Book Review: "Ducks" by Kate Beaton

 

*Spoilers alert!*

4/5 stars

“I need to tell you this—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.”

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands chronicles cartoonist Kate Beaton’s two years of working in Canada’s Albertan oil sands (from 2006-2008) to help pay off her student loans. Like many from the eastern coast of Canada, (in Beaton’s case, Cape Breton) Beaton migrated west to seek the most lucrative work possible: working in the oil sands.

It is a familiar tale in which people are forced to move away from small, economically impoverished communities in order to make a living.

The various shades of gray and black help make the point that this tale is very bleak. It does not shy away from the ugliness of the experience, where women are outnumbered 50 to 1 and sexual assault is rampant. Isolated as all the workers are, this creates an insular community that is misogynist and reluctant to talk about or deal with mental health issues. (Beaton herself experiences sexual assault, but nevertheless finds the compassion I don’t think I could have mustered for all the people stuck in this work situation, including the people that hurt her.) She shows all the complex gray areas between economic opportunities and environmental sustainability, indigenous rights, and mental health issues.

There were unlucky ones that didn’t survive, as people got into work accidents all the time, including being crushed to death by heavy machinery. Suicide was also a major problem, and the resources available to workers could not keep up with the mental health burden.

Workers and those in communities close to the oil sands, including indigenous communities, suffered from above average rates of cancer, not to mention the loss of traditional ways of making a living, hunting/fishing, and other forms of recreation. (Beaton herself lost a sister (also coworker) to cancer.)

I could not help but relate to Beaton’s journey to cartoonist. I am not a cartoonist myself, but wanted to major in something I love, hoping I could have both a career and a driving passion. When she discovered that art was a hard field to find work in, often requiring gig work that didn’t pay too much and where making it big is difficult, she found herself in a bind. Now in possession of a huge amount of student debt from getting an arts degree, she had to make ends meet for her survival (first) and financial solvency (second).

The portrait painted in this graphic novel is one that opposes Canada’s outward egalitarian posture. I know a bit about Canadian politics, but I didn’t know much about the Albertan oil sands, so Beaton’s account was a very helpful glimpse into the ugly underside of things.

Ducks, the title, is in reference to a big environmental problem of birds like ducks getting caught in the toxic sludge that is a product of oil production, and dying, but speaks to the larger conflicts between economic prosperity and environmental degradation. It reminds us that we need to do better.

Happy reading!

--BookOwl