we agreed to share. We made a spoken promise... one that was for as long as the sun shines, as long as the grass grows, as long as the river runs. We also made our mark on the queen’s paper. We didn’t know that the scratchy lines said that we agreed to cede the land to the queen. We didn’t know that cede meant give up; relinquish; hand over!” (Hawk: 41)

Even though neither Adam, nor his grandfather lived when the treaty was signed, they both feel clearly connected to it, which is apparent by the grandfather’s repeated use of “we”, and Adam’s feeling as if he too had been there when the treaty was signed. It is apparent that the author placed importance on accuracy when it comes to treaty texts. All numbers and conditions about the treaties mentioned in the novel are based on the actual text of Treaty 8, which was made in June 1889 and affected First Nations living in the north of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and also southern parts of the Northwest Territories (cf. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, online). online: 9). Members of the Fort Chipewyan community were among the natives who signed the treaty. The priest convincing and reassuring the First Nations members to sign the treaty, mentioned in Hawk, indeed refers to Father Albert Lacombe, who was a well-known missionary in Alberta. Today, schools and senior centers, as well as the town Lacombe in southern Alberta are named after him. (Cf. Dictionary of Canadian Biography, online)

Whereas it is very difficult for Adam’s grandfather to accept development in the oil sands, he is not bitter, but humorous, which is seen as a strategy of First Nations Canadians to cope with difficult situations. In the novel, this becomes apparent in the scene where a member of the oil company and the reforestation campaign promotes their efforts to reclaim the land and thus explains articifial breeding sites to visitors:

“Soon there’ll be hiking trails and lookout points and nesting sites for birds. We’re already putting in snags, see.” He points to a tree trunk that appears to be growing upside down. The roots are in the sky. I’ve never seen anything like it. My grandfather laughs aloud, his humour genuine. “You people really have got things

154 wrong side up.” The supervisor laughs too. (Hawk: 55)

Whereas this scene above helps to ridicule the efforts of the oil industry, it also underlines the existing rift of northern Alberta’s population, the two groups being First Nations members and Euro-Canadians.

It is only through the course of the novel that the grandfather realizes a connection between his wife’s and his grandson’s cancerous condition and the oil development in the Fort Chip. But it is not only the grandfather who changes: Adam/Hawk, too, does not find his grandfather embarrassing anymore, but decides to leave Fort McMurray behind and to stay with his grandfather in Fort Chip for the summer. Once there, they are asked to collect fish samples for a study conducted by the university, trying to scientifically prove a connection between illnesses, deformed fish and the oil industry (cf. Hawk 2016: 196-198), Adam/Hawk and his grandfather, not trusting the authorities, decide to start their own research and plan to collect, measure, photograph and label fish taken from the Lake Athabasca. (cf. p. 199; cf. p. 204-206).

At it is revealed in the course of the novel, Adam’s/Hawk’s grandmother was ill too, and she probably died from bile duct cancer long before her grandson was born. But as there was no doctor around, the reason for her death was never clarified. In contrast to leukemia, bile duct cancer is extremely rare, yet a noticeable increase of bile-duct cancer patients from the region of Fort Chip has been observed49. However, whether these cancer cases are indeed linked to the oilsands industry is still the issue of many debates (cf. Nikiforuk 2010: 101). Whereas oil companies deny the connection between the oil development and the rise of cancer cases, locals and especially First Nations members are convinced that the increasing pollution of the Athabasca River and Athabasca Lake also threatens and sickens the local population. The connection between an increasing number of cancer patients in the Wood Buffalo municipality is not too far-fetched, as surveys are and have been made to gain more data for scientific proof. In former years, the unusually high number of cancer patients in Fort Chip has been explained by ‘‘lifestyle factors contributing to chronic health problems as possible causes that could be prevented.’’ (Wohlberg 2015, online) In the novel, the

49 Whereas one case of bile duct cancer is normally found among a group of every 200,000 to 300,000 people, four persons have been diagnosed with this cancer in Fort Chip, a community of 1,2000 individuals, recently. (Cf. Wohlberg 2015, online)

155 grandfather is taken aback when he suddenly realises that the oil industry’s side effects could have caused his wife’s death:

“We never ate the fish that looked off-colour. […] We drank the water from the lake. No one told us not to. We ate roots and herbs and berries that grew near the water. And we ate ducks and geese. A lot of muskrat too, before they vanished. Now they tell us not to eat any of these things: none of the country foods our people have lived on since time began! Especially not organ meat, things like liver or kidney. Rose loved liver. Duck liver was her favourite. Moose too. I always gave her my share. Maybe that’s why she got cancer, and I didn’t.” (Hawk: 102)

Furthermore, Adam’s/Hawk’s leukemia might have been caused by the same industry (cf. Hawk 2016: 215). In fact, official studies and several cancer foundations (cf. Solomon 2010, online) describe benzene as ‘‘carcinogenic to humans’’ (American Cancer Society (ACS) 2020, online) and also confirm the connection between cancer, such as leukemia, and a long-term exposure to benzenes (cf. ACS, 2020). The serious threats of an exposure to benzene are also explained by Chinese scholars in the online journal Nature:

Long-term exposure to benzene has been shown to lead to an increased risk of acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome. Benzene-induced decreases in blood cells could be observed within a few months after benzene exposure. However, there is a lag time of years between initial benzene exposure and the development of leukemia. (Kequi Li, Yaqing Jing et al. 2014, online)

In the novel, Adam/Hawk realises the possible connection between his own cancerous condition and the oil industry:

Long term exposure? I guess eating oil-contaminated fish and drinking oil-contaminated water until I was eight would probably constitute long term-exposure. […] Frank was wrong. My leukemia had everything to do with the oil industry. (Hawk: 215)

Fulfilling an educatory function, the author explains that the water of the Athabasca River flows north from the oil sands towards Fort Chip, which is situated at the north-western shore of Lake Athabasca. The river transports toxines from the industry, which again enter the bodies of fish, duck, geese or moose. In the novel, grandfather mentions an oil spill at the Suncor Mine in Fort McMurray in 1981, which poisoned the water of the river, and thus everything that depended on that water – fish, plants, birds, game, and human beings living downstream the industry (cf. Hawk:

156 242). Whereas a proof for the spill in 1981 could not be found during this research, it could be revealed that an oil spill happened at the very same mine in 2011, where 350.000 litres of industrial waste water flowed from a broken tailing pond into the Athabasca River, and thus towards Fort Chipewyan and Lake Athabasca (cf. Cryderman 2013, online).50

Not only the fish and animals, but also the plants growing next to the river seem to be contaminated. For many of the locals living in the region of Fort Chip or Fort McKay, another community situated on the Athabasca River, this is highly problematic. Not only are they forced to buy food and water that is shipped in from far away, this food is also incredibly expensive and thus not affordable for the majority of people living there, which is illustrated and explained in the novel:

“We are caught between a rock and a hard place,” my grandfather explains. “We can’t live off the land anymore – it’s killing us. We can’t earn a living trapping because there’s no beaver and no muskrat left – nothing left to trap! […] But look at the prices! Ninety-two dollars for this turkey! It’s no bigger than a duck. If it wasn’t for Frank’s wages, we couldn’t afford any of this. Some people have no choice; they go back to eating moose and fish. ” (Hawk: 213)

Dance tries to illustrate the vicious circle Adam/Hawk, his grandfather and other locals find themselves in: whereas being aware of the fact that the oil industry changed their lives to the worse, they also depend on the wages paid by the same industry. Another negative aspect of that development is that the former very independent, self-sufficient local population now depends on supply planes (cf. Hawk 2016: 212f.). Furthermore, the problematic situation of industrial wastewater and pollution does not only affect the surrounding lakes, rivers and towns, but might also threaten huge parts of Northern Canada, as the river systems are connected with each other. Thus, breaking tailing ponds could cause a serious environmental disaster, as Adam/Hawk and his friend Gemma realise:

50 To find out more about the toxicity or lethality of industrial sewage water, rainbow trout were put into a pond near the Suncor Mine. The water in the pond was water that was normally put into the river. Numerous trout did not survive. 39 more tests were made, with unsatisfactory results (cf. Cryderman 2013, online).

157 “If the ponds leak, then the river brings the crap right down here to us on Lake Athabasca. And that’s not the worst of it. The Slave River leaves the lake and joins the Mackenzie.” “Oh my god!” Gemma exclaims. “Next stop, the Arctic!” (Hawk: 233)

During the summer weeks, grandfather and Adam/Hawk spend their days collecting fish, also watching a pair of ospreys that nests close to them. They are not aware of it first, but it is White Chest, the male fish hawk that they rescued from the oily tailing pond a year before, with his mate Three Talons. After their last chicks were killed by the lumbermen, they ‘hope’ to successfully raise their chicks this summer. Sitting in a boat, grandfather and Adam/Hawk regularly watch the pair of osprey and their offspring through their binoculars when, one day, the realise a strange behaviour: ‘‘I watch the male deliver a lake trout to Three Talons, then he perches next to her and waits for her to start eating. But she squeaks and pushes the fish out of the nest.’’ (Hawk 2016: 224) Grandfather is convinced that the hawk realises that the fish is not edible and potentially harmful (Hawk 2016: 224). Every day, they watch the hawks, when one day, they witness Three Talons kicking her three dead chicks out of the nest. Adam/Hawk, who is strongly connected to these birds, is shocked and desperate: “All of a sudden, it’s like I’m being turned inside out. I’m sobbing so hard that I can’t get enough breath.” (Dance 2016: 230) In order to find out whether there is a connection between the dead chicks and the pollution of the Athabasca Lake, Adam/Hawk collects their bodies to send them to a research lab:

The baby birds aren’t difficult to spot. They lie sprawled on the ground at the base of the tree. They are almost naked, their talons too big for their scrawny, fragile bodies, their massive eyes hidden under closed lids. I gently lift each chick and place it in a bag, thanking the small creature for offering its body for research and praying that its short life will count for something. (Hawk: 231)

Applying the schema of childlike characteristics, the wording for the depiction of the dead baby hawks (“naked”; “scrawny, fragile bodies”, “massive eyes”) in the quote above aims at triggering an emotional response in the reader. It underlines Adam’s/Hawk’s need for change and a growing awareness about the endangered hawks, the oil industry and the harmful impact on humans, animals and plants. Adam/Hawk shows us the parallels between his own battle with leukemia and the battle that rages in the natural world in the Wood Buffalo Region. As there is an open end to the novel, the reader does not find out whether the last chick of Three Talons and White Chest survives. Yet, the overall tone is optimistic and raises hope for both Adam’s/Hawk’s future as well as the destiny of

158 the fish hawk family. The reader is left with the awareness that things need to be changed to close the rift between the Native and non-Native population and to preserve the remnants of northern Alberta’s nature.

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4.3.4. The Thematic and Aesthetic Impact of Canadian Petro-Novels – A Résumé

Even though each of the three presented novels approaches the complex issue of the oil industry in its own distinct way, there are, nonetheless, recurring patterns and strategies which particularly stand out. In the following, I shall provide a list of the key findings:

Blend of fact and fiction The variety of the novels’ settings (e.g. the deep-water Kitimat, British Columbia, in The Bears, Fort Chipewyan in Hawk; the financial hub Calgary or trade relations with Nigeria in Long Change, just to name a few examples) already confront the reader with the far-reaching impact of the oil/tar sands industry as these places are affected by the very industry in real life. Thus, the reader is likely to recognize the oil/tar sands industry’s enormous environmental and socio-political impact.

In the course of each of the discussed novels real-life events of the past and present (e.g. the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 or the ice-free Northwest Passage in 2007 in Long Change; the traumatising effects of residential schools on First Nations People or the rise of cancer-rates in and around Fort Chipewyan in Hawk, or the proposed and controversial pipeline projects in The Bears) merge or collide with fictitious episodes. Other considerable events which illustrate the blend of fact and fiction are, for instance, the aftermath of the treaties: in Hawk, the aftermath of Treaty 8, and the main characters’ concomitant struggle to adjust to an environment which is increasingly being dominated by industrial development is portrayed, whereas The Bears confronts the reader with the nightmare scenario of a leaking pipeline in Kitimat and its ensuing ramifications on British Columbia’s fragile ecosystem. In addition, natural events, such as the annual breaking of the ice on the Athabasca River and its concomitant festival in Hawk (cf. 36-37), and the indivisible connection between nature and human lives in general are highlighted.

The inclusion of historical facts adds yet another layer of meaning to the already complex stories, and it also lends the narrative voice used in these novels more credibility. In addition, the embedding of momentous, real-life incidents may trigger the reader’s own memories of a particular event, and thus create a personal connection to the fictitious story. In the long run, the protagonists’

160 fate might cause an emotional reaction on the reader, ultimately resulting in the reader sympathizing with their fictitious heroes.

Brutality and violence The oil industry is depicted as a fascinating, yet also utterly dangerous business in which violence, kidnapping, bribery and even murder are the daily fare (particularly in Long Change).

Masculinity and victimization of earth The oil/tar sands are depicted as a predominantly male setting, which can be seen most obviously by the fact that the oil workers, as well as all the chief executive officers are men, but also in many sexist comments and sexual allusions (see, for example, Long Change: 150). In addition, the novels’ main protagonists are male (cf. Long Change, Hawk, The Bears), whereas most of the female side characters are flat. At the same time, earth and nature are both anthropomorphized and also victimized (see, for example, Long Change: 120 and 127), leading the reader to understand the oil/tar sands industry as a men’s world, a microcosm, which nevertheless represents capitalist society as a whole, in which paternal structures prevail. The disastrous long-term effects of the industry, as depicted in the novels, leave the reader wondering if the situation could be improved if more women had a say in the decision-making processes.

Disease, loss and (self-)alienation Each of the novels features at least one case of cancer disease, which reflects the true-to-life situation in Northern Alberta and can eb explained by carcinogenic substances in the mining process. While the depiction of the oil industry’s destructive impact on the natural environment will not come as a big surprise to most readers, the extent of the industry’s negative impact on interpersonal relations, as depicted in the novels, is rather unexpected. In the course of each novel, the main characters either lose, or are in danger of losing, a loved one; furthermore, they also suffer from self-alienation and even infertility, thus ultimately leading to a crisis of identity. In the end, the novels powerfully demonstrate that the oil/tar sands development affects not only wild creatures and nature, but also puts interpersonal relations, family planning, friendships and life as such at hazard.

Doomsday scenarios Playing with dystopian scenarios, and thus warning the reader of what stands to lose in case of further development is one of the key elements used in The Bears. By confronting the reader with

161 worst-case scenarios, the novel plays with the reader’s fears, thereby trying to install an emotional response, and in the long run, a hostile, or at least critical, stance towards new pipeline projects.

Dreams and mythological stories In stark contrast to the rational world of the oil/tar sands, petro-novels use dreams as a strong metaphor for hidden desires and unspoken fears, which are often suppressed in a profit-oriented society. In addition, the authors narrativize the subconscious to foreshadow future events, thereby creating suspense in the reader. Combined with drastic imagery and metaphorical language, the created effect is intensified and thus likely to surprise the reader and to stir his/her emotions.

In Hawk, the main character’s dreams serve yet another purpose: trapped between life and death in hospital, Hawk/Adam dreams of flying with the ospreys and, in his dream, even becomes an osprey. Hawk’s/Adam’s dreams have a healing effect on his body and soul while also helping him to accept his Native heritage. By including dreams into their story lines, it seems as if the authors try to remind their readership that there is more than the eye can see and that decisions concerning the future development of the oil/tar sands or the conservation of nature reserves ought to be carefully considered. The inclusion of dreams and the imaginary depiction of thoughts and the subconscious is one of the potent tolls of literature in general and of narrative fiction in particular since it cannot be offered by factual or documentary discourses.

Inner conflict All the main characters of the three novels discussed repeatedly encounter the feeling of inner strife: they feel torn between the need to protect their environment on the one hand and the need to earn a living on the other (e.g. Adam’s/Hawk’s dad in Hawk or Ritt in Long Change). Also, this problem can be seen as generational conflict, particularly for First Nations: whereas the older generation (embodied in Adam’s/Hawk’s grandfather) who grew up prior to industrialized oil production in Northern Alberta strongly opposes the industry, the younger generation whose lives are based on modern society and therefore on the daily consumption of oil-related products are caught between a rock and a hard place: they find themselves torn between their ancient, cultural heritage and the modern, Euro-Canadian way of life.

