“A friend of mine said he knew people hiring crane operators at the hydrocracker, at Long Lake.  We owed money on this and that. I came here and I paid it all off by Christmas.”

This graphic novel is an autobiographical account of the author’s two years in the Oil Sands.

Kate goes there for work because she comes from a very small town in Canada where it is difficult to find good paying jobs. Kate is not the only one; many others from small towns come too.  The quote above is from a man Kate works with.

Although the job pays well, the conditions are not ideal.  Men outnumber women by a huge margin and Kate deals with a lot of misogynistic activity.

She pays off her student loans before she leaves for good.