An ambitiously complex graphic narrative of a Nova Scotian woman’s experience working in the oil sands of Fort McMurray, Alberta. I used to work in a factory, and later doing a uniform and floor mat delivery at factories and a lot of the depictions of labor hit very close to home. I would go to a good 30some factories a week, some that I knew every time I left I’d have weird allergies or feel ill from physically (I think of Beaton saying there ‘ just shit’ in the air and when she asks ‘ Do I even want to know what kind of cancer will have in 20 years?’ I think of all the glues and sprays we used in the sign-making factory I once worked at with no ventilation), and the thing that bothered me the most was the odd comments people would make to me during my stops. I think a big part was wondering what made them think I was a person they could say that too, and if they’d say that to a stranger what sort of terrible comments do they make around people they feel comfortable with. And what am I going to do, complain? I’ll just be replaced on that stop on the route. All the homophobic comments when I worked in the factory sure hurt but what was I going to do, out myself as pansexual by complaining? How’s that going to go for me after that? I mean, I can’t possibly truly understand what Beaton went through but I did have a lot of difficult memories about working in physical labor jobs while reading this. It happens everywhere, and part of the problem is that this sort of behavior is almost coded into the image of “tough labor guy.”

Ducks - Penguin Books UK

Well, I had no difficultly, whatsoever, in believing what went on in these locations, particularly because I've heard almost everything that was said to Kate Beaton or in front of Kate Beaton at some point, or another, in my own lifetime.

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This was a completely unique graphic novel for me—as strong in its narrative as it is in its artwork. I'm from the other side of the island Kate Beaton grew up on and I'm living not terribly far from where most of this book is set. My experiences have been different, of course, but everything Beaton writes rings true. You notice it in the little things: buildings that look familiar, or that you realize looked like that in the years her story was taking place, or the way she draws certain documents, or realizing you might have a very vague connection to one of the people who die in an accident in the book, and then that sense of nailing it extends outward to the issues she's covering. There's a landscape drawing of Cape Breton early in the book that looks like a photo that hangs on my mother's wall, except they're from two slightly different angles. Cut off from the rest of civilisation, oil sands workers are portrayed as an insular community, lonely, a misogynistic old boys' club, often depressed but unable to talk about mental health. Beaton creates a world apart from ours in which the loneliness drives many men to behaviours they wouldn't even consider in their "real lives". Harassment is considered normal; sexual assault all too common.

Kate Beaton tells of her struggles working the oil fields in Kate Beaton tells of her struggles working the oil fields in

A graphic memoir recounting 2 years Beaton spent working at the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, far from her eastern coastal home of Nova Scotia. The camps are populated mostly by men, who outnumber women in the oil sands by 50 to 1. Most of the people who work there have minimal education, and many of them have migrated from their homes, as Beaton did, in search of better wages. Resources and entertainment are limited. In the isolated, macho social landscape that results, sexual harassment becomes the norm. Sadly, I don't know a single woman currently over the age of 25 who could read this graphic novel without shaking her head in sadness or groaning with a great sense of solidarity and understanding of the circumstances described here. Her central thesis is that the oil business is damaging to almost everyone involved. Particularly the workers who travel from all over Canada (and the world) to work in these remote locations in harsh conditions, all because the pay’s so good and there aren’t any lucrative jobs anywhere else. What’s not considered is the psychological impact of being separated from civilisation and loved ones, leading to extensive substance abuse, loneliness, mental health problems, and broken homes.In 2016, this landscape prompted another news story when huge wildfires closed the town of Fort McMurray, which serviced the camps, underlining a bigger issue of environmental breakdown to which the oilfields contribute. But Beaton holds her focus on the two years she spent there, when her mettle was tested up to, and beyond, its limits by the more local threat of social and behavioural breakdown, which landed her in many difficult situations. Not an excuse, no. But it shows that people are shaped by their environment and, in a less than stellar one, might act in ways they normally wouldn't. She didn't demonize all men because of her experience there but at the same time she showed how women suffer in toxic male environments - and are expected to just "deal with it" and not complain. 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.

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton, Hardcover Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton, Hardcover

a b c d "Doug Wright Awards: Past Winners". Archived from the original on 23 October 2020 . Retrieved 18 July 2021. The run turned Roach from a recent University of Toronto grad and aspiring law student into a household name in Canada. The book is about big, complicated issues: economic exploitation, misogyny, the abuse and disregard of Indigenous land and people, class, education, upward mobility, labor, environmental destruction, sexual harassment and assault, toxic industrial waste, power, history, complicity, identity, loss, sacrifice, family, home. The ground the book covers is far too broad and in-depth to go into in one review. But Beaton touches on these myriad complex subjects gently. Everything is told through conversations she had or overheard. It's never didactic or ponderous. She lets us make the connections ourselves. The lines between laughter and hysteria, despair and rage — with frequent painful revelations about human behavior —had me ‘only’ slowing down my reading so that I could stare longer I see outstanding graphics. In October 2018, Beaton ended the ongoing serialization of her webcomic, saying, "I feel like this is a project that has run its course." [34]Canada Reads winner Kate Beaton wins 2023 Eisner Awards for best writer/artist and best graphic memoir". CBC. 2023-07-25 . Retrieved 2023-07-26.

Jeopardy! super-champion Mattea Roach is ready for their next

Fifty men for every one woman, in an isolated setting. When we hear that, we know what it means. And Beaton does not skimp on any of the dark, ugly details and the toll they took. I'm a Careful Person': An Interview with Kate Beaton - The Comics Journal". www.tcj.com. 4 November 2015 . Retrieved 10 February 2018. 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. Milligan, Mercedes (17 March 2022). "Trailer: Kate Beaton's 'Pinecone & Pony' Charges to Apple TV+".Kate Beaton and I are the same age, and we hit the indy comics scene at roughly the same time. Like everyone else in the world I became a fan of her work - the funny historical stuff and the (also funny, but serious too) autobio stuff. We made friends, another one of those weird internet friendships that feels both intangible and invaluable. Kate Beaton's comics are rich with quiet revelations, intimate details, and a deadpan, devastating sense of humor. A generous and illuminating book; I suspect it will stay on my mind for a very long time. Anna Wiener, author of Uncanny Valley Holy shit, what a book!! I've been reading Kate Beaton's work online since the livejournal days, starting in roughly 2009, just after the events which this memoir recounts. It's humbling to sit with the narrative of what was happening in the real life of an author I knew for her humorous history jokes in Hark! A Vagrant.