Yet, when it comes to the preservation or development of natural resources the feeling of an inner conflict is not only a topic which affects Native populations, as Long Change aims to show:

162 Canadian society as a whole is split into both supporters and opponents of the oil business, and even more so, it seems as if one person may, simultaneously, both promote and object the industry: Ritt, the Euro-Canadian main character of Long Change, for example, finds himself torn between his fascination with geology and his passion for finding hidden oil resources, while also being aware of the industry’s devastating impact on the environment and society. With Ritt as focalizer, the reader is allowed to witness the character’s feelings and inner conflict first hand: his desire to be successful, his own awareness of the criminal acts and the disastrous long-time effects of the oil industry, and, at the same time, his inability to relinquish his own plans and his raised standard of living. Thus, the reader is uncomfortably and inevitably reminded of his/her own responsibility and consumerist behaviour.

Narrative perspective and polyvocality With a third-person limited narrator and Ritt as focalizer in Long Change, the reader is introduced to the fascinating, fast and incredibly brutal ways of the oil industry and to the mindset of a tough businessman who actively promotes the oil industry. While the major part of the novel portrays the protagonist’s passion for the oil industry, the reader is also allowed to witness the protagonist’s vulnerable and sensitive characteristics when he is confronted with calamities. By knowing the character’s motives, the reader is likely to sympathize with Ritt, even though he works for the industry whose wheeling and dealing is unveiled authentically. Thereby, the reader finds him/herself in a similar moral conflict like the main character: Can human motives ever justify the destruction of an ecosystem? The other two novels, The Bears and Hawk, in turn, offer multiple perspectives, characters and story lines. While some protagonists represent the old times and the days prior to the industrial development of the oil/tar sands (e.g. Gilbert in The Bears, grandfather in Hawk), others represent the young generation torn between these two opposing worlds (e.g. Adam/Hawk). Hawk consists of two main story lines: the first story lines introduces the reader to Adam’s/Hawk’s story which is written in first person and thus allows a very intimate insight into the protagonist’s thoughts and experiences. The second story line, different from the first already by typeface, features an authorial narrator providing information and a ‘hawkish’ perspective. The Bears features both human and ‘ursine’ narrative voices, interspersed by mythological episodes recounting Native understandings of the history of origins. The multiple layers and story lines of The Bears and Hawk repeatedly refer and also influence each other. This particularly polyvocal narration commands the reader’s attention while also promoting a sense of interconnectedness across species and cultures in the reader. Through their intricate narrative technique, the authors

163 suggest mutual respect and appreciation for both First Nations and Euro-Canadian cultures, as well as understanding for a wild animal’s needs.

Sublime nature Although often being depicted as victimized, nature, and particularly Canadian nature, is also illustrated as particularly powerful and dangerous to life. The struggle for survival in the wild Canadian outdoors, one of the central issues in Canadian literature (cf. Atwood 1972), features most prominently in Long Change when a canoe accident, and later, the explosion of a petroleum tanker expose the main characters to the cold and the uninhabited wilderness of the Northern hemisphere (cf. Löschnigg 2017: 544). Confronted with man’s insignificance in relation to nature’s aesthetic and indifferent supremacy, these scenes are likely to evoke not only goose bumps in the reader but also respect for the inherent power of the natural environment.

Survival story Survival is one of the key issues in Canadian literature, and each of the novels discussed features a set of survival stories. While nature struggles to survive in the face of massive industrial development in Northern Alberta, the novels’ main characters fight their own battle to live through situations of crisis. In Long Change, Ritt witnesses his wife’s and unborn daughter’s struggle against a terminal disease; in Hawk, the main protagonist fights leukemia, while – like all the other human protagonists – also struggling to ensure his spiritual survival at the same time. Most notably, the animal protagonists in The Bears and Hawk fight their own cause to survive in the radically altered environment of Northern Alberta. The confrontation with all the existential fears is a thought-provoking, and probably well-chosen strategy to induce a feeling of sorrow, and ideally, a change of thinking, in the readership.

Animal characters A sense of interconnectedness and compassion even across species is arguably among the strongest notions of The Bears and Hawk. Not only do these novels feature animals – rather these animals are protagonists and thus main characters (cf. the ospreys White Chest and Three Talons in Hawk, or Moks’gmol, Tlingit in The Bears) next to their human counterparts. That being said, these novels invite the reader to experience the story from an animal’s perspective. Whereas an omniscient, authorial narrator informs the reader about the ospreys’ problems in an altered environment in Hawk, the author of The Bears goes a step further by providing the reader with a bear’s interior monologue, thereby hoping to install an understanding of the wild animal’s reaction in the reader.

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The alternation between human to animal perspectives might pose a challenge for the readership, but also enables them to see the oil/tar sands industry from a very different angle. In addition, multiple narrators, and thus, multiple story lines also help the reader to realize that the oil industry is a highly complex, multi-faceted and controversial issue indeed.

165 4.4. Drama

In comparison to other literary genres, drama has long been by neglected in ecocriticism (cf. Caupert 2018: 119). Similarly, May reports that even though ‘green’ issues have found their way into various artistic disciplines, theatre and the performing arts have strangely been omitted (cf. May 2005: 84). Arons and May try to explain the lack of ecological drama insofar as “the performative arts [...] have traditionally been conceived as the activity that most divides humans from ‘nature’” (Arons and May 2012: 1). In her article published in Theater in 1994, Chaudhuri puts the blame for the lack of ecological drama on a “theater aesthetic and ideology […] that is […] programmatically anti-ecological” (Chaudhuri 1994: 24). Thus, following the humanist tradition of nineteenth-century theatre, the majority of plays used to focus on “the human existence” (Chaudhuri 1994: 24), while environmental issues were either completely omitted or pushed to the margin. Back then, playwrights preferred to use nature, for example, as setting for human action, instead of staging environmental concerns. Following the footsteps of humanist playwrights, it is not surprising that only a few chose to stage and discuss ecological issues (cf. Arons and May 2012: 4); furthermore, it also explains why “ecology and environment […] are not only under-represented and underthematized on the Western stage, but also under-theorized in theater and performance scholarship” (Arons and May 2012: 1). Yet, in the meantime a lot of playwrights have emerged who stage and discuss environmental issues, as my analysis of three Canadian petro-plays will show.51

While some scholars lament the absence of plays in the eco-literary canon, other scholars regard theatre and drama as a particularly fitting genre to feature ecological issues: “Theatre studies is positioned opportunistically between the literary and the performative, and as such can function as a bridge between discourses.” (May 2007: 96) In the twenty-first century, modern society finds itself confronted with the huge challenge of thriving and surviving in a warming climate. Thus, green playwrights, too, need to face further changes and challenges if they want to attract a wide readership/audience. Furthermore, May stresses theatre’s and drama’s potential to create stories, as they “can open new possibilities of being, can crack the eggshells of long-standing ideological paradigms” (May 2007: 95) and points out that including plays and theatre performance in ecocriticism “will bring new and important issues to light” (May 2007: 97). Similarly, Chaudhuri explains that the ecological crisis of our planet calls for urgent action and that “[...] the nature and

51 Another scholar whose has done scholarly work on eco-plays is Adeline Johns-Putra (see, for example: “Climate Change in Literature and Literary Studies: From Cli-fi, Climate Change Theater and Ecopoetry to Ecocriticism and Climate Change Criticism”. In: WIREs Climate Change 7 (2016): 266-282.).

166 course of that action – or continued inaction – will inevitably be deeply political and will strongly impact every aspect of our lives” (Chaudhuri 1994: 25). Furthermore, she states that the crisis cannot be solved half-heartedly: “Ecological victory will require a transvaluation so profound as to be nearly unimaginable at present. And in this the arts and humanities – including the theater – must play a role.” (Chaudhuri 1994: 25) One of the preconditions for playwrights to “play a role” in that discussion is to teach themselves, or let themselves be taught ecological issues, as May elaborates below:

Green playwrights do well to seek out environmental scientists and educators, link up with experts in county and state departments of ecology and hazardous waste, with wildlife biologists, fish and game personnel, citizen groups, and environmental justice activists. Rich resources for stories exist in what we can learn from those who work in the trenches of the “environmental crisis” where our communities must solve very complex ecological problems. (May 2005: 94)

In the quote above, May returns to one of the maxims of ecocriticism, which observes an interconnectedness between scientists of different disciplines and the ultimate goal of creating a meaningful artistic product that will educate the readers/audience and instill in them the willingness and the need to reflect on ecological issues of the present time. Yet, drama can do even more than raising awareness of green matters: after having watched a performance it is likely that when we as audience “leave the theater, things around us are more alive, we listen better, and we have a deeper sense of our own ecological identity” (May 2005: 95). It is through a moment of catharsis that theatre productions may help us to see green topics not only from a different angle, they are also likely to touch their readers/ audience on an emotional level.

May coined the term “ecodramaturgy”, which understands “drama in relation to earth processes” (Arons and May 2012: 4). The challenge of ecodramaturgy is thus to elaborate on the links “between resource use, economic policy, and impact on humans and land in an increasingly globalized context” (Arons and May 2012: 4). It combines the needs of a globalized world with the local stories and identities of regions affected by resource extraction (cf. Arons and May 2012: 5), thereby emphasizing the side-effects of resource extraction by both shedding light on the environmental destruction, but also on individuals or groups of human beings who do not take profit from that development (cf. May 2007: 86-87). Thus, May explains that a thorough analysis of green plays “presses ecocriticism beyond a traditional white/male-dominated wilderness aesthetic with its implied binaries of nature/culture, wild/tame, rural/urban, toward an understanding of

167 ecological community that includes human and non-human creatures, urban and wilderness places” (May 2005: 87).

A further benefit and challenge of drama is that playwrights do not work alone in their chamber – by nature, theatrical products are “both immediate and communal”, “a field of exchange where myths take flight, moving between the permeable spheres of self and community and then out in the terrain of our lives. […] To discover the ecology of theater and its potential to awake ecological sensibilities in us, ecocritics must come into the theater and partake” (May 2005: 85). This, however, presupposes overcoming what Major and McMurry name the so-called “chamber effect, whereby texts come to talk to texts alone” (Major and McMurry 2012: 3). Thus, staging ecodrama might help to overcome the nature-human dichotomy in the long run and may advocate a more holistic depiction of contemporary issues and challenges. If we take environmental issues and environmental theatre seriously, it is mandatory to not only focus on the human world, but “to take the nonhuman world as seriously as previous modes of criticism have taken the human realms of society and culture” (Glen Love, qtd. in Arons and May 2012: 2).

May stresses the need and importance of ecocriticism to focus not only on the written text, but also on a play’s theatrical performance:

Ecocriticism must reach beyond dramatic texts to cope with performativity, with theater’s inherent polyphony, its mise en scène, and the dramatic meaning-making process of performance. Theater’s multivocal, embodied, shape-shifting qualities make it an apt site for exploring questions of identity and community. […] Moreover, the complications of theater’s performativity, its urban- and body-centeredness, its inherent multiplicity unveil new understandings of, and stories about, community, illuminating theater’s capacity to intervene publicly on behalf of social justice and ecological sustainability. (May 2005: 100)

Even though it is only the performed text that can do full justice to the effect of ecodrama, there are nonetheless many features of the dramatic text which encourage a reading experience that is different from that of other literary forms. In fact, while ecodramaturgy has picked up momentum with critics such as May or Munk, it is ecodrama, i.e. the textual representation of a play, which has hardly received any attention in ecocritical theory in general, and in the study of ecological genres in particular. It is against the backdrop of this lack but also because it is often difficult to actually see these plays performed (especially as an Austrian scholar) that this study will pay particular attention to the distinctiveness of the dramatic text as a literary form. This, for example, includes a

168 thorough analysis of the secondary text, which is often used to create a certain atmosphere (cf. Caupert 2018: 127), and its meaning for the understanding of the play as a whole should therefore not be undervalued. Drama, like no other literary mode, possesses a very distinct oral character. As opposed to narrative fiction, the dramatic text is mostly rendered in dialogic form, it lacks the intervention of a higher-level narrative voice and thus already embodies an ecology of interactive and interrelated discourses in itself (Caupert 2018: 138). Understanding a play’s text thus requires an active readership (cf. Caupert 2018: 132) that bestows to the dramatic text a distinct quality and effect.

In 1994, Erika Munk was among the first scholars to pledge for a scientific acknowledgement of ecodrama (cf. Arons and May 2012: 4). She lamented the absence of ecological theater which “can reach people worried about pollution, the economy, or war. […] Critics and scholars who want to investigate the way ecologies – physical, perceptual, imagined – shape dramatic forms stand at the edge of a vast, open field of histories to be rewritten, styles to rediscuss, contexts to reperceive” (Munk 1994: 5). Thus, a radical transformation of theatrical conventions was necessary for playwrights to consider drama as a meaningful genre to address ecological issues. Even decades before Erika Munk, Bertold Brecht understood that modern drama needed to adapt to modern circumstances, true to the motto “art follows reality” (Brecht 1948/1994: 29). Quite fitting for the focus of the thesis at hand, Brecht used the metaphor/example of a petroleum society to illustrate the necessary changes:

The extraction and refinement of petroleum spirit represents a new complex of subjects, and when one studies these carefully one becomes struck by quite new forms of human relationship. […] Petroleum resists the five-act form; today’s catastrophes do not progress in a straight line but in cyclical crises; the ‘heroes’ change with the different phases, are interchangeable, etc.; the graph of people’s actions is complicated by abortive actions; fate is no longer a single coherent power, rather there are fields of force which can be seen radiating in opposite directions; the power groups themselves comprise movements not only against each one another but within themselves, etc., etc. […] It is impossible to explain a present-day character by features or a present-day action by motives that would have been adequate in our fathers’ time. (Brecht 1948/1994: 29-30)

Decades after Bertold Brecht’s claim for the modernization of theatre and Erika Munk’s and Una Chaudhuri’s influential articles, it is the aim of this chapter to analyse how the oil/tar sands discussion is featured in contemporary Canadian plays: Which techniques and methods are applied to reach a wider readership/audience? How is the mentality of a resource town rendered in a play? Which “catastrophes” (see quote above) do characters need to face? How are power relations

169 realised on stage and within the written text? Which information is rendered in the side texts, and what atmosphere is thereby created? These are questions that the following pages seek to investigate.

170 4.4.1. Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: A Tar Sands Myth (1978) by Gordon Pengilly and Leslie Sanders

Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: A Tar Sands Myth52 is a play set in the communities of FortMcMurray and Edmonton. It shifts between the past and the present: one storyline is set in the early days of Fort McMurray.53 The second time level is set in 1978, the year when the play was written. Thus, there are two time levels, however, there are scenes when the past and the present overlap, as will be shown in this chapter. Depending on the time level, there are also different protagonists. The main characters from the past are Elmer, a Métis man, who has been living in Northern Alberta all his life, and Count Alfred von Hammerstein54, a German immigrant who travelled to North America because of his desire to become rich. He tried his luck in the goldrush but came too late. His attempt to find prosperity through the salt trade proved to be unsuccessful as well. He has already resigned, when he meets Elmer who shows him the tar ubiquitous in Northern Alberta. Together, they set the ball for further oil explorations rolling. In the present, Billy and Susy, a young couple are the main protagonists. There is also Donna, a barmaid and Fred, a real estate agent.

As the attentive reader realizes on many occasions, the play fulfills a documentary function. Frequently, the play mirrors historical events which happened as a by-product of European immigration (e.g. the gold rush, salt rush and in the last decades, the oil industry). Subtly, the negative effects of the development on the Native population are highlighted, e.g. the fur trade, exploitation of First Nations’ traplines and, using the example of Elmer, the marginalization of First nation and Métis people.

