The Martlet

Barbara Stewart was hours outside of Grande Prairie, Alta., driving in the middle of the night. She watched her knuckles, clenched on the steering wheel, as her high beams tried to illuminate the inky darkness outside.

It was January 2003, and Stewart was homeless, bankrupt and driving a Toyota Tercel with 369,000 clicks on it. Having raised two kids, been married and divorced, and nearing the age of 50, she was baffled at how she’d come to this moment — taking a job as a “campie” at an oil rig.

“It was a term of endearment, but I was basically the floor washer, the dishwasher, the bed maker ... I was doing all the random jobs,” said Stewart, who described the camp as “three Atco trailers squished together in the middle of nowhere.”

Approximately a dozen men lived and worked at the camp. Stewart was one of three support staff, including a cook and a cook’s assistant. There were only two women on site.

“Everyone’s been there. It’s like, ‘Guess what? You just made a bunch of wrong decisions to fix some bad ideas.’ The next stop is, a lot of people just give up,” said Stewart.

Stewart has to struggle to express what a culture shock it was to work at the camp. The world was as alien to her as stepping onto another planet. She had never been so utterly alone, so isolated from her friends, her family and her life. And, 12 days later, before she had even really settled in, she was fired.

Stewart says the reason she was fired was complicated, but that it basically boiled down to one thing: “I was the only sober person there, and I wasn’t putting out.”

Now, exactly seven years from the day she was hired for the job, Stewart has signed a book deal with Heritage Books. Her memoir, tentatively titled 12 Days at Trinidad 11, is scheduled for release in 2011.

Overcoming doubts

UVic professor Lynne Van Luven has a clear mental image of the day Stewart stepped into her office years ago.

Stewart expressed a burning desire to return to school, one she’d be harboring since she was a teenager. She’d dabbled in writing and photography over the previous few years, but was wondering if she had the strength to commit to finishing a degree at UVic.

“I see a lot of these mature students, many of them women, that have these amazing life stories. They’ve always wanted to go to school, but they have doubts,” said Van Luven.

She said she instantly recognized a spark in Stewart.

“At the end of the interview, she asked me: ‘do you really think I can do this?’ And I said ‘yes, of course you can,’” said Van Luven.

Stewart said sharing a classroom with students 20 or 30 years younger than her was a hard experience but, ultimately, she felt supported and accepted. Her major challenge was overcoming the obstacles in her own head.

“It was really humbling,” she said. “No one said to me ‘what are you doing here?’ but I was asking myself that. I kept torpedoing myself. I had to forget that. I had to say to myself ‘I’m here now,’” said Stewart.

Literature for the rest of us

Stewart said “the germ of the idea” for her book came to her in 2006, while she was taking one of Van Luven’s classes. She decided to write about her experiences at the oil rig. Though she’d only worked there for 12 days, she felt like there was a wealth of knowledge she’d gained from the experience and that perhaps it was the sort of story that could inspire others.

“It was the journalist in me. I’m always looking for a human story. And when I heard it, I said, ‘what a damn fine story,’” said Van Luven. “I saw someone who had gone through these immense challenges and triumphed over all of them.”

At the end of the semester, at the prompting of Van Luven, Stewart sent out a book proposal to Heritage Books. When she didn’t hear back, she forgot about it.

The project stayed with her, though, and a few years later she continued to work on her story in a workshop with writing professor David Leach. Leach instantly recognized the potential of the story as well.

“It was an original combination of raw emotion and gritty experience,” said Leach. “I think Barb has a unique voice and a really great sense of humor.”

Leach felt that having her in the class raised the bar for the other students, including two graduate students who were sitting in.

“I think it really impressed on them the quality of our undergraduates and raised the stakes. It elevated everyone’s writing,” he said.

Van Luven sees Stewart as the antithesis of memoirist Elizabeth Gilbert, and calls the book-in-progress “Eat, Pray, Love from the working class woman’s point of view.”

“It’s a more real and gritty struggle. It’s not so self-indulgent,” said Van Luven, adding that Stewart has an ironic tone, a natural humor and a deep clarity about her life. “She has this very clear perspective of who she was then, and who she is now.”

Stewart may very well become part of a trend in Canadian literature that tells the stories of working-class people, rather than the educated elite. Van Luven compares Stewart to poets, essayists and novelists like Kenneth Harvey, David Adam Richards and Tom Wayman.

“There are so many Canadians that are out there, in these camps way up north or wherever. They do all the work, they make our lives easier, but no one writes about them,” Van Luven said.

That’s about to change.

Off to the presses

Over the past few years, Stewart has been writing steadily.

She authored a popular article on battered women that appeared in newspapers worldwide, including the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star. She was short-listed for a writing competition at the Walrus Magazine in 2007, was a runner-up for another contest with CBC in 2008 and made the shortlist for Event Magazine’s non-fiction writing contest in 2009.

“Those were confidence builders, for sure,” said Stewart.

But nothing could have prepared her for an email she received in October 2009. Vivian Sinclair, managing editor of Heritage Books, said she was interested in Stewart’s memoir proposal and was curious if she’d published it elsewhere.

“I’m sitting there and clunk. My eyes just fell right out on to the desk,” said Stewart.

Sinclair said she was immediately struck by the gritty nature of the story, and thought that it was a unique topic that could appeal to a wide range of readers.

“It’s a firmly grounded story. There’s nothing prissy or New Age-y about it,” said Sinclair.

Sinclair believes the book will be useful for anyone in recovery, and will serve as an uplifting story for anyone who has struggled with substance abuse.

“Just because you’re sober doesn’t mean things are going to go right,” said Sinclair. “There’s a universality there, of what a lot of people go through, in this book.”

Sinclair was attracted to Stewart’s humor and the fact that she brought a woman’s perspective to an industry that so many Canadians are familiar with.

“It’s going to appeal to anybody who’s known somebody who’s worked in the field, or worked in the field themselves. Really, anyone who’s wondered what it’s like to live in one of those camps,” said Sinclair. “She has a wonderful way with words, and this ability to evoke a sense of who these people are.”

Sinclair said there is still a lot of work to do and the title will probably change. But she has high hopes for the book, and plans to release it nation-wide.

“We’re so happy to be working with her,” Sinclair said.

Personal renaissance

Stewart realizes how far she’s come and credits her failures for bringing her to where she is today. Though she has made numerous mistakes and has a lingering regret about some of her choices, she is proud of her accomplishments.

“You can completely fail yourself and still come through that experience with … I want to say a stronger sense of yourself,” said Stewart. “Maybe it’s too corny to say I got a sense of what’s really important. But I guess I want to say: ‘you can do that, you can start over.’ I hope that doesn’t sound like Oprah.”

Even her experiences working in a bank helped prepare her for her new career as a memoirist, as it taught her the importance of record keeping.

Whether she’s saving matchbooks from her work site, picking up random souvenirs or committing to regularly writing in her journal, Stewart now feels like she’s giving herself ammunition for her future work.

“Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, you’re a writer,” she said. “You’re washing dishes, digging ditches, flipping burgers … you’re a writer.”

To convince herself that she’s capable of overcoming life’s many setbacks, Stewart likes to flash back to that moment in her car years ago.

She sees her hands on the steering wheel, her white knuckles clenched, the unfathomable darkness outside. She feels the terror and uncertainty of not knowing what’s going to happen next. And then she tells herself that, no matter what, she can handle it.

“Everything that happens to you makes you a little more human,” Stewart said.