Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands: One of Barack Obama’s Favourite Books of 2022

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Immersion journalism in the form of a graphic narrative following a Syrian family on their immigration to America. I'm a Careful Person': An Interview with Kate Beaton - The Comics Journal". www.tcj.com. 4 November 2015 . Retrieved 10 February 2018.

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands Download - OceanofPDF [PDF] Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands Download - OceanofPDF

I was hesitant to read this graphic novel thinking it might have a lot of horrible things happening to animals in the oil sands.Ali, Nyala (2022-11-03). "Beaton's graphic novel memoir chronicles two tough years working in Alberta oil sands". Winnipeg Free Press . Retrieved 2022-11-07. The book won the 2023 edition of Canada Reads, where it was championed by Mattea Roach. [10] Awards [ edit ]

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands eBook : Beaton, Kate

The author and illustrator, Kate Beaton, who hails from Nova Scotia, worked for two years in the Northern Alberta oil sands to pay off her student loans from college. While there, she worked in a remote setting, “where men outnumber[ed] women by as much as fifty to one.” This is her memoir of that experience, and it's a valuable document to have out there, quite aside from any entertainment value. I've met a few people who worked in the oil sands and it seems like such a remote and opaque world – I've never seen any other books set there, and I've been trying without success to find an excuse to go out there myself though work for years. There is a lot of history to try to understand….(Indigenous rights, misogyny, environmental issues, capitalism, the complexity of real people)…. It’s 8am in Nova Scotia when we talk, and Beaton’s eldest child is racing around in pyjamas, trying to escape her dad. “Potty-training: it’s a land of tears and devastation,” says Beaton, now 39, rolling her eyes.Known primarily as the creator of the web-based comic series “Hark! A Vagrant,” Beaton moves to memoir with this examination of the two years she spent working in the oil sands to pay off her student loans. The author begins with an introduction to her home in Cape Breton, where the people have “a deep love for home, and the knowledge of how frequently they will have to leave it to find work somewhere else. This push and pull defines us. It’s all over our music, our literature, our art, and our understanding of our place in the world.” On the surface, the book is a chronicle of the three years following the author’s college graduation (she also spent a year working at the Maritime Museum of British Columbia), but Beaton captures much more than her personal story. She delves deep into the milieu of Fort McMurray, highlighting the complex relationships among the work camps, the oil companies, and the people living and working there. As the author recounts her time through several jobs, companies, and locations, she alternates the narration between the daily grind of the workers and the vistas of startling beauty surrounding them. She introduces each section by location and includes a list of the characters by job and home province, and she is careful to incorporate issues related to the local Indigenous peoples. After all, she writes, “the oil sands operate on stolen land.” Beaton captures numerous poignant, sometimes heartbreaking moments throughout the book, but the cumulative effect of her many stories is even more impressive. She creates an indelible portrait of environmental degradation, fraught interpersonal relationships among a workforce largely disconnected from home, and greedy corporations that seem only vaguely aware of the difficult work’s effect on their employees. I knew absolutely nothing about Canada's oil sands before reading this graphic memoir. Truth be told, I know very little about Canada in general and hadn't even heard of the oil sands. Beaton paints a very bleak picture. This book was beautiful, harrowing, moving and educational all at once, and it is an absolute masterclass on what can be done with the graphic novel format. An absolute must-read. She wonders whether, if her father had needed to support his family by working on the oil sands, he would have found himself resocialized into one of the leering men who surround her, or whether he would have been one of the quiet ones who keeps his head down and says nothing. Given the right stimulus, it could probably have happened to almost anyone, she thinks.