Christian’s Reviews > Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands > Status Update

"You ever think, like, what it would be like if Dad went up here for a job? To support us?"
"I do, actually."
"It's just, like, it could have happened so easily. Everyone just comes here for work. Do you wonder if he'd be like those guys because that's what it makes you? That's what it turns them into."
"Yes. I get sad thinking about — I don't like thinking about it. Not just Dad, but anyone else we know."

"Leon, do you think you're different since you came here? Do you think people are different at home than they are here?"
" 'course they are. This is a rat cage."
"Then, are they different forever?"
"What are you getting at?"
"People do things here they wouldn't do at home."
"People are bored and crazy."
"But is that who they really are? Or who they are at home?"

"You know, we're all in two places here. And we can get caught up in that, in our own way."
"Well, I'm not staying."
"That may be. You might think that, and that may be. But people kid themselves if they think the only life they're living is somewhere else."

The only message we got about a better future was that we had to leave home to have one. . . there is no knowing Cape Breton without knowing how deeply ingrained two diametrically opposed experiences are: a deep love for home, and the knowledge of how frequently we have to leave it to find work somewhere else.

I learn that I can have opportunity or I can have home. I cannot have both, and either will always hurt.

The only message we got about a better future was that we had to leave home to have one . . . there is no knowing Cape Breton without knowing how deeply ingrained two diametrically opposed experiences are: a deep love for home, and the knowledge of how frequently we have to leave it to find work somewhere else.