Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands – Kate Beaton
The best nonfiction exposes you to worlds you were previously unaware existed. In “Ducks,” Kate Beaton takes us to the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, and pulls back the curtain on what life was like for people living in a liminal space for extended periods.
A new college graduate with an art degree and dream of working in a museum, there was little opportunity for Beaton to make a living in her home province of Nova Scotia, and her student loan debt crippled her from moving to a larger city.
Like thousands of other Canadians and British Commonwealthers, she took a job in the oil sands determined to pay off her debt in two years. On and off from 2005 to 2008, a period when fracking for shale gas was taking hold in the region, Beaton navigated life in a male dominated culture. You can imagine how that went.
Beaton is a phenomenal storyteller, and I was captivated by this memoir and its images from the first page. While she covers heavy topics — gendered violence, rape, drug abuse and death — she also infuses warmth and humor into the pages, which help the reader understand how she survived the ordeal.
This makes it sound like she was a prisoner, and in some ways she was. While going to the oil sands voluntarily, she was woefully unprepared for the mental toll of isolation and the general dehumanization of the workforce.
It didn’t happen right away either, but there is a marked difference in the Beaton we meet at the beginning of the graphic novel, and the one that leaves the oil sands - at least physically — 400-pages later. We’re watching a pot slowly boil with the frog inside.
This is only Beaton’s experience, but you cannot help but see the broader social commentary represented: the economic decline of rural communities, failing mental health systems and workers’ rights. Little has changed since 2008 on these fronts.
The most interesting conversations, however, are the ones that Beaton has with fellow female employees - including her older sister — about the men they work with. Many are husbands and fathers who turn to casual sex, alcohol and drugs to numb the homesickness and boredom. Can these men return to a pre-camp life or are they permanently altered?
The balance between darker topics and lighter ones (I learned a lot about Newfoundland English) is not easy to master, but Beaton does it perfectly here. There’s some criticism that she doesn’t acknowledge her privilege, and the plot meanders, but that wasn’t my read. This isn’t a novel, it’s a memoir. If you look close enough, you’ll see that Beaton had no problem turning the lens on herself too.
Over the past two years, I’ve really become enamored with graphic novels, and I’d put “Ducks” in the upper echelon with Mike Curato’s “Flamer” and Mira Jacob’s “Good Talk” as examples graphic novels for people that think they may not like graphic novels.
This will easily be one of my favorite reads of 2023.
Rating (story): 5/5 stars
Rating (narration): N/A
Formats: eBook (library loan)
Dates read: January 17 – January 21, 2023
Multi-tasking: N/A