Furthermore, the play presents Fort McMurray’s development through time, revealing a city in perpetual motion and transformation: starting from a small trading post, it has been vastly influenced by the fur trade, the gold rush, the development of the railway, the discovery of salt, and most recently, the industrial exploitation of oil. Through the constant shifting between the two

52 This chapter has been published in a slightly modified version as Melanie Braunecker (2019). “The Lure of Fast Money: Staging Fort McMurray”. In: Maria Löschnigg and Melanie Braunecker, eds. Green Matters. Ecocultural Functions of Literature. Nature, Culture and Literature. Leiden: Brill, Rodopi. 15: 308-327. 53 A date is not mentioned, but the context and references in the play (cf. Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 48) suggest the 1920s as point of reference. 54 Alfred von Hammerstein was a German immigrant and one of the first to commercially drill for oil in Northern Alberta. Like many of his colleagues, he failed in the end, as the oil he was hoping for could not be easily drilled out of the floor. Commercial mining of the Alberta oil/tar sands started in 1967, when Great Canadian Oil Sands (now: Suncor) opened its first mine. (cf. Chastko 2004: xiv-xv)

171 temporal levels, the reader is made aware of the interdependency of past and present. The play also portrays the relationship between European migrants and First Nations People as one of trust (First Nations) and betrayal (Europeans). By confronting the audience with the characters’ often immoral behaviour, it encourages the reader/audience to ponder essential questions and the importance of values such as friendship, love and trust.

The first act introduces the reader/audience to the setting of Northern Alberta and the play’s main characters. It opens with Elmer, a Métis trapper, and Count von Hammerstein, A German immigrant, who meet in the region of today’s Fort McMurray. At first, Elmer is portrayed as naive, simple-minded and looked down upon by the Count (“Ohhh... so you are a trapper. Is that all you do?”, Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 2), while the Count describes himself as “a seeker of gold” (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 2) who is ready to go at almost any length in the hope of becoming wealthy. He is an inexperienced foreigner, yet he is very ambitious and willing to do everything in order to achieve his dream of becoming rich. Even though Elmer and the Count keep a respectful distance to one another, the reader soon realizes that there are implicit tensions between them. In contrast to the Count, Elmer was born in the North and is very familiar with the area:

Count: […] You have livered her a long time? You know where the gold is? Elmer: Sure all my life. Athabasca my father’s home, my grandfather’s. Count: So you know this country well. Elmer: Sure all the lakes and rivers four hundred miles north. (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 2)

Despite his ambition, it becomes soon clear that the Count is lost in the unfamiliar environment. Elmer, in the other hand, knows where to find riches, which immediately raises the Count’s interest:

Count: You know where the gold is? Elmer: Oh sure sure, secret place, on my trapline my father showed me. (Pause) Count: You know Mr. Elmer, I have always wanted to trap. You teach me how, no? Elmer: Trap? You wanna trap? Count: Yuh yuh oh yuh, and you teach me. Elmer: No I don’t think so. (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 2)

It becomes clear to the reader/audience right away that Elmer is not as naïve and ignorant as the Count expected in the first place. Plus, it seems as if these two men have a different perception of wealth and what it means to be rich. Whereas the Count is looking for gold, Elmer finds his riches in his ancestors’ traplines and traditions. Time and again, Elmer refers to his relatives, his trapline

172 and his forefathers, representing his cultural heritage. Even though Elmer appears to be friendly and polite, he does not want to engage with the Count any further. The Count, on the other hand, is persistent. After Elmer mentioned the gold of Northern Alberta, the Count starts to listen attentively. He asks Elmer for more information about the location of the gold, but Elmer is hesitant. Furthermore, his subtle comments about the English men (e.g.: “Well the last English I took up here he run for five days screaming before he finally dropped dead. Scared all my animals.”, Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 3) and his use of irony (“Hey, why would I cheat you, I hardly know you”, Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 3) reveal a certain judgement if not even grudge against the Count’s overconfident appearance. The Count continues to press Elmer, who slowly but surely becomes impatient: “Never mind Mr. Fancy-britches, you leave me now.” (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 3). Dissatisfied and frustrated, the Count starts to tell his personal history, starting with his emigration to his present situation, emphasizing his misfortune and his desire for money. It remains unclear, why Elmer then changes his mind and decides to support the Count – maybe because of empathy, maybe because of compassion or good-heartedness. (cf. Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 4). As the Count has arrived too late to become rich in the gold rush, he then tries his luck in the salt trade, which turns out to be a failure too. Considering the end of the play, it is especially tragic that Elmer decides to cooperate with the Count by his own choice by passing a dollar note to the immigrant:

Elmer: Here’s your miracle Mr. Count. (The Count takes the dollar and examines it. There is tar all over the dollar.) Count: That’s good, Elmer, a fine investment I promise you… But what on earth is this all over? Elmer: That? Oh it’s tar sand. Good for fixing the barrels, fixing canoes… Y’know some people up here even use it for medicine. Go on, taste it. (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 4)

By delivering the tarry dollar bill to the Count, Elmer symbolically also hands over the reins of power over the country, i.e. Northern Alberta, into European hands, a decision which Elmer regrets later in the play (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 48). At that moment, however, it is obvious that Elmer does not realize the gravity of his deed. Instead, he again plays a trick on the Count, when he persuades him to eat some tar:

Elmer: No no go on, taste it. (The Count puts some in his mouth and then spits it out with disgust. Elmer bursts into laughter.) Elmer: Oh you’re crazy, English !

173 Count (Realizing): This is oil. Elmer: No, tar sand. Count: Oil…? Elmer: Tar sand . Count: OIL! (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 5)

The quote above does not only describe Elmer’s humour and glee about the Count’s ignorance, but also the very moment when the Count realizes that the earth surrounding him is not merely earth, but is in fact soaked with oil. Elmer, however, is puzzled as his plan to play a trick on the Count has not worked out the way he imagined it. Abruptly, the attention shifts from the past to the present in the next line, leaving Elmer and the Count behind (Cf. Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 5). In the following scene, the reader is introduced to Susy and Billy, the main characters of the present narrative level. Fist, the reader is presented to Susy, a young woman who is talking to her mother on the phone. She has just watched a TV- programme on the oil industry in Northern Alberta and is excited to inform her mother about it. It seems as if she has to defend her feelings for Billy and their way of living. From Susy’s reaction, the reader/audience is aware that her mother is not in favour of her son-in-law who does not hold a university degree:

Susy: Billy wouldn’t touch university with a ten foot pole, that’s why I love him; he’s a self-made man. Besides we can’t afford it and Billy doesn’t believe in loans. (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 5)

Susy not only defends her husband, but also characterizes the typical blue-collar worker who makes his way from poverty towards wealth through hard work – the ideal of the “self-made man”, an ideal that Susy obviously feels attracted to. His adversity against higher education might also be explained by the fact that it is not affordable to him. Furthermore, the lines above demonstrate the couple’s role allocation: Billy, the husband, is the sole earner and the one who make decisions; Susy, the housewife, keeps the house and supports her husband as best as she can.

However, the power balance is changed as Billy returns home from work early one day to tell Susy that he lost his job as a construction worker (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 6). Susy, described as a flat character at the beginning of the play, is deeply concerned because they are now left without an income. Then, she tells Billy about the documentary of Fort McMurray and the oil/tar sands industry:

174 Susy: […] Billy, it’s a boom town. There’s opportunities galore, for both of us. And the money is absolutely phenomenal. C’mon Billy, let’s take a crack at it. I’m sick and tired of living from pay cheque to pay cheque in crummy apartments. We need a change, a real change! Alberta is booming. If we don’t make a move now, we’ll be left in the dust. We are the people! The province depends on us. Our dream-home, Billy. We could be rich! Billy: Ft. McMurray, eh? Susy: Yes! Lots of people do it. It wouldn’t be for very long. Just long enough to get out of debt and make a downpayment. Our dream, Billy, remember? You promised! (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 8)

Similar to the Count on the past level of the play, Susy mentions their dream, which, in her case, is a house of their own. Thus, the reader/audience realizes that both the Count and Billy, representing Euro-Canadians from the past and present, move to Northern Alberta mainly to earn money. It would only be a temporary solution, as Susy underlines: as soon as Billy has earned enough, they will be gone again. Thus, the play’s documentary function becomes visible, as most of the people who move to ‘boomtown’ to work, leave Fort McMurray once they have accumulated enough wealth. The young couple’s dream is essentially the same as the Count’s; accomplished by “faith in progress, through the mastery of nature” (Gordon 2015: 2), they dream of a life in prosperity and wealth, yet they forget to acknowledge that this development comes at a high price, both environmentally and interpersonally. By juxtaposing these scenes in a direct and uncommented manner, parallels and interconnections are exposed and invite reflection.

While the majority of the main characters are male, Hardhats and Stolen Hearts is also a play about women as it documents traditional (Susy) and non-traditional (Donna) models of femininity. When Billy leaves for Fort McMurray, Susy stays at home alone and takes care of their apartment. Again, the play fulfils a documentary function here: as Ruddell notes, the town’s vast amount of foreign workers who reside far away from their homes and loved ones, combined with a harsh climate, hard work and long hours, leads to an increase of violence, alcohol and substance abuse, casting a shadow on Fort McMurray’s success story (Ruddell 2011: 336). Donna has assimilated to her harsh environment: She is portrayed as rude and ‘unwomanly’, describing her own attitude as “frontier- fortitude” (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 12). At first sight, Donna seems even unkind and heartless, an antagonistic female force to Billy’s wife, which can be seen in the following scene:

Billy: We have a dream. Donna: Don’t we all. What’s yours? Billy: Get rich in Alberta and make a home. She’s depending on me. Do you believe in fate?

175 Donna: I don’t believe in anything. I’ll get you a drink. (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 19)

The recurring emphasis on a dream does not only connect the different characters, but also illustrates that, no matter whether on the past or the present temporal level, non-Native people travel to Northern Alberta to pursue their dream of a life in economic prosperity.

In Hardhats and Stolen Hearts the past and the present overlap several times, as for example in Donna’s inn, which underlines her dramatic position as an intermediary. Thus, she does not only represent an alternative role allocation for women, but also functions as a link between the past and the present, serving both the Count and Elmer, as well as Billy. Furthermore, Donna gives away a barmaid’s internal secrets, sharing her experiences of living and working in a male-dominated environment, informing the reader/audience about the “macho image” (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 27) of men working for the oil industry. She entertains the suspicion that most of the men living in Fort McMurray are misogynistic and try to avoid the stereotypically female desire of settling down, building a house and starting a family. (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 27) In addition, Donna is also an intermediary between the audience and the characters. She is the only character in the play that openly speaks about the oil industry’s negative impact on the landscape. In her soliloquy, she shares her dystopian vision of and fears for Alberta’s future with the readership/audience, thus breaking the fourth wall:

Well with all those continents rubbing together there must be some form of lubrification to keep them from frictionizing, or else we’d have earthquakes, and were (sic) getting them right now… yuh wanna know why? Because I think there’s a thin layer of oil between the surfaces and we’re sucking it right out of the ground! Well living in Alberta is gonna be like living over the San Andres Fault! Well oil’s gotta have a purpose on this earth…! doesn’t it? (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 26)

Donna’s statement again refers to factual knowledge, as it is indeed hotly debated among scientists whether there is a connection between earthquakes and steam-injected oil production (Fountain 2016, online). At the same time, her colloquial dramatic voice, rhetorical questions and rich imagery make these ‘facts’ more tangible. In a similar manner she addresses the issue of reclamation:

Syncrude is going to reclaim the whole area. I think they should just leave it like a huge desert and put great walls around it like the Great Wall of China. And they wouldn’t do

176 it with blood, sweat and tears – they’d do it at fourteen bucks an hour! (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 26)

Donna’s simile (‘like the Great Wall of China’) points at the impossibility of the task, and the irony (“they wouldn’t do it with blood, sweat and tears – they’d do it at fourteen bucks an hour”) refers to the oil company’s clean hands: the vexing work is not done by chief executives, but by company workers, such a Billy, who, in turn, are paid above average hourly rates. Donna’s words also point out that almost any job can be done as long as there is an attractive salary, or, to quote Jon Gordon “anything may be sacrificed if the price is right” (Gordon 2015: 2) The argument of reclamation put forward by the oil companies is rather absurd, as it leads the broad public to believe that the land will be put back to its primal state after the reserves have been depleted. However, the reclamation of wetlands is still impossible. Therefore, reclamation “does not mean ‘tree-by-tree’ restoration, but rather that the region as a whole should form an ecosystem at least as healthy and productive as what existed before development” (Bott, quoted in Gordon 2015: XLI). Thus, environmentalists fear that the reclaimed lands will not be returned to nature, but might be used as farmland, pasture area or for silvicultural purposes (Gordon 2015: XLIf.)

In the course of her lengthy soliloquy, Donna also mentions Syncrude and the infamous incident caused by this oil company, referring to 1600 ducks landing and painfully dying on the company’s Aurora tailings pond in 2008 (Gordon 2015: 33).55 The photographs of oil-clotted ducks led to a public outcry, yet supporters of the oil industry, such as Ezra Levant, condemn it as “a bonanza for environmental groups” to portray the industry as “one giant bird death trap” (Levant 2012: 132). The Aurora tailings pond incident is not an isolated case as birds, such as the protected waterfowl – keep mistaking the toxic wastewater for natural ponds and continue to land and thus die on tailings ponds.56

Donna’s oscillation between different time levels as well as between two ontological levels makes her a powerful figur. By moving smoothly between two historical and social levels but also slipping into and out of the dramatic world she becomes one of the play’s most remarkable characters. Especially speaking ad spectators, using colloquial language and rich rhetoric using ‘you’ and ‘we’ to make the reader/audience feel personally addressed creates a powerful and lasting effect.

55 See also Chad’s nightmare (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 36-38). 56 In October 2010, 550 birds died on one of Syncrude’s tailings ponds, 31 blue herons were reported to have died on Syncrude’s Mildred Lake mine, and 123 waterfowl and songbirds were either dead or had to be killed after they had landed on another tailings pond on Fort Hills Energy grounds (cf. Graney and Wakefield 2017, online).

177 Hardhats and Stolen Hearts does not only document the environmental impact of Alberta’s oil industry, but also highlights the price oil workers have to pay for their inflated salary. Billy, representing the average oil worker, loses himself in his heavy, physical work when he is working, for example, as a living scarecrow to chase away the birds from the tailings, digging holes or hauling cement (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 26f), while Susy is waiting at home. Looking forward to spending his weekend with his wife in Edmonton, Billy cannot wait for Friday afternoon to finally come. However, once home, Billy and Susy cannot enjoy their time together, as Ft. McMurray is still on Billy’s mind. He has become used to the crazy rhythm of boom town life and cannot keep still. He is both exhausted and restless, sleepless and wide-awake at the same time, leading him to get up and wash his truck in the middle of the night (Hardhats 29). Alarmed, Susy expresses her concern about Billy’s job, and asks her husband to reconsider other options available. The tension increases, culminating in a wordy dispute:

Billy: Look… I go up there. I get a job. I get settled. And now you want me to quit? What’s got into you? What about our dream? I thought you wanted to build a home. Susy: I do but… Billy: I am not quitting alright! I’m going to make a downpayment for our house and I’m going to finish what I started. Susy: Even if it kills you! Billy: Yes! Even if it kills me! Susy: Well I think you’re crazy! Billy: Well I don’t care what you think! (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 31)

The couple’s former harmony and mutual appreciation have made room for disappointment and estrangement, and Susy now realizes that their dream cannot come true once their relationship has broken. Thus, the reader/audience is made to feel the breakdown of communication and is likely to anticipate what becomes true in act two: the irretrievable failure of their marriage, caused by mutual estrangement, disappointment and adultery.

