Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands

English language

Published Sept. 27, 2022 by Penguin Random House.

ISBN:: 978-1-78733-013-9

(1 review)

Arriving in Fort McMurray, Katie finds work in the lucrative camps owned and operated by the world's largest oil companies. As one of the few women among thousands of men, the culture shock is palpable. It does not hit home until she moves to a spartan, isolated worksite for higher pay. Katie encounters the harsh reality of life in the oil sands where trauma is an everyday occurrence yet never discussed. For young Katie, her wounds may never heal.

Beaton's natural cartooning prowess is on full display as she draws colossal machinery and mammoth vehicles set against a sublime Albertan backdrop of wildlife, Northern Lights, and Rocky Mountains. Her first full length graphic narrative, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its egalitarian ethos and natural beauty while simultaneously exploiting both the riches of its land and the …

Arriving in Fort McMurray, Katie finds work in the lucrative camps owned and operated by the world's largest oil companies. As one of the few women among thousands of men, the culture shock is palpable. It does not hit home until she moves to a spartan, isolated worksite for higher pay. Katie encounters the harsh reality of life in the oil sands where trauma is an everyday occurrence yet never discussed. For young Katie, her wounds may never heal.

Beaton's natural cartooning prowess is on full display as she draws colossal machinery and mammoth vehicles set against a sublime Albertan backdrop of wildlife, Northern Lights, and Rocky Mountains. Her first full length graphic narrative, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its egalitarian ethos and natural beauty while simultaneously exploiting both the riches of its land and the humanity of its people.

3 editions

Sarah reviewed Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton

a world of violations

5 stars

“Enjoy” isn’t quite the right word for a read that’s about something as nuanced and anguished as this is, but it’s also apt. I lingered over it and zoomed through it. It’s generous and devastating, sympathetic to the awful positions poor people find themselves in to get by and to the ways it warps who they are, and devastating in how it depicts the violence directed at everyone—women and the land, especially, but also the men who are used up without regard to turn profits for the company.