| Synopsis: |
Campie, "noun" - 1 - a sobre, celibate, bankrupt vegetarian who mops floors, cleans toilets, burns garbage, does laundry, makes beds and picks up after rig workers. 2 - nickname for the camp attendant in an oil-rig camp. 3 - the loneliest person in the oil fields. When it all goes south, you can always go north. So the adage goes, and that's just what Barbara Stewart is doing as this story begins. Bankrupt, homeless and driving an aged Toyota Tercel, she is en route to Trinidad 11, an oil-rig camp halfway between Grande Prairie, Alberta, and nowhere, where a lowly job as a campie awaits her. Her days are spent scrubbing bathroom walls, changing smelly bedding and burning bags of garbage. At night she finds solace in what she calls her "silent parole": walking in the snow, gazing at the stars and thinking about her past and her future. "Campie" is a compelling, entertaining view from the bottom of the oil barrel into work-camp culture.It will ring true for any man or woman who's worked in a resource-industry camp moving from location to location - and for any ordinary woman who has had to survive when the bottom fell out of her world and there was no "eat, pray, love" holiday to get her back on her feet. |