Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands

Ducks: Two years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton (2022 Jonathan Cape hardcover 434pp)

 

Kate Beaton is new author/artist to me, I was aware of her previous collections of cartoons starting with “Hark! A Vagrant” but never have read any of them. This apparently is her first foray into a long-form narrative and it is a tour-de-force.

Ducks is an autobiographical memoir told in the graphic novel style that may not agree with some readers. People are depicted in a stylised cartoon-like manner whilst landscapes and buildings are largely realistic.

The story starts in the town of Mabou in Nova Scotia (Canada), a newly graduated Beaton is having no luck finding jobs with her qualifications and is financially crippled by a massive student loan. She decides to follow the crowd and go work in the Alberta oil sands fields – a boom-town on the other side of the country.

So we follow her adventures at the new job as she starts as a ‘Tool Crib Attendant’ handing out equipment to workers on site. She finds herself vastly outnumbered by men in the camp and not all of them treat her with respect. As she’s moved around camps she makes friends and enemies, discovers the natural wonders and basically tries to survive.

At one camp she is sexually assaulted and is pretty much unable to make a complaint against the man involved. She grows increasingly withdrawn and depressed eventually leaving the oil fields. After working in a museum and other jobs for a year her financial situation forces her to return the oil fields. Along the way we learn about the environmental harm the oil work is causing and the rift that has developed with the First Nations people who’s land its all taking place on.

I found this book both engrossing and immersive, I read it all in a couple of hours and really wished it was longer. You really feel for Beaton and her situation – facing pressure from all sides as she just tries to get on with some sort of life. The characters she meets and interact with are all well developed and believable as real people. There’s no super happy ending here.

The art is good, sold line work coloured in shades of blue-grey. It feels a bit dowdy but I think that is intentional. Well worth your time and money.