In act two Elmer and Fred Hammer, a new version of the Count, appear on stage. The secondary text, often used to create a certain atmosphere (cf. Caupert 2018: 127) introduces these two very different men and prepares the reader/audiences for altered balance of power: “From opposite sides of the stage FRED HAMMER and ELMER appear. HAMMER establishes his office space; ELMER comes to the front of the stage and speaks to the audience” (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 39). The mere fact that both characters enter the stage from opposite directions already illustrates their dispute, and their different mindsets are also reflected in their activities: whereas the Count is

178 portrayed as a successful and busy businessman, Elmer has nothing to lose and thus has time to turn to the audience. The first impression of Elmer in act two makes the reader/audience realize not only that many years have passed; it also becomes apparent that Elmer is broken and disappointed. In addition, the time gap serves as a strong aesthetic tool to render change embodied by the two different versions of Elmer. The following speech ad spectatores powerfully mediates his disillusionment – not least through his cynical and disconcertingly comical persiflage of boomtown prosperity:

Well I made a lotta money buildin’ Syncrude worker’s house, oh I take a hundred bucks for dinner, and get drunker than a louse. But I spend all my money on booze and gals and rings, I’ll never be free Métis again with all them whiteman’s things. (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 40)

Elmer represents the collective of First Nations and Metis people in this area, who were pushed to the margins of society after the arrival of the Europeans. Ripped of their cultural heritage and the ability to live in their traditional ways, many of them got caught in the vicious circle of drugs and alcohol. Elmer’s only hope is that one day, the oil companies and foreigners will be gone, and he will finally go hunt and trap again (cf. Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 40).

In stark contrast to Elmer, former Count Alfred, now referred to as Fred Hammer, has firmly established his business in act two. Out of coincidence, he employs Billy’s wife Susy as secretary and also has an extramarital affair with her. Fred Hammer is featured as an ambitious but also reckless man of business who would stop at nothing to promote his company. Yet, in the end, Fred finds himself on the loser’s side as a major business proposal fails to create the hoped-for reception with the oil company presidency, which according to the secondary text is “represented by a huge white dummy of larger than life dimensions” (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 72). Faced with the failure of his business and his dream, Fred Hammer ramps and ends in despair. Suddenly, it is Susy who holds the reins, whereas Hammer, as graphically described in the secondary text, “tears off his expensive suit, strips to his underwear” (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 73). During their conversation, the superhuman white dummy dominates the scene, thus creating a powerful metaphor. Fred Hammer asks Susy to stay, but Susy, repelled by both his pleas to stay and his dismal failure, decides to take a turn and starts climbing the dummy herself, ultimately curling in its lap and lighting up a cigarette. Thus, Susy’s development from a shy wife and dependent mistress to a self-determined social climber comes as a big surprise in act two.

179 In this closing scene, the distinct possibilities of drama are once again made visible: the “huge white dummy” (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: 73) materializes as a symbolically evocative embodiment of disruptive power and functions as a deus-ex-machina, leading to an unexpected and fast ending that denotes failure and disillusionment, the prevailing atmosphere of the whole play.

180 4.4.2. Highway 63 – The Fort Mac Show (2009) by Architect Theatre

Highway 63: The Fort Mac Show offers the reader/audience an insight into the everyday routine of living and working in ‘Fort Mac’.57 Named after the infamous Highway 63, which connects Edmonton to the bituminous sands in Northern Alberta, the play was produced by Architect Theatre, a group of young Canadian actors and actresses, who travelled to Fort McMurray and interviewed the people who live and work close to the oil industry. These encounters form the basis of the play’s plot and some of these encounters are enacted in the play’s characters. Whereas Highway 63: The Fort Mac Show centres around the lives of three young Canadians living in Fort Mac, interposed remarks and dialogues by locals from various backgrounds mirror the city’s diversity. In this context, producer Coleman explains:

This is not a culturally monochromatic community. The diversity is impressive. It calls to mind Toronto. The taxi drivers are Somalia Muslims, and we live down a frozen street from the mosque. Filipinos appear to have a direct flight to Fort Mac. When it comes to labour, business is colourblind. Fort McMurray is a global village all the way, where everyone, with a little luck, can drive a Super-Truck. (Coleman 2010: 30)

From the first page on, Highway 63 has a strong documentary function. It informs the reader about the numerous challenges of living in a resource town and provides the reader with different attitudes towards the highly controversial industry. Yet, the play does not only stress the town’s negative aspects but provides the reader with an insight into the minds, hopes and fears of Fort McMurrayites.

Structure-wise, the play features two plotlines: the main plot evolves around the lives of three young people: Mary, Steve and Chad. The second, underlying plotline consists of a collection of interspersed remarks made by minor characters which permeate the entire play. These voices and their subtle, diverse comments provide the reader/audience with a multifaceted picture of present- day Fort McMurray. Each of these characters addresses one specific issue relevant for town life and the omnipresent oil industry. In the course of the play, both supporters and opponents of the industry are given the opportunity to raise their voices. The polyphonic structure hints at the plethora of

57 This chapter has been published in a slightly modified version as Melanie Braunecker (2019). “The Lure of Fast Money: Staging Fort McMurray”. In: Maria Löschnigg and Melanie Braunecker, eds. Green Matters. Ecocultural Functions of Literature. Nature, Culture and Literature. Leiden: Brill, Rodopi. 15: 308-327.

181 opinions about the oil industry circulating in Northern Alberta and testifies to the theatre company’s attempt to provide an unbiased account. That being said, Highway 63 does not take any one-sided position, but rather opens a constructive discussion of conflicting issues. By thus providing “a tentative ground for systematic self-corrections and for potential new beginnings” (Zapf 2017:115), the play fulfils a reintegrative function (Zapf 2017:115). In that regard, the play also encourages the reader/audience to reconsider their own consumption behaviour, thus performing both an appellative and educative function.

The following two quotes form the last part of the play’s introduction, and they both provide the reader/audience with a rather negative picture of the oil industry:

Australian Greenpeace Protester: These jobs, these dangerous, dirty, destructive jobs have no future, no future at all […] if we continue as we are and no future digging for the last scrapes of oil to feed a filthy, dirty addiction. We want these people to have green jobs, we’re talking clean jobs, jobs in renewable energy. Jobs where these people can hold their heads up high, not jobs that have them scratching around in the dirt like caveman (sic). (Highway 63: 3)

The content of this passage may not be surprising, as one can expect a member of an environmental protection organisation to oppose the industry. Yet, the protester’s identity underlines the global dimension of Alberta’s oil industry, and the fact that the extent of Alberta’s bituminous sands affects and touches people worldwide. Furthermore, by including this comment in the introduction, the authors inform the reader/audience about existing conflicts between proponents and opponents of the industry right from the beginning. The quote also stands out due to its highly rhetoric wording (anaphora, alliterations, antithesis), which almost caricatures the exaggerated polemics applied by the speaker of the organisation. Moreover, the Greenpeace protester provocatively equals oil workers to ancient cave dwellers, thus hinting at Plato’s allegory of the cave, which portrays man’s ignorance and, to a certain extent, also the comfort felt by the general public that comes with the state of not knowing. In the context of the play, the short-sightedness refers not only to the entire oil industry, but also to the individual oil worker: both focus on their short-lived profit while refusing to see the bigger picture and the negative consequences of the burning of fossil fuels on the climate in the long run.

In a different way, a worker called Jeremi touches the reader/audience on a more personal and emotional level:

182 Jeremi: Took me fifteen hours to drive here. I’m staying in a hotel downtown, doing a training course my first week. Just sitting in my hotel room, had to do something, had to go for a walk, so I went to the Walmart. I called home to my son. All I could do to keep from crying. He said, “Daddy, where are you?” I said, “Well, I’m away for work.” He said, “Daddy… Did I do something wrong?” Cute kid. (Highway 63: 3)

Jeremi represents the many foreign workers who, following “the narrative of Fort McMurray = good jobs” (Dorow and O’Shaughnessey 2013: 132), left their families behind to make a living and hope to earn a fortune working in the Albertan oil industry. As the play showcases, the ‘official’ town’s success story about well-paid jobs hides its dark sides, that is “the social costs, borne by mobile workers and their families” (Dorow and O’Shaughnessey 2013: 132).

Highway 63’s main story unfolds with the entrance of the protagonists Chad, Steve and Mary. Chad is a young Newfoundlander who left his home behind to find work in the oil industry. Steve, originally from Edmonton, moved to Fort McMurray three years before. He is the owner of a town house and rents rooms to other oil workers, which is how Chad and Steve meet. The scene in which Steve introduces Chad to his room mates is telling:

Steve: […] There’s Mike, he up at Albian sands on a two week/two week rotation. You move in here you won’t see him much. He’s always flying to some tropical location on his time off. Then there’s the other Mike – Chad: Mike and Mike? Steve: Yeah, keeps it simple. Other Mike works at CNRL on a twenty and eight, but he pretty much keeps to himself, stays in his room. And I’m at Suncor, five days a week. Chad: Okay, well, like I said, I works at Syncrude. I drives up there. So six days off. You know, six behind the wheel, six on the couch. (Highway 63: 5)

The passage quoted above documents a typical residential community in Fort McMurray: four young men, all employed by the oil industry, all on a different schedule. The names of the oil companies (Syncrude, Suncor, Albian Sands) are real and well known in Northern Alberta. Plus, the quote confirms the town’s reputation of being “a work destination” (Dorow and O’Shaughnessy 2013: 131) whose employees live close to the industry. Other Mike (see quote above) represents one of the mobile workers who is “on a fly in, fly out” basis: as soon as their shift is over, a large number of workers either leaves for their home or for a holiday (Dorow and O’Shaughnessy 2013: 131).

183 Chad, the new guy in town, works as a driver of a 797-caterpillar dump truck and he explains that his work is very tiring. The separation from his family is particularly hard to accept for his mother. (Highway 63: 7). Furthermore, Chad’s daily fatigue and the distance from home hardly allows for meaningful conversations to unfold, because he simply is too exhausted to talk:

“Me Mudder, hey. [...] Makes me call her after every shift. And Lord Jeez I’m that tired by the time I gets off I’m there fallin’ asleep on the phone and she’s blabbin’ on about this one and that one and I’m there like yah, yah, yah. Jesus I said if I had a tape player with my voice on it goin’ yah, yah, yah I could just press play on that and go on to bed.” (Highway 63: 7)

One of Chad’s strategies of dealing with his homesickness is to cook “fish and brewis” (Highway: 24), a typical dish from Newfoundland, which Chad calls “comfort food” (24). To ease his homesickness, Chad explains that he does not see himself as a permanent citizen of Fort Mc Murray. He is literally counting the days (“Sure I’m only here for another year and three months… and four weeks… six days… five hours and thirty-three minutes: home sweet home”, Highway :24) until his return to Newfoundland. Thus, ‘Fort Mac’ “represents work-but-not-home” (Dorow and O’Shaughnessy 2013: 121). Chad is only one of an estimated 20.000 mobile workers whose task it is to work and earn money, but not to take part in the town’s community (Dorow and O’Shaughnessy 2013: 121). Thus, Chad represents the thousands of mobile workers in Fort McMurray who hope to return home as quickly as possible. As this is not an option for the present, Chad, like thousands of other workers, sees drugs as a welcome distraction and an opportunity to escape reality, at least temporarily.

Similar to the introduction, the main plotline is repeatedly interrupted by various interspersed comments. One of these commentators is Julien, a young man from Quebec who leaves the mines and the camp behind for the weekend (Highway 63: 11). He seems frustrated and gives a short account of his life in the camps, thereby highlighting the negative aspects such as the constant control and the omnipresence of rules. He even compares the work camps to George Orwell’s novel 1984 (cf. Highway 63: 11). Julien also addresses the “the Golden Handcuff” phenomenon, explaining: “In Fort Mac, you make just enough money that you won’t ever leave your job, but you never make enough to get out.” (Highway 63: 11) Frustrated with his everyday life and his apparent inability to change his present situation, Julien spends his spare time in the Boomtown Casino, trying to become richer and to forget his worries, his loneliness and the lack of meaning in his life. Thus, the play includes a further real-life issue, as gambling has become yet another one of the

184 numerous addictions that Fort McMurray is confronted with (Fort McMurray Drug Rehab 2017, online).

The play’s fictitious world and the ‘real world’ are once more intertwined when the reader is introduced to members of the Mikisew Cree First Nation, who are part of Treaty 8, signed in 1899. Most of their members still live in the communities of Northern Alberta and the North West Territories, such as Fort Smith, Fort Chipewyan, and Fort McMurray (cf. JFK Law Corporation 2020, online). Their history is connected to the landscape of Northern Alberta, most importantly the Athabasca River, which served not only as a means of transportation, but also as source of food. Not surprisingly, therefore, Mikisew Cree First Nation people were, and still are strongly opposed to the development of the oil industry on their ancestral lands.

In the play, the Mikisew Cree First Nation members George, Kathleen and Matthew are very concerned about the ongoing oil mining on their homelands and thus exchange experiences and opinions about the industry. Again, real world problems connected to the industry are powerfully foregrounded by the dramatic structure of the play. There are strong binary oppositions, which Matthew expresses by dividing people into “us” (i.e. the members of the Mikisew Cree First Nations) and “them” (oil workers and people who work for the industry): “You know, they’re legislated to work with us, eh? Like they have to, it’s the law.” (Highway 63:13) In the next lines, he also refers to the obvious tension between these two groups, explaining that because of this law, he as a member of the committee is invited to the industry’s board meetings. Matthew describes the atmosphere as rather hostile:

“[w]e are all there sitting around the boardroom table and these guys are looking at me all suspicious like, outta the corner of their eye, like, ‘What’s he doin’ here. What are they plotting now. I wonder what their next move is gonna be.” (Highway 63 :13)

Kathleen raises similar issues when she mentions Alberta Environment and Parks, Alberta’s Department of the Environment, and reminds her interlocutors of the organisation’s original goal, which “used to be to protect the environment but now it’s to help sustainable development”. (Highway 63: 13) George, along these lines, describes the “conflict of interest” (Highway 63:13) present in Northern Alberta: one party aims at preserving the land, whereas the other party aims at extracting as much as possible. George also mentions some of the industry’s undesirable side effects, as for example the shrinking habitat of wild animals, such as moose, whose biosphere is

185 increasingly impaired by the mines, but also by cut lines or access roads. As a consequence, the number of moose is decreasing, which again has a negative impact on many First Nations members, as the moose is still a vital source of protein, especially during wintertime.

With this, ‘real-life’ problems are once again thematized and put into the centre of attention of Highway 63. Within their talk, Kathleen, George and Matthew continue to discuss the already mentioned reclamation sites. They do agree that it is possible to grow trees on formerly industrial sites, however, this forest is far from a natural forest, but rather resembles “perfect little Christmas trees” or “the Lawn and Garden Care Centre at Walmart” (Highway 63: 13-14.). Their talk ends with George’s both optimistic and mournful comment, pointing at the First Nations’ long history of persistence: “Well, we survived the Fur Trade. We survived Residential Schools. We’ll survive this.” (Highway 63: 13f.)

In the main plotline, the reader finds Chad and Steve become friends with Mary, a young Fort McMurray-born woman. Soon, they find out that they all work for the oil industry: Mary offers visitor tours for the oil company Suncor, Steve works as a reclamation scientist for Suncor, whereas Chad works for Syncrude, another oil company. During their conversation, Chad makes fun of Fort McMurray and thus offends Mary (Highway 63: 20). Again, the play dramatizes a real-life conflict: Considering the aspect of community in a boom town such as Fort Mac, there will always be two groups: those who come to work, and those who were born there and who call Fort Mac their home. Whereas the first group does not invest too much into the community, as they mostly only stay for a certain amount of time, (e.g. Chad), others, such as Mary, feel connected to this place.

