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Up from the Ground: Living with/in Petrocultures in the US and Canadian Wests

Up from the Ground: Living with/in Petrocultures in the US and Canadian Wests Up from the Ground Living with/in Petrocultures in the US and Canadian Wests Several years ago my academic travels took me on a flight from Toronto, Ontario, to a gathering of the Western Literature Association in Victoria, bc, where the events would include a performance by Saskatchewan-born Connie Kaldor, one of my favorite singersongwriters. As the aircraft arced high over the Plains on a clear autumn evening, I spent a lot of time following along with the flight tracker on the small screen in front of me while looking out the window, thinking of Kaldor's love song "Prairie Moon" with its refrain, "you can blame it all on the Prairie Moon / And a night with a sky full of stars." But somewhere over the Dakotas, the stars above gave way to a glow from the ground. What was this sudden source of light where the map indicated little urban population beyond Minot? Out of the darkness a thousand campfires flickered. Checking the map again, I realized that we were over the Bakken Shale, with its multitude of gas flares lighting up the night. My familiar world turned upside down. It was the earth that was full of http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Western American Literature University of Nebraska Press

Up from the Ground: Living with/in Petrocultures in the US and Canadian Wests

Kerber, Jenny
Western American Literature , Volume 51 (4) – Mar 30, 2017
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Publisher
University of Nebraska Press
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Copyright © University of Nebraska Press
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0043-3462
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Abstract

Up from the Ground Living with/in Petrocultures in the US and Canadian Wests Several years ago my academic travels took me on a flight from Toronto, Ontario, to a gathering of the Western Literature Association in Victoria, bc, where the events would include a performance by Saskatchewan-born Connie Kaldor, one of my favorite singersongwriters. As the aircraft arced high over the Plains on a clear autumn evening, I spent a lot of time following along with the flight tracker on the small screen in front of me while looking out the window, thinking of Kaldor's love song "Prairie Moon" with its refrain, "you can blame it all on the Prairie Moon / And a night with a sky full of stars." But somewhere over the Dakotas, the stars above gave way to a glow from the ground. What was this sudden source of light where the map indicated little urban population beyond Minot? Out of the darkness a thousand campfires flickered. Checking the map again, I realized that we were over the Bakken Shale, with its multitude of gas flares lighting up the night. My familiar world turned upside down. It was the earth that was full of

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Western American Literature – University of Nebraska Press

Published: Mar 30, 2017

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