Nevertheless, Mary plans to leave her home to study in Toronto, which is why she does not want to get involved with Chad, although she clearly feels attracted to him. When Steve, Chad and Mary talk about their homes and their plans for the future, an atmosphere of emptiness unfolds. Steve, too, feels the lack of meaningful friendships. His last girlfriend left town, his new housemate is counting the hours until his return home, and Mary, too, has plans to leave Fort Mac. Thus, Steve, who is working as a reclamation scientist for Syncrude, wonders: “Well, it’s like people are always leaving, no one really stays, and sometimes I think, who am I reclaiming it for?” (Highway 63: 24) The fear of loneliness is not only visible in Steve, who questions his job’s meaningfulness, but also in Chad. He has fallen in love with Mary, who cannot wait to start her life in Toronto, at a safe geographical distance from the oil industry. Chad tries to persuade her to stay, but Mary is not willing to change her plans (Highway 63: 33). Thus, disillusionment and disappointment are

186 inevitable. Their conflict is wrapped up in a scene called “Chad’s Dream” (Highway 63: 36-38). In his nightmare, Chad tries to follow and stop Mary who repeatedly transforms herself and thus resembles a trickster figure: in the very scene, she changes into a Siberian Larch, which was planted on a reclamation site, back to her ‘real self’ swimming in the tailing ponds, and finally into a duck, escaping Chad’s pleas to stay, culminating in the nightmare’s last lines:

Mary: (flying away) Quack, quack. Fuck off. Fuuuuuccccckkkkk ooooofffff. Steve (off): Chad. Wake up. (Highway 63: 38)

The nightmare-scene is extraordinary for several reasons. Firstly, Mary’s transformations express Chad’s fear of losing her, and also his inability to hold on to her at the same time. Each time he draws nearer, Mary changes into a new body and thus pushes Chad away, leading him to despair. Secondly, the dream – again – sheds new light on the actual problems in this region. The Siberian Larch that Mary transforms into is a non-native tree in Northern Alberta. As its name suggests, it was imported from Russia, but has proven to grow well on reclamation sites. Thus, it adds to the artificiality of the reclaimed landscape, which appears to be ‘natural’ only at the first, superficial glance. The tailing ponds mentioned in the scene are, as the reader/audience is made aware of, highly toxic waste-water basins. Chad’s willingness to swim in these basins just to be close to Mary (Highway 63: 38) represents his strong feelings and readiness for sacrifice in the name of love. Mary’s final transformation into a duck remind the informed reader/spectator of the incident which happened on Syncrude’s tailing ponds in April 2008, when 1600 ducks mistook the tailings for real lakes, landed on them and died in great pain, leading to a public outcry and protests (Steward 2014, online and Gordon 2015: 33). Thus, the authors manage to connect Chad’s highly emotional dream and his fear of losing Mary with real-life issues caused by the industry. Yet, Chad’s dream is not only a reflection of a real-life problem caused by the industry: It is an example for the literary and dramatic techniques used by the author to include creative elements which have no place in a straight documentary. In fact, shape-shifting and the enactment of dreams turn out to be powerful literary tools to make problems in this area visible.

Through the use of these evocative stage metaphors this petro-play not just refers to these issues but actually makes them materialize through verbal elocution in the text or actual enactment in a performance.In sum, the play highlights the oil industry’s responsibility not only for the region’s environmental degradation but also for its social decline. In this context, Jonathan Seinen, co-author and actor of the play, explains that, at the moment, the oil industry and resource development is

187 altering the lives of the local population of Northern Alberta: the industry affects not only their environment, but also changes social structures, leading to “the impossibility of making connections that last when we pay little attention to our responsibilities toward the planet and our neighbours” (Beaty, Coleman, Seinen et al. 2012: 12). He points out that the concept o economic expansion comes not only at a high environmental, but also at a high social cost, which is mirrored in a compelling manner in Highway 63, where all three young characters fail to maintain meaningful relationships in the end. Through their dialogically represented and physically enacted failure the dramatic text offers a novel way of aesthetically responding to the environmental and social decline of a region.

188 4.4.3. Fort Mac (2011) by Mark Prescott

Fort Mac, written by Manitoba-born Mark Prescott, again introduces the reader/audience to boomtown Fort McMurray. Its protagonists are four young adults of Franco-Canadian origin: the sisters Kiki and Mimi, Jaypee, Mimi’s boyfriend who left Québec to become rich (“On est venus faire du cash! On est venus faire le gros motton!” [‘We came to make money! We came to make big money!’58] Fort Mac 2011: 20), and Maurice, a Franco-Albertan who came to forget about his past (“Contrairement à tout le monde qui est venu ici pour la job pis le cash… Moi, je suis venu ici pour oublier. Work hard and forget.” [‘Contrary to all others who came here to earn money, I came to forget. Work hard and forget.’] Fort Mac 2011: 74). This one act play is set in “a terrain vague” / “in an obscure setting” (see, for example Fort Mac 2011: 69; 81; 95, 101; 109), next to a camping bus which serves as temporary home for Kiki, Mimi and Jaypee. The play’s ‘message’ is supported by and conveyed through a number of remarkable dramatic techniques, which will be discussed in the this chapter.

Prescott presents the reader/audience with a dark, thought-provoking play by paying extra attention to unusual parallels as well as the differences and similarities of language and register, or, as Dubé puts it: “On peut dire que Prescott utilise astucieusement le langage pour augmenter le sens d’aliénation et de déshumanisation […] Un cri de c(h)oeur annonciateur qui fait appel directement à l’humain en chacun de nous. [‘One may say that Prescott cleverly uses language to heighten the sense of alienation and dehumanization. […] A harbinger of heart that appeals directly to the human within each of us.’] (Dubé, Kindle Cloud Reader: 105-123) Fort Mac is likely to stir the reader/audience and to stay on their minds for some time, as it cannot be described as light entertainment. Plus, Marc Prescot challenges the reader/audience by including many Franco- Canadian slang words and a frequent change of register and style, creating “une oralité qui ne peut trahir parce que liée à un contexte précos. Le langage particulier qui apparaît dans ce texte, dont les différences de registres, nous incite à nous y attarder pour sa participation au sens” [‘a way of expression which within a particular context with its different registers encourages us to focus on the spoken word and to become actively involved in the reading process.’] (Dubé, Kindle Cloud Reader 87-105). Thus, Prescott demands his reader/audience to be actively involved when watching the play’s performance and/or reading its text. The most apparent characteristic is the vast number of lines printed in italics, which point either at English words (for example cash, Fort McMurray,

58 I bear responsibility for the translations from French to English.

189 Fort McMoney) or English words that are pronounced with a strong French accent (for example : “Don’t you see hI’m busy?”, Fort Mac 2011: 11).

While Fort Mac informs the reader/audience of the catastrophic impact of the oil/tar sands, it is the characters’ social problems that are the centre of attention. Thus, the play demonstrates the correlation between (self-)alienation, corruption, and dehumanization and the destruction of the environment, as living in a polluted, lunar landscape, as the play suggests, automatically leads to social problems, anxieties and violence. Fort Mac thus strongly touches the reader as it not only describes the disastrous impact of the oil/tar sands on the environment, but even more so its negative consequences for human beings living next to the oil industry.

Fort Mac centres mainly on two characters who could not be more different and thus serve as antagonists: Kiki and Jaypee. Jaypee catches the reader’s/audience’s eye as a ruthless, crazy, drug- addicted troublemaker. This effect is not only created by his deeds, but also by his everyday language. His use of colloquial French is referred to as ‘langue joualisante’ in the prologue, which implies an incorrect use of language, often spoken by the bottom of the social stratum: “le ‘joual’ est une sous-langue : il est, par nature, confusion, appauvrissement, privation, désagrégation […]. Le ‘joual’, c’est le français parlé par un groupe linguistique dont la langue maternelle est gravement ébranlée par la proximité et la pression d’une langue étrangère, l’anglais.” [‘the ‘joual’ is a sublanguage, which generates confusion, depletion and privation, […]. The ‘joual’ is the French spoken by a linguistic group of people whose mother tongue is strongly influenced by the proximity and the pressure of a foreign language, English.’] (CNRL 2012, online) At times called “franglais”, this ‘sous-language’ is a stylistic feature of the playwright Marc Prescott, who aims at revealing a character’s values by not only describing them in words, but by letting the character present him- /herself implicitly by means of register and dialect (cf. Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia 2014, online). If applied to each character in the play, this strategy creates “heteroglossia” (Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia 2014, online), which can be explained as “a diversity of voices, styles of discourse, or points of view in a literary work” (Merriam Webster, online). And, without doubt, Fort Mac features highly divisive characters, most notably Kiki and Jaypee, thus encouraging the reader/audience to choose sides. Whereas Kiki dominates the very beginning and ending of the play, it is Jaypee who controls the bigger part of the storyline.

Kiki is Mimi’s sister and she arrives in Fort McMurray together with Jaypee and Mimi, where they are immediately confronted with the usual difficulties of life in boomtown: unaffordable rent, the

190 impossibility to find a decent job without a diploma and the omnipresent destruction of the natural habitat. Kiki, as the most sensitive character of all, refuses to accept the typical ‘boomtown mindset’, including the fast earning of money, exploitation of resources, drug- and alcohol abuse and violent misogyny.

Fort Mac opens at daybreak and introduces the reader/audience to Kiki, who is standing at the shore of a pond close to town:

Sur un pont. L’aurore. Kiki est debout sur re rebord. Elle a une urne dans les mains. Elle porte une robe de mariée blanche. Kiki: Cette histoire commence avec une fille sur un pont. C’est le soir de sa mort. Elle porte une robe de mariée mais ce n’est pas sa robe. (Pourquoi j’ai dit ca? C’est pas important!) […] Euh… Je recommence! (Un temps. Elle se ressaisie.) Cette TRISTE histoire commence avec une fille SEULE sur un pont. [...] (Fort Mac 2011:9)

On a bridge. Daybreak. Kiki is standing at the edge of the pond. She holds an urn in her hands. She wears a white wedding dress. Kiki: This story starts with a girl on a bridge. It’s the evening of her death. She wears a wedding dress, but it is not her dress. (Why have I said that? It’s not important!) […] Ah… I start again. (A break. She tries again.) This SAD story starts with a girl ALONE on a bridge (Fort Mac 2011:9)

In her first appearance on stage, Kiki repeats the information already given in the stage directions, thus emphasising the peculiar initial position one more time. This scene is also meta-performative since Kiki seems to rehearse her ‘act’ and comments on it. The urn, which holds her mother’s ashes, as she reveals later in the play, represents the past, fertility and femininity and the white wedding dress underlines Kiki’s youth and innocence. In the lines before and after the quote given below, Kiki does not become tired of announcing that this story is not going to end well and that her end is approaching (for example: “La fin approche. Et cette histoire – même si elle vient juste de commencer – se terminera mal.” [for example, ‘The end is near. And this story – even though it has just started – is going to end badly.] (Fort Mac 2011: 15) Thus, the playwright uses the technique of foreshadowing, thereby creating suspense and curiosity in the reader/audience. Kiki assumes the role of the choir of classic Greek drama in the first scene as well as in the following soliloquies (cf. Dubé, Kindle Cloud Reader 41), announcing and commenting on the events to follow:

191 Kiki: L’aurore… À Fort McMurray. Un lieu triste et terne. Un lieu où l’argent règne. Un lieu créve-coeur où les rêves priment sur la triste réalité de… (Pas triste… Je l’ai déjà dit ca!) Sur la réalité… triste. (C’est le meilleur mot que j’ai pour le décrire. Pourquoi pas utiliser?) La triste realité. C’est ca. […] Ici à Fort Mac, c’est comme être sur une autre planète. Ou sur la lune. Saviez-vous qu’on peut voir les travaux à Fort Mac de la lune? C’est vrai… (Fort Mac 2011: 10)

Kiki: Dawn. At Fort McMurray. A sad and tense place. A town where money rules. A town of bitter grief where dreams meet the sad reality of… (Not sad… I’ve already used that word)… reality… the sad reality… (It’s the best word to describe it. Why shouldn’t I use it?) The sad reality. That’s it. (Fort Mac 2011:10)

As in Rowley’s poem “In the Tar Sands, Going Down”, the playwright chose to compare the area surrounding Fort McMurray to the moon, lifeless and barren, which only supports the sad atmosphere that Kiki comments on in the quote above. In contrast to Jaypee, she carefully weighs her words and tries to find a different word than “triste” – ‘sad’ to describe Fort McMurray and surroundings, but she cannot – it is the word that describes the atmosphere best. The words written in brackets are spoken aside, they are a meta-discursive comment to herself and the reader/audience. Thus, there is an information gap as the reader/audience is provided with information that is denied to the other characters of the play, which again creates suspense.

The difference to Jaypee with regards to speech and register is obvious, too, as Kiki is the only character in the play to not fall back to swear words, indicating that she is on a different intellectual and social level than Jaypee, even though she is also portrayed as naive at times.

In the following, Prescott uses the character Kiki to openly criticize the oil/tar sands project:

Kiki: C’est pas naturel, ca. C’est trop gros. Trop grand. On dirait… On dirait un sacrilège. C’est ça. Un sacrilège. Si Dame nature voyait ca… Elle pleurerait des rivières. Des fleuves de larmes. (C’est beau, ca.) Moi, je pourrais peut-être pleurer une flaque, elle pourrait pleurer un océan. (Fort Mac 2011: 10)

Kiki: They are unnatural. They are too big. Too wide… You could say… You could say a sacrilege. That’s it. A sacrilege. If Mother Nature saw this… she would cry rivers of tears. Floods of tears. (That’s beautiful). I, I could maybe cry a puddle of tears, she could cry an ocean of tears. (Fort Mac 2011: 10)

192 Referring to the oil/tar sands as “sacrilège”/ “sacrilege” (see above) without explicitly naming them, Kiki condemns the development and pities nature, who is personified as “Dame nature”/ “Madam Nature” and emphasises her power. Also, the repeated staging of finding the most fitting expression foregrounds the difficulty of putting into words the frightening situation she faces. She even puts herself in parallel to nature, while, at the same time, also describing her own limited powers (cf. “flaque” vs. “ocean” in the quote above).

Another striking feature is the frequent use of ecclesiastical words, such as “sacrilège” / ‘sacrilege’ (10), “robe de mariée blanche” / ‘white wedding dress’ (135), “prier” / ‘pray’ (13; 19; 36; 39; 40; 55; 57; 85), “ange” / ‘angel’ (80; 105; 107; 113), “ange gardien” / ‘guardian angel’ (96; 97) or “la Sainte Vierge“ / ‘Blessed Virgin’ (98), which clearly refer to the Catholic Church and create a sacral atmosphere. It seems to the reader/audience that “Dame nature” / ‘Madam Nature’, is sacrificed in the name of the development of the oil/tar sands. By repeatedly announcing that her story is not going to end well, Kiki is portrayed as human representative of nature. She embodies nature and her willingness to die reminds of a sacrificial offering, maybe even alluding to Jesus Christ, sacrificing herself for the sins of mankind. As Kiki is short for Catherine (cf. Fort Mac 2011: 11) one could also infer that there is a deliberate connection between Kiki and Holy Catherine, Catherine of Alexandria, a woman who is said to have died for her Catholic faith in the fourth century. She was tortured on a spiked wheel and helped by archangels. Similarly, Kiki is supported by Maurice, who she continues to refer to as “mon ange” / ‘my angel’. Like the biblical martyr, she, too, is tortured in the end. Plus, the meaning of Catherine is “the pure”, which perfectly matches the character Kiki as she is described as “[…] idéaliste, loyale, intuitive, le seul personnage qui n’a jamais recours à un langage assorti de jurons” / ‘idealistic, loyal, intuitive, the only character that never uses swear word /abusive language’ (Dubé, Kindle Cloud Reader: 107).

Contemplating her suicide at a pond near town, she is interrupted by Maurice, who dissuades her from her plan and saves her, if only temporarily:

Maurice: Hey, lady! Hey! Do you hear me? Kiki, dans un anglais cassé: Don’t you see hI’m busy? Maurice, surpris: Ah, tu parles francais? Je m’appele Maurice. Kiki: Kiki. Plaisir. Mais là, il va falloir que vous m’excusiez / je vas me suicider. (Fort Mac 2011: 11)

Maurice: Hey, lady! Hey! Do you hear me? Kiki, in broken English: Don’t you see I’m busy?

193 Maurice, surprised: Ah, you speak French? I’m Maurice. Kiki: Kiki. Pleased to meet you. But now, I must be excused, / I am going to kill myself. (Fort Mac 2011: 11)

Apart from the grotesque situation, it is Kiki’s very formal use of language that is awkward and stands in strong contrast to her sister Mimi’s and Jaypee’s use of language. In the play’s first soliloquy, Kiki is portrayed – again – as a very sensitive character who both physically and mentally feels the pain of ‘mother nature’ caused by the reckless human exploitation of resources:

Kiki: Si Dame Nature voyait ce qui se passait ici à Fort McMurray, elle pleurerait son océan de larmes. Mais là que j’y pense… Elle n’a pas besoin de le voir – elle le sent, elle le sait. Mon Dieu… Elle doit le sentir. Je me demande si c’est pour ça que je suis triste. (Peut-être je suis triste pour elle?) (Fort Mac 2011: 16)

Kiki: If Mother Nature saw what happened here and around Fort McMurray, she would cry an ocean of tears. But I think… She doesn’t need to see it – she feels it, she knows it. My God… She must feel it. I wonder if that is why I am sad. (Maybe I am sad for her?) (Fort Mac 2011: 16)

Kiki, portrayed as highly empathetic character, is overwhelmed by sadness, whose source she does not quite understand. A tragic character already due to the early loss of her parents, she feels particularly estranged by the destruction of the environment of Fort McMurray. She feels that an end is about to come and thus wants to end her life. But it becomes obvious to the reader/audience that it is not only her life that is about to end soon: “On dirait… Que la fin approche. Mais quelle fin? La mienne? Je sais pas. Voilà pourquoi je suis venue sur le pont. Pour voir si c’est MA fin qui est imminente ou si c’est une autre fin. Comme la fin du monde.” [‘You could say… that the end is near. But whose end? Mine? I do not know. That is why I came to this bridge. To see if it is MY end that is imminent, or if it is someone else’s end. Like the end of the world.’] (Fort Mac 2011: 10-11) The scale of the destruction happening due to the oil/tar sands development is of an extent that frightens not only Kiki in the play, but also conservationists in the ‘real world’. Prescott uses the oil/tar sands, which serve as one example out of many for the ecocide of a wide region, to raise awareness for the many ecological disasters happening worldwide and to underline mankind’s widespread indifference in the wake of the destruction of pristine nature (cf Dubé, Kindle Cloud Reader: 57). Along these lines, Fort McMurray, the play’s setting, is nothing else than “un autre symbole d’une déshumanisation qui parcourt le monde...” [‘another symbol for the dehumanisation that spreads around the world.’] (Dubé, Kindle Cloud Reader: 41).

194 While the play clearly mediates the catastrophic impact of the oil/tar sands, it is the characters’ social problems that are the centre of attention. Thus, the play demonstrates the correlation between (self-)alienation, corruption, violence and dehumanisation and the destruction of the environment: living in a broken, destroyed, moon-like apocalyptic landscape also automatically leads to social problems, anxieties and violence. Fort Mac thus touches the reader/audience as it renders the disastrous impact of the oil/tar sands not only on the environment, but also on the human beings living next to it. With Kiki, the interconnection and interrelatedness across species and between men and nature is strikingly emphasised. She is the only character to question the development happening in their neighbourhood and she is the only one that questions the need for the oil/tar sands mega-project:

Kiki: J’ai jamais compris le besoin qu’ont les hommes de vouloir détruire ce qui est beau. […] Peut-être ils voient pas la beauté qui les entoure – mais je refuse de croire que ces hommes peuvent pas voir la beauté parce que c’est ça ce qui nous rend humain. Pis je crois pas que ces hommes sont pas humains. Ils se sentent peut-être à part – détachés ou supérieurs à la nature. La nature est seulement une force à dompter – à dominer – à exploiter. Si la nature est à l’homme ce qu’une mère est à son fils, pourquoi ils choississent de la violer? Pas étonnant alors que Mère nature pleure des océans de larmes. (Fort Mac 2011: 67)

Kiki: I have never understood why some humans need to destroy beauty. […] Maybe because they do not see the beauty surrounding them – but I refuse to believe that these people cannot see beauty, because this is what makes us human. Therefore, I believe that these people are not humane. Maybe they feel a distance – detached or even superior to nature. Nature is only a force to tame – to dominate – to exploit. If nature is to the human what a mother is to her son, why would they choose to violate her? Thus it is not surprising that Mother Nature cries oceans of tears. (Fort Mac 2011: 67)

In the quote above, Kiki anthropomorphizes nature and highlights its victimization, thus aiming at touching the reader/audience on an emotional level. Her approach to the oil/tar sands project and to the industrial exploitation of resources might appear naïve and childish to the reader/audience as it is common knowledge that petroleum is the resource that runs modern civilization. Yet, the alienation from nature and the human hubris to use and abuse nature on such a large scale is a phenomenon of modernity which, as Prescott tries to mediate, has a negative effect not only on the environment, but also on the individual human being.

195 Jaypee, on the other hand, does not dwell on a sense of guilt or responsibility in the face of climate warming and the large-scale destruction of the environment. Portrayed as an unsympathetic character, his personality is given further emphasis when paying close attention to his name which is a combination of two birds, “le geai et la pie”, the jay and the magpie, “agressifs, fourbes, prédateurs, omnivores”, [‘aggressive, deceitful, predators, omnivores’]. (Fort Mac 2011: preface, position 89-108). He is a highly problematic key figure: not only does he not try to find a respectable job like Kiki who works at Tim Hortons (cf. Jaypee: “Je préférais avoir le cancer du rectum”, [‘I’d rather have anal cancer’] (Fort Mac 2011: 35), he also frequently acts aggressively, which can be seen when he is criticized for his inaction:

Kiki: Toi aussi, Jaypee, tu devrais trouver ta raison d’être. Si tu fais quelque chose que t’aimes, t’as même pas l’impression de travailler! Jaypee: JE VAS ME TROUVER UNE JOB, O.K.? Un temps. Kiki est surprise. Kiki: ‘Scuse. Jaypee. On vient d’arriver! Donne-moi une estie de chance! (Des jobs, y en pleut ici! Ca tombe du ciel!) Crisse-moi patience avec ca! Un temps. Kiki: O.K. (Fort Mac 2011: 35)

Kiki: You too, Jaypee, you need to find out about the reason of being alive. If you do what you love, it won’t seem like work at all. Jaypee: I WILL FIND MYSELF A JOB, OK? A break. Kiki is surprised. Kiki: Sorry. Jaypee: We nearly got there! Give me a fucking chance (It rains jobs here! They fall from the sky!) Jesus, have patience! A break. Kiki: OK. (Fort Mac 2011: 35)

By using vulgar expressions and a loud voice, indicated in the text by capitalized words, the playwright again emphasises Jaypee’s instable and aggressive character, an effect which is further increased by the two short pauses (“Un temps” / [A break]) and Kiki’s reaction, being taken aback by his flash of anger. The quote above also portrays Jaypee’s naïve belief in the myth of boomtown Fort McMurray, where everyone who is ready to work hard finds a well-paid job. When Maurice informs him about the requirements for finding a good job (a diploma and the ability to speak English), Jaypee reacts aggressively again:

196 Maurice: Pis tu parles l’anglais? Jaypee: Shit – Ben sûr que je parle anglais! Toaster, Big-Mac, hot-dog, hamburger! Maurice: Parce que c’est important. Jaypee: Shit! Le Canada, c’est pas un pays bilingue dans les deux langues? Maurice: C’t’une question de sécurité. Jaypee: Qu’ils viennent pas me dire que je peux pas parler en québécois! Maurice: C’est pas une question de droits, c’t’une question de sécurité. Jaypee: C’est ça! Ils vont me forcer à parler anglais? Speak white? C’est ça? Ben, crisse! Il y a de maudites limites! (C’est pas une question de droits!) C’t’une question de droits! MON droit de parle MA langue dans MON pays! (Fort Mac 2011: 24-25)

Maurice: So you speak English? Jaypee: Shit – of course I do! Toaster, Big-Mac, hot-dog, hamburger. Maurice: Because it’s important. Jaypee: Shit! Isn’t Canada a bilingual country? Maurice: It’s a question of safety. Jaypee: They won’t tell me that I can’t speak Quebecois! Maurice.: It’s not a question or rights, it’s a question of safety. Jaypee: That’s it! They are going to force me to speak English? Speak white? That’s it? Good, Jesus! There are damn limits! (That’s not a question of rights!) It’s a question of rights! MY right to speak MY language in MY country! (Fort Mac 2011: 24-25)

The quote illustrates Jaypee’s anger and violent temper by the use of curse words (“shit”, “crisse”, “maudites limites”, see quote above), but also his pitch which again becomes apparent for the reader by the use of capital letters, a literary quality of the dramatic text where the secondary text thus additionally emphasizes the text’s meaning. Furthermore, he reacts overly sensitive when asked for his English-speaking skills, immediately feeling insulted, whereby the play touches the highly emotional conflict between anglophone and francophone Canadians.

Like for countless newcomers to Fort McMurray, it is also Jaypee’s ultimate goal to become rich in the oil industry, and, to earn “[u]ne tonne de cash. Du gros cash. Da big bucks. Mucho moolah. Parce qu’il y a du cash à faire à Fort McMoney! Y a tellement the cash icitte que c’en est presque indécent!” / ‘a ton of cash! The big money. The big cash. Mucho moolah. Because there is money to make in Fort McMoney! There is so much money here that it is almost indecent!’ (Fort Mac 2011: 63-64). Yet, he soon realises that he has neither the money to pay the rent, nor the qualifications to find a well-paid job, which leads to further anger, frustration and problems as Jaypée finally goes to the bad, runs into debts, and plans to become active in drug trafficking while using drugs himself (cf. Fort Mac 2011: 64-65).

197 Furthermore, Jaypee stands out from the others as he is the only protagonist without “intermède”, without a soliloquy. All the other characters, most notably Kiki, explain themselves, their past and their feelings in so-called ‘intermèdes’ in which they directly turn to the reader/audience. As the character Jaypee does not appear in any of them, it stands to reason that he does not see the need to explain or declare himself, nor his deeds. Thus, the reader/audience is not allowed any information about his past and he does not seem to have any scruples, even though, judging his actions (for example being frequently drunk or on drugs, lying to his girlfriend Mimi, trying to cook crystal meth, forcing his pregnant girlfriend to become an exotic dancer and to prostitute herself…) he should have some. Denying Jaypee a soliloquy is also a powerful technique to manipulate audience response, as it is easier to relate and empathize with a character whose private thoughts we are allowed to follow. Jaypee thus embodies a complete alienation from social standards and values, culminating in the fact that he not only sends his girlfriend Mimi to work off his debts by having sex with his debitor Murdock (cf. scene 10, position 927), but also wants to rape Kiki:

Kiki: Qu’est-ce que tu veux de moi? Jaypee: Ce que je veux de toi? Je veux rien DE toi… C’est TOI que je veux. Kiki: … Jaypee, chuchoté à l’oreille de Kiki: Je veux ton innocence. Ta lumière. Ta beauté. Ta bonté. (Fort Mac 2011: 97)

Kiki: What do you want from me? Jaypee: What I want from you? I don’t want anything FROM you. It’s YOU that I want. Kiki: … Jaypee, whispering into Kiki’s ear: I want your innocence. Your light. Your beauty. Your kindness. (Fort Mac 2011: 97)

The quote above highlights not only Jaypee’s dehumanization and alienation from social values, it also points at his loneliness and his need for both physical and spiritual beauty and purity. His partner in crime is Mimi, his girlfriend. In the course of the play, Mimi adopts not only Jaypee’s words (see for example Fort Mac 2011: 84: “Mimi: Ah, arrête! Maudit menteur! Des promesses d’ivrogne!” [‘Mimi: Ah, stop! Fucking liar! A drunken man’s promises!’]), but also his mindset: whereas Mimi is initially shocked by Jaypee’s idea of producing crystal meth, he soon manages to convince her by using manipulative rhetoric, trying to blackmail her emotionally:

Jaypee: Il faut être positif. Parce que c’est très positif ce qui se passe! Très. Pis tu peux m’aider, Mimi. C’est la beauté de la chose. C’t’une activité qu’on peut faire ensemble.

198 Une activité qu’on peut faire en couple. C’est pas ca que tu voulais? (Fort Mac 2011: 65)

Jaypee: We need to stay positive. Because what is going on is very positive! Very. And you can help me, Mimi. That’s the beauty of the matter. It’s something we can do together. Something we can do as a couple. Isn’t that what you wanted? (Fort Mac 2011: 65)

As Mimi is too weak to set bounds to Jaypee, she, in the end, decides to support his effort. Only in her intermèdes is she able to show her real self and her doubts. In one of her soliloquies she not only informs the reader/audience of her violent, alcoholic father who abused her as a child, a young teenager and also as a young woman but also presents the reader/audience with a very different picture of Jaypée: “Comprenez-moi bien: on baisait comme des macaques mais je pouvais aussi me confier à lui. J’étais bien avec lui. J’étais heureuse. […] Il était venu me secourir.” [‘Understand me well: we were fucking like macaques, but I was also able to trust him. I felt good with him. I was happy. […] He had come to rescue me.’] (Fort Mac 2011: 41). The fact that Jaypée used to be a better, compassionate person who truly cared for his girlfriend before he came to Fort McMurray highlights the central message of the play that living in a destructive environment has an impact on a person’s social behaviour, at times leading to alienation, dehumanization and barbarization.

Like Jaypee, Mimi, too,changes and eventually agrees to start as an exotic dancer in a nightclub and then also to work off Jaypee’s debts by sleeping with his debtor Murdock. Only in her soliloquy, when she can show her own true self without being influenced by anyone else, Mimi returns to her own values and mode of expression. This effect is cleverly created as Mimi uses standard language in her intermèdes, but slang and curse words when surrounded by Jaypee. Thus, Jaypee’s influence on Mimi is not only visible by her deeds, it also influences her subconsciousness and her manner of speaking.

Prescott addresses some everyday problems of living in Fort McMurray in his play, as for example the crazily high housing prices. Like many people in Fort McMurray, the main characters in Fort Mac, Kiki, Jaypee and Mimi, cannot afford living in a house or an apartment. Therefore, they need to camp but are unaware that they park their bus on the private land of Murdock, one of the most violent and greatly feared villains of Fort McMurray, which culminates in the play’s catastrophe. In spite of being warned repeatedly by Maurice, Jaypee is not scared (“[…] il me fait pas peur le gros

199 Murdock.” / ‘[…] I’m not afraid of the big Murdock’, Fort Mac 2011: 28). He even borrows more money from Murdock to finance his drug addiction.

Maurice is aware that Jaypee picked an argument with evil and powerful people. He thus warns Kiki, whom he honestly cares for, and tries to convince her to leave Fort McMurray. By now, he, too is convinced that there will be a bad ending:

Maurice: […] S’il paye pas par demain, ça va aller mal. Ca va brasser fort si tu comprends ce que je veux dire. Kiki: Ah! T’es venu me sauver! Enfin! Maurice: Je suis pas ton sauveur, Kiki. (Fort Mac 2011: 88)

Maurice: […] If he doesn’t pay by tomorrow, things will turn ugly. It will be a real mess if you understand what I am trying to say. Kiki: Ah! You came to save me! Finally! Maurice: I’m not your saviour, Kiki. (Fort Mac 2011: 88)

Jaypee, too, realizes that there will be dire consequences. He returns to the bus with a rifle and a bottle of whisky, almost celebrating the upcoming disaster: “La fin approche! Bienvenu à ma scène d’apocalypse à Fort Mac!” [‘The end is near! Welcome to my apocalypse in Fort Mac!’] (Fort Mac 2011: 95). In the wake of disaster, Kiki decides to help her sister by making money on her own to pay off Jaypee’s debt. She goes to the work camps and sells herself to the oil workers (“La file… la file était longue. Ils passaient un après l’autre. Comme un moulin. Comme un marathon.” [‘The queue… the queue was long. They came one after the other. Like a mill. Like a marathon.] Fort Mac 2011: 99) Maurice rushes over to the camp and tries to save her, but it is too late: “Kiki est par terre. Elle porte la robe de mariée, tachée de sang.” [‘Kiki lies on the ground. She wears the wedding dress, stained with blood.’] (Fort Mac 2011: 105). As a last request, Kiki asks him to pass the money she earned to Mimi:

Kiki: Prends… Prends l’argent. Maurice regarde autour d’elle. Il y a deux billets de vingt dollars à ses côtés. Maurice: … Kiki: Tu vois… Tu vois l’argent? Tout l’argent que j’ai fait? Maurice prend les deux billets de vingt dollars. Maurice: Oui… Kiki: C’est pour Mimi. Maurice: Je vais (sic!) lui donner.

200 Kiki, un grand sourire aux lèvres: J’ai… ré…ré…réussi! (Fort Mac 2011: 106)

Kiki: Take… take the money. Maurice looks around Kiki. There are two twenty-dollar-notes next to her. Maurice: … Kiki: Do see… do you see the money? All the money I earned? Maurice takes the two twenty-dollars-notes. Maurice: Yes… Kiki: It’s for Mimi. Maurice: I am going to give them to her. Kiki, with a big smile on her cheeks: I’ve.. succ… succ… succeeded! (Fort Mac 2011: 106)

When Maurice wants to help her, Kiki insists on dying at the very spot and asks Maurice to help her die “Fais ca pour moi, Maurice. Je t’en supplie. Tu me l’avais promis. Sois mon ange… Sois… Mon ange…Mon ange… Mon ange…” [‘Do it for me, Maurice. I beg you to do it. You’ve promised it. Be my angel. Be… My angel... My angel… My angel...’] Fort Mac 2011: 107). The scene ends here, but from Kiki’s last soliloquy, it becomes clear that he answered her plea and fulfilled her wish (cf. Fort Mac 2011: 113). Whereas Kiki is naively proud of the money she made, it is apparent to both reader/audience and Maurice that she sacrificed herself for forty dollars, which is nothing, and that her death was meaningless in that respect. When Mimi learns that Kiki sacrificed herself to save her and Jaypee, she is devastated and experiences a moment of catharsis, leaving Jaypee behind. Thus, she symbolically breaks with Jaypee’s negative, dehumanising influence and returns to her own, true self and her own values. In that sense, Kiki does not die in vain.

After Kiki’s death, Maurice takes on her position and echoes Kiki’s words:

Maurice: Dame nature est triste. Même les arbres sont tristes. Les oiseaux sont tristes aussi. Écoutez bien les ouiseaux – ils chantent pas- ils crient de désespoir. […] Dame nature est fatiguée, aussi. Elle s’est offerte à nous avec toutes ses bontés pis on la remercie en profitant d’elle. On prend d’avantage d’elle, on l’abuse… On la viole. Elle commence seulement ses lamentations. Elle se prepare à pleurer son ocean de larmes. (Fort Mac 2011:114)

Maurice: Mother Nature is sad. Even the trees are sad. The birds are sad too. Listen carefully to the birds – they don’t sing – they scream out of despair. […] Mother Nature is tired, too. She has offered herself to us with all her beauties, but we thank her by exploiting her. We take advantage of her, we abuse her, we violate her.

201 She has just started her lament. She gets ready to cry her ocean of tears. (Fort Mac 2011:114)

The parallels between “Dame nature” and Kiki are more than obvious: like earth, Kiki has offered herself, she too has been abused and violated and, like nature, she too is described as tired and sad at the beginning of the play (“Je suis fatiguée” [‘I am tired’], Fort Mac 2011: 18, and “Je suis triste, tout court. Tout est triste.” [‘I am sad, in short. Everything is sad.’], Fort Mac 2011: 13) In contrast to Kiki’s words, Maurice’s message includes a warning, cautioning the reader/audience to be aware of nature’s revenge and thus putting them in an uncomfortable position: “Elle commence seulement ses lamentations. Elle se prepare à pleurer son ocean de larmes” (see quote above) could refer to the climate change and the concomitant rise of the sea level.

Kiki’s childlike naiveté, her good-heartedness and altruistic self-sacrifice is very likely to touch the reader/audience and to feel sorry for her. Thus, it is a clever move to directly link Kiki to nature that is violated, exploited and destroyed by modern civilization on a daily basis. By drawing a more than obvious parallel between Kiki and nature, nature is provided a name, a face and a story that is likely to linger in the reader/audience’s mind.

202 4.4.4. The Thematic and Aesthetic Impact of Canadian Petro-Drama – A Résumé

By staging the environmental, as well as the social problems typically arising in a boomtown milieu, each play renders Fort McMurray as a controversial, yet also promising place. Situated between the literary and the performative, these petro-plays may form a bridge between discourses and conflicting interest groups. They introduce the reader/audience to a setting (i.e. Fort McMurray and the surrounding area) in which conflicts such as development of the oil/tar sands, questions of preservation, land use, substance abuse, etc. are omnipresent. Thus, the playwrights aim at depicting a correlation between the massive resource development, corruption, social problems and violence. In the following, a brief list of the main strategies shall be listed.

Multiple time levels and perspectives The use of different temporal levels and multiplied plotlines offers the reader/audience a provocative glimpse at this socially and environmentally conflict-ridden region. As the narrators repeatedly move between the past and the present, the reader/audience realizes that they continuously influence each other (cf. Hardhats and Stolen Hearts – A Tar Sands Myth). In addition, the plays’ polyphonic structure allows the reader/audience to experience the oil/tar sands from different perspectives and to discover multiple layers of meaning. This effect is particularly distinct in Highway 63 – A Fort Mac Show, a play in which two plotlines and interspersed remarks by minor characters from different backgrounds prove to be a valuable contribution to the main plot.

Historical facts All three plays document the change and development of Fort McMurray over time. The reader/audience is confronted with, for example, information concerning the fur trade, the treaties, the daily challenges of First Nations People living in the oil/tar sands (e.g. the Mikisew Cree First Nation, cf. Highway 63 – A Fort Mac Show), an above-average number of substance abuse or the apparently impossible task of reclamation sites. Staging real-life challenges and conflicts emphasises the topicality of the oil/tar sands debate and also adds to the plays’ credibility.

The Boomtown Myth In all three plays discussed, Fort McMurray is repeatedly characterized as a boom town, a place where hard work equals fast and lots of money: Fort McMurray is depicted as a town in perpetual motion, where money and the need for profit dictate everything. Thus, it reminds the

203 reader/audience of a place in which the typically American dream ‘from rags to riches’ comes true. However, these plays take a rather critical point of view as they not only present the winners of the massive industrial development in Northern Alberta; rather, they shed light on ‘the losers’ who either remain unemployed, find themselves at the margin of society or could not stand to the weight of expectation. Doing so, these plays stress not only the environmental impact, but also the social challenges of a fast-growing boomtown, revealing the hidden costs of globalization and a profit- driven society.

Relationship First Nations – Euro-Canadian settlers Including historical facts and key events in Canadian history (e.g. the treaties), these petro-plays, most notably Hardhats and Stolen Hearts – A Tar Sands Myth and Highway 63 – The Fort Mac Show comment on the conflict-laden history of the Euro-Canadian approach to First Nations and Métis people. After reading the script or watching the performance, the reader/audience is aware of the the centuries-long exploitation and colonisation of First Nations land. In Highway 63 – the Fort Mac Show, to provide another example, the conflict between First Nations and Euro-Canadian culture is powerfully foregrounded in a dialogue in which members of the Mikisew Cree First Nation use the wording “us” (First Nations) versus “them” (Euro-Canadian culture). In Hardhats and Stolen Hearts – A Tar Sands Myth, this clash of cultures can most be notably felt in the two main, opposing characters Elmer and the Count, who each stand for their culture. In addition, the destruction of both Elmer’s trapline and cabin metaphorically represents the devastating result of Euro-Canadian colonisation of First Nations land. Elmer represents the collective of First Nations and Métis People in Northern Alberta who, like many others, is caught in the vicious circle of drugs and alcohol. In that sense, Fort McMurray is again described as a place of estrangement, (self-)alienation and disappointment.

Soliloquies Two of the plays discussed in the thesis at hand (Hardhats and Stolen Hearts – A Tar Sands Myth and Fort Mac) feature soliloquies. They serve different purposes: whereas they also document and explain the history of the oil industry in Northern Alberta, they are also a link between the past and present, thus helping the reader to gain an understanding of the complex situation of the Alberta oil industry. Yet, these soliloquies do more than merely spread information; they also move between social and historical levels (e.g. Donna in Hardhats and Stolen Hearts – A Tar Sands Myth) and even directly address the reader/audience. Being in an intermediary position opens the chance to

204 openly speak about oil industry’s impact on Northern Alberta, an effect which is powerfully supported by the use of figurative language and the breaking fourth wall. In Fort Mac, the soliloquies pursue a different objective: the main characters use this opportunity to share their fears and explain their motives with the reader/audience, thereby creating sympathy and empathy. In that context, the playwright deliberately manipulates the reader’s/audience’s response, as the play’s villain is denied this option and therefore, his motives remain unknown. In addition, the soliloquies illustrate the particularly oral character of a play, thereby stressing its intermediate position between a performance and a written piece of literature.

(Self-) alienation and lack of meaningful relationships The authors of Hardhats and Stolen Hearts: A Tar Sands Myth, Highway 63 – A Fort Mac Show and Fort Mac convincingly dramatize that putting economic expansion as the greater common good has serious side effects, including, for example, the marginalisation of First Nations and Métis people, the pollution of soil, air and water, but also (self-)alienation, an increase in addictive disorders and a lack of meaningful relationships. The fast pace of living in a boomtown and the concomitant lure of fast money often pose an enormous stress for human relationships and also leads to break-ups (cf. Susy and Bill in Hardhats and Stolen Hearts – A Tar Sands Myth, Mimi and Jaypée in Fort Mac or Chad and Mary in Highway 63 – the Fort Mac Show).

Orality Already the plays’ dialogue form highlights the particularly oral character. In addition, the secondary text helps to install a certain mood or to close information gaps, whereas meta- performative scenes (e.g. Kiki in Fort Mac) add to the particularly oral set-up. The inclusion of, for example, Franco-Canadian slang words mirrors the multicultural Canadian society, but also adds to the play’s particularly oral character. This effect is even more emphasised by the use of different fonts: certain parts are printed in italics to visualize a particular pronunciation or dialect (cf. the French pronunciation of English words in Fort Mac), which tells the reader that these passages are meant to be spoken out loud.

Dreams The subconscious figures in the form of dreams and nightmares. Even though it is neglected in the dominant discourse of profit-oriented Fort McMurray, the main characters, such as Chad in

205 Highway 63 – The Fort Mac Show – cannot escape their deepest fears while being asleep, thereby revealing the reader/audience that life consists more than only material wealth.

Temporary Foreign Workers Each of the plays features characters who have recently moved to Fort McMurray to become rich. All these characters have their own difficulties upon arrival, for example, homesickness and being away from family and friends, crazily expensive housing prices and excruciating working hours. In that context, the plays fulfil a documentary function. However, in a more positive regard, they also mirror the positive aspects of Fort McMurray, a place where many people from numerous countries and cultures come to terms with each other.

Register and heteroglossia To emphasize each main character’s personality, the playwrights, most notably Marc Prescott in Fort Mac, use a different register for different characters. Thereby, the differences between the main characters, their social milieu and their conflicts (for example Jaypée and Kiki in Fort Mac, or Elmer and The Count in Hardhats and Stolen Hearts – A Tar Sands Myth) are highlighted. The use of a different register for opposing characters adds to their different depiction and also helps to manipulate or control the reader’s/audience’s response to a certain character. In Fort Mac, the different use of register highlights the main characters’ differences and conflicts (e.g Jaypée and Kiki).

Victimization and personification of nature In Fort Mac, the disproportionate use of ecclesiastical words lends a sacral atmosphere, emphasizing the impression that nature is sacrificed in the name of development, which is depicted in, for example, Kiki’s self-sacrifice. Addressing nature or earth as “Dame Nature” / ‘Lady Nature’ (cf. Fort Mac), combined with the use of female personal pronouns further leads to the anthropomorphization and feminization of earth.

206 5. Other Art Forms

The purpose of this chapter is to draw attention to the fact that not only the ‘typical literary genres’ stage the Alberta oil/tar sands. In fact, numerous Canadian artists (photographers, puppeteers, painters, shows…) as well as authors of newly emerging genres (such as the cartoon or graphic novel) have published and shared their work with a wider audience to “interrupt the relentless justifications and rationalizations of and for the status quo” (Cariou and Gordon 2016, online), or simply, to raise attention to the issue. Out of the many artists and authors, a selection shall briefly be introduced below.

5.1. Petrography and Documentary Films

Canadian professor and writer Warren Cariou, whose short story “An Athabasca Story” was analyzed in chapter 4.2.1. developed a technique called petrography, which he explains as “the art of creating photographic images through the action of sunlight upon bitumen” (Cariou and Gordon 2016, online). He thereby tries to present the extent of the Alberta oil sands industry with the aim of “representing the gigantic machinery and terrestrial devastation that have become the hallmarks of bitumen extraction, creating a particular perspective on the world: extractive industry viewed through a film of oil” (Cariou and Gordon 2016, online). Cariou has written and published extensively on the issue of the Alberta oil/sands. Amongst other projects, he also produced two documentaries: Together with Neil McArthur, Cariou produced Land of Oil and Water (2009), which takes the viewer both to Cariou’s homeland and the indigenous community of La Loche in Saskatchewan, as well as to Fort McKay and Fort McMurray, Alberta. The documentary allows people whose voices remain unheard in public discourse the opportunity to raise their concerns about the on-going development in the communities affected (cf. The Winnipeg Film Group 2009, online). His second film, Overburden (2009), pursues a similar goal, yet the focus here is set on Alberta only. At the moment, Warren Cariou is completing his latest novel Exhaust, which is again going to deal with the oil industry (cf. The Winnipeg Film Group 2009, online).

207 5.2. Photography

Edmonton based artist Lucas Seaward has become famous for both his extraordinary canvas art and macro photography blended with naturally occurring oil sands, “encapsulated in glass-like resin” (Seaward, online). Inspired by the beauty of the naturally occurring substance (in contrast to the industrial mining) next to the Athabasca River, Seaward’s motivation is “to expand upon one’s perception of Alberta’s most controversially utilized resource” and to “immerse viewers in a new world, offering a transformative look at one of earth’s most ancient substances” (Seward, online). Seaward is convinced that while most Canadians are familiar with the topic of the Alberta oil/tar sands, the majority have never seen this highly controversial substance themselves. Therefore, Seaward’s art aims at inviting the spectator to take a break from common discourse about the oil/tar sands and to focus on the intricate details and complexities of the highly controversial substance, thereby providing an opportunity to reconnect and become more open-minded.

Canadian citizen, artist and photographer Louis Helbig spent seven years on his project Beautiful Destruction – a volume of 232 aerial photographs of the Alberta oil/tar sands which also includes the voices and opinions of 16 with contributors very different backgrounds and interests. Helbig explains that his volume is meant to confront the viewer with polarised emotions, as his photographs depict both the incredible amount of destruction and also the sublime beauty of the Alberta oil/tar sands. As an additional feature, the exact coordinates of the place where each photograph was taken are added below the photo. Thus, the viewer/reader is able to type the coordinates into Google Maps or Google Earth, “providing another bird’s (satellite) eye view on the industrial expansion in the forests of Northern Alberta” (Helbig 2018, online). This opportunity aims at enhancing people’s awareness while also providing the reader/viewer another chance of ‘peeking’ into a very remote area.

By means of his volume, Helbig also tries to promote a dialogue among contested groups and stakeholders, which can be seen by the fact that he offered both promoters and opponents of the industry (including, among others, First Nations members, environmentalists, politicians, engineers or artists) a space of 1000-1500 words to state their opinion. To make their words understood and read by a wider audience, all the essays are printed “in English, Denesuline and Cree, the three languages common to the area.” (Helbig 2014: 11). The essays are printed in between the different photographs, without any comment by the photographer himself. While Helbig admits that he personally disagrees with some contributors’ opinions, he regards it as his responsibility as an artist

208 to “create things that let people tackle difficult issues (hopefully not only reinforce their particular views/opinions) and then grow from there. Artists can be the custodians of a particular and very special place where the imagination can reign supreme” (Helbig 2014: 11). With Beautiful Destruction, Louis Helbig thus stresses the importance of the inclusion of and mutual respect for different viewpoints on this issue, in spite of strong, polarizing opinions. At the same time, the project underlines that art’s assistance in achieving that effect might be more important nowadays than ever before.

5.3. Puppet Show Theatre

Another artistic approach to the Alberta oil/tar sands was taken by BirdBoneTheatre front women Alison Gayle and Aleksandra (no surname available) in 2012. With their puppet show called “The Tar Sands Dragon Opera”, the pair toured alongside Line 9 communities from Sarnia, Ontario, to Sherbrooke, Quebec.59 The artists themselves describe their project as “a puppet tragi-comedy featuring the clown hysterics of a bewildered cardboard population struggling to come to terms with the murky convoluted thinking on Tar Sands expansion and consequent Line 9 reversal.” (cf. Council of Canadians 2014, online.) A journalist who reviewed the show considered the puppet show as “[a]n effective approach to generating awareness” (Watts 2014, online) as the issue was presented in a defamiliarized context, focussing on levity and humor instead of grim facts. Alison and Aleksandra actively included the audience into their play, thus creating a sense of community, which enabled the audience to participate and to raise their concern: “With the entire audience screaming in horror, albeit in a comical way, there was a sense of fellowship. […] Instead of being paralyzed by the stark information, the audience could break the tension as a group and overcome any feeling of helplessness.” (Watts 2014, online)

59 It should be briefly explained that while this pipeline (Line 9) was built in 1975 to connect Sarnia and Hamilton, Ontario, renewed plans to expand the pipeline to enable the transport of diluted bitumen from the Alberta oil/tar sands to the port in Montreal has caused a public outcry and resistance (Cf. Canada Energy Regulator 2013, online; cf. Fidler 2012).

209 5.4. Hybrid Forms of Poetry and Graphic Journalism

Perpetual (2015) is a hybrid of poetry and graphic journalism, featuring illustrations by Cindy Mochizuki and poems and thoughts by poet, critic and professor Rita Wong. Similar to Rita Wong’s poetry, this piece of work features a strong activist and educative purpose. It illustrates the importance of water as primary substance connecting all life on planet Earth. Industrial activities, most notably the oil/tar sands which threaten to pollute the Athabasca River and the Artic Ocean are depicted in a very grim, even uncanny way (e.g. “the belly of the bitumen beast”, Wong and Mochizuki 2015: 56). The authors make ample use of metaphoric language and Native symbolism (e.g. “turtle island” as metaphor for North America, Wong and Mochizuki 2015: 30).

Fig. 11: The Importance of Water

210 The evocative drawings speak for themselves while they also support the words’ message. Perpetual takes a very inclusive approach (for example the ample use of the personal pronoun ‘we’ which can be found throughout the whole book). Furthermore, the authors chose to directly address their readers, hoping to instigate a change of thinking not only in terms of the use of natural resources, but also in terms of mutual respect among demographic groups. By retelling the story of colonisation, the expulsion of First Nations People and the growing industrialisation of Northern Alberta, Perpetual stresses the injustice of the past while trying to sensitize their readers for a more just and peaceful tomorrow.

Fig. 12 The Tar Sands Dead Zone

211 5.5. Comic Journalism

A couple of years ago, a couple of friends discussed Canada’s involvement in mining projects, wondering: “How can there be so little critical media attention paid to an industry with so many documented cases of opposition by communities negatively affected by Canadian mining practices? […] What could we do to bring attention to these issues?” (Widgington 2015: 9) What started as a conversation among friends resulted in the publication of a black-and-white comic reportage, a hybrid form of both journalism and comic art in 2007. Featuring Canada’s involvement in gold, uranium, bauxite and oil extraction projects, the editors, journalists and artists dedicated a comic strip for each of these four resources. The comic strip dedicated to the oil industry in Northern Alberta is called Oil. From the Bottom to the Pit, and is written and designed by Petr Cizek, Phil Angers and Marc Tessier. While the producers do not regard themselves as “anti-development”, they demand “a critical and journalistic view of all actors involved” (Dubois 2016: 15).

Due to the comic’s success, the first edition sold out quickly, and a reprint was released in 2016. In the process of producing these comic strips, the project was divided into the journalistic part and the creative part: the journalists provided the hard facts, whereas the writers worked on a script and the artists supplied the drawings. In the end, all these efforts resulted in “a sequential narrative” (Widgington 2016:11). Comics journalism, which is understood as the combination of an arts-based and fact-based approach, allows a fresh take on the hotly-debated oil/tar sands issue. It is the novelty of their approach which explains the comic strips’ success, as the authors explain that “[t]heir strength is due not from the combination of the text and the image, content and structure but actually from the added meaning derived from the interaction between the symbolic and the realistic, the literal and the figurative” (Widgington 2016: 11). With their unusual strategy, they hope to reach to a wider audience, people who have not been familiar with Canada’s controversial approach to resource extraction and climate protection (cf. Widgington 2016: 10).

The central character of Oil. From the Bottom to the Pit is a fictional narrator who serves as the journalists’ mouthpiece. While standing on a soap box, he reveals a lot of information and highlights the negative aspects of the oil industry. This particular setting allows the narrator to stand out from the crowd while also symbolizing his intent to deliver an impromptu speech. Soapboxing became a trend at the beginning of the twentieth century and it was used to address urgent social issues. Particular emphasis was put on starting a soapbox oratory at particular popular places, as for

212 example in front of factory gates, at the railway station or waterfront parks (cf. Walker 2006: 66). Soapboxing became particularly popular in areas where “other forums for expression and means of communication were either lacking or inaccessible” (Walker 2006: 66). In other words, it “filled a void in public culture where debate, discussion, and individual expression sought out shared identities and communities of experience otherwise undefined or disconnected.” (Walker 2006: 66) It is no coincidence that the producers of Oil. From the Bottom of the Pit introduced the soapbox to the oil/tar sands. Of symbolic importance, it non-verbally underlines that critical thinking is not welcome in the dominant discourse of the oil/tar sands debate. Yet, scrutinizing the seemingly unquestioned development of the oil/tar sands is the narrator’s objective. In order to teach, inform and stir the general public, he forges a bridge from the early beginnings of the oil/tar sands industry to the present day. By providing facts and numbers, the narrator is meant to appear as reliable, while it becomes also obvious to the reader that he clearly opposes the large-scale development of the Alberta Oil/Tar Sands.

At the beginning of the comic reportage, people do not pay close attention to the narrator (see fig. 13). However, the more information he provides, the more people stop to listen. Thus, the contributors underline that teaching the public about the background of the oil/tar sands development and the negative side-effects of large-scale extraction results in an increased interest and resistance to the development. Once the fictional narrator realizes that his message is heard and understood by the general public, he steps down of his soap box and walks away from the crowd of people who he managed to convince of his critical position (see fig. 14). This reaction is exactly what the contributors, journalists and artists alike, strive to achieve: With their comic, they confront the reader with unpleasant facts, aiming to provide food for thought and to stir their reader to act. To appeal to a wider audience, the authors blur the lines between fact and fiction, and their final product, which they refer to as “secret weapon for the uninitiated” (Widgington 2016: 11), is meant to disenchant the reader’s belief in Canada as a benevolent nation which focuses on peacekeeping and advocating human rights (cf. Widgington 2016: 13). Instead, they summarize their ultimate goal by quoting photographer Sebastião Salgado’s words: “Are we condemned to be largely spectators? Can we affect the course of events? Can we claim ‘compassion fatigue’ when we show no sign of consumption fatigue?” (Dubois 2016: 17)

213

Fig. 13: Call for Attention

Fig. 14: Soapboxing

214 6. Conclusion

This study demonstrates that petroliterature is a valuable contribution to Canada’s literary canon and the controversial Canadian oil/tar sands debate. It shows that imaginative literature, in contrast to documentary writing or the news media, offers novel and creative ways of mediating current, divisive and also highly emotional topics, such as the Alberta oil/tar sands. Furthermore, this thesis reveals the power of literary aesthetics in mediating the urgency of environmental issues. By confronting the reader with fictitious scenarios that reflect real-life issues of ecological threats or disasters posed by the Alberta oil industry, these texts repeatedly emphasize the interconnectedness between humankind and the natural world, thereby trying to initiate an impetus for rethinking.

Oil fuels and dictates the daily life of modern society, but the high-scale combustion of fossil fuels has also been recognized as harmful to the environment and the world’s climate. It is a matter of common knowledge that literature reflects the dreams, hopes and fears of a given society, and therefore not surprising that in the midst of climate catastrophes, natural disasters, Fridays For Future demonstrations and climate summits, petroliterature has started to flourish. In addition, each oil-related ecological crisis, the most recent examples being the devastating oil spill in Mauritius caused by the leaking bulk carrier MV Wakashio in August 2020, or the Norilsk oil spill in Siberia, which heavily polluted two Arctic rivers in May 2020, visualize the real-to-life threats of petromodernity for the natural environment, but also for humankind in the long run. Whereas the repeated reminder of ecological disasters on the daily news might create what Seymour aptly calls “doomsday fatigue” (Seymour, qtd. in Kerridge 2014: 363), petroliterature, in turn, might ‘catch the reader off their guards’ and is thus more likely to create an emotional response and the acceptance of an awareness for a need for change in our petro-society.

That being said, this thesis also underlines that the humanities fulfil a crucial function in the environmental debate of the twenty-first century; moreover, it supports the views of Szeman and Boyer who argue that “the next steps in addressing environmental crisis will have to come from the humanities and social sciences – from those disciplines that have long attended to the intricacies of social processes, the nature and capacity of political change, and the circulation and organization of symbolic meaning through culture” (Szeman and Boyer 2017: 3). Even though literature’s role in the context of climate change and the energy crisis tends to be held in low esteem in dominant

215 discourse, it is obvious that nothing will change without both the willingness for change and the awareness of a need for change.

This is where literature comes into play: my critical analysis of a selection of petroliterature has shown that literature’s power manifests itself particularly in its wide range of literary genres. The combination of fact and fiction, grim, real-life facts, both sad and happy ends, both historical and fictitious characters and scenarios enables the reader to witness and experience the oil/tar sands from various perspectives and thus in a creative and novel way. In their texts, authors break up gridlocked situations and thought patterns, thereby making room for a new approach of thinking. Even better, the panoply of genres, reaching from novels to poems, short stories, fairy tales, plays and comic strips, increases the chance of catering to a wide readership’s needs and tastes. Using techniques such as, for example, defamiliarization, (self-)alienation, victimization and/or anthropomorphization in combination with figurative language, puns, irony and stylistic devices on the sound level, each author draws on unlimited resources to mediate his/her message. Due to their distinct arsenal of literary techniques and poetic devices each of these genres manages to shed light on human society’s complex and conflict-ridden involvement with the oil industry in a different manner thus making the manifold problems related to this issue tangible and imaginable. While facts and numbers are essential parts of information, it is the imaginary literary text that affects us emotionally, thereby becoming a vital medium to make us care.

Due to its generic diversity, as my research has shown, petroliterature both contributes to the ecological debate, while also – due to its variety – becoming a cultural ecosystem itself (cf. Zapf 2017: 121). Finally, the humanities and literary studies in particular are called upon to seize their potential in the construction of meaning, as relying mainly on the maxims of “a technological society” (cf. Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay 2015) omits not only the ethics, but also vital parts of what it means to be human. Yet, if petroliterature and literary studies are not meant to end in themselves but shall gain a foothold in the ecological/petrological debate of our time, more specific generic markers are deemed necessary: since the oil business, as this study has shown, is becoming a more and more prominent thematic issue in literature, it should be considered to introduce new terms that help define this emerging new subgenre within ecoliterature. While for the novel, the term petro-novel has already been established (cf. Ghosh: (2017 [1992])), this has not been the case so far with regards to other genres. Terms such as ‘petro-poetry’, ‘petro-drama’ and ‘petro-short fiction’, as suggested in my thesis, could be useful terms for future research and future approaches to texts which critically engage with the oil industry.

216

Petroliterature has become an increasingly important niche of ecoliterature not only in Canada, but all over the world. It is particularly present in countries which are defined by the oil industry, as for example Nigeria, Norway, the United States, Arabia, and many more. In the following, a selection of oil-related literary texts from all over the globe, which is by far not complete, shall be listed to illustrate both the increase and popularity of petroliterature, while also hinting at the need for more scholarly work in this recently emerging field of literature:

Petro-short fiction

• “Gone To Water” (2011), an American short story by Tim Gautreaux, portrays the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster and is set in Louisiana. • “On Business” (2011), a short story by the British-Syrian writer Robin Yassin-Kassab, takes the reader on an oilman’s journey from the Saudi-Jordanian border to the Damascus, illustrating the trafficking in women. • In her deeply satirical and disenchanting short story “Barthelem” (2011) the English writer Joanna Kavenna illustrates the impossibility of starting an ethical oil company.

Graphic stories

• “A Well-Oiled Mind” by the English author and cartoonist Simone Lia features Sarah, the main protagonist, who is haunted by her nightmare of being stuck and trapped in and by oil and thus illustrates how our dependency on oil products controls the subconscious mind.

Petro-plays

• The Scottish play The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil (1974) by John McGrath takes the readership/audience to the Scottish Highlands and follows the country’s economic development from sheep farming to the crazy quest for oil.

Petro-poetry

• Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Bosalto, known as Pablo Neruda, was a Chilean poet. His poem “Standard Oil Co.” (1940) attacks the same-named oil company, and, considering its year of publication, may not be considered a contemporary petro-poem anymore.

217 Nevertheless, it openly and artistically criticizes the corrupt methods of the oil industry and names its devastating impact on Paraguay and Bolivia.

Petro-novels

• Love in the Kingdom of Oil (1992) by the Egyptian author, feminist and activist Nawal El Saadawi features life of a woman who suddenly disappears and provides deep insights into the deeply patriarchal society of her home country. • Marea Negra (‘Black Tide’) (1987) by Alberto Vazquez-Figueroa is mainly set in Caracas, Venezuela. Informed by intrigues, conspiracies, the drop of the oil price and the commands of oil industry, it revolves around the life of a woman who fights for Venezuela’s economic independence from Northern America and Venezuela’s withdrawal from the OPEC. • Oil on Water (2013) by Helon Habela follows the journey of two journalists into the Niger Delta, thereby portraying the corrupt and at times devastating conditions in oil-dictated Nigeria.

Whereas all these pieces of petroliterature differ widely in terms of genre, narrative perspective, register, setting, year and place of publication – just to name a few characteristic features – their lowest common denominator is their desired effect on the reader/audience. By confronting them with the unwelcome side-effects of a lifestyle deeply rooted in the consumption of fossil fuels and oil-related products, all these ‘petrotexts’ force their target group to face the consequences of our exorbitant consumer behaviour, leading to the uncomfortable question: What are we willing to sacrifice in the name of progress and when will we not only see the need for change, but also act accordingly?

218 7. Bibliography

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232 List of Figures

Photo Title Page

Figure 1 “Fort McMurray”. 1 August 2017. Photo by Melanie Braunecker.

Figure 2 “Replacement Equipment next to the Oil/Tar Sands”. 2 August 2017. Photo by Melanie Braunecker.

Figure 3 “Empty Sidewalks in Fort McMurray”. 3 August 2017. Photo by Melanie Braunecker.

Figure 4 “Work Camps at the Outskirts of Fort McKay”. 4 August 2017. Photo by Melanie Braunecker.

Figure 5 “Hiking the Birchwood Trails with the Fort McMurray Hike 5 More Worry Less Club”. August 2017. Photo by Melanie Braunecker.

Figure 6 “The Syncrude Plant”. 6 August 2017. Photo by Melanie Braunecker.

Figure 7 “Industrial Area of the Oil/Tar Sands”. 7 August 2017. Photo by Melanie Braunecker.

Figure 8 “Tailing Ponds”. 7 August 2017. Photo by Melanie Braunecker.

Figure 9 “The Oil/Tar Sands close to Fort McMurray”. 8 August 2017. Photo by Melanie Braunecker.

Figure 10 “Leo and the King’s Castle”. 113 Taken from “Leo– A Fairy Tale” (2017) by Roby Smith, page 3.

Figure 11 “The Importance of Water”. 210 Taken from Perpetual (2015) by Rita Wong and Cindy Mochizuki, page 30.

Figure 12 “The Tar Sands Dead Zone”. 211 Taken from Perpetual (2015) by Rita Wong and Cindy Mochizuki, page 56-57.

Figure 13 “Call for Attention”. 214 Taken from Oil. From the Bottom of the Pit, page 89.

Figure 14 “Soapboxing”. 214 Taken from Oil. From the Bottom of the Pit, page 106.

233