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. Katie encounters the harsh reality of life in the oil sands, where trauma is an everyday occurrence yet is never discussed.īeaton’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 boreal forest. Throughout Ducks, Beaton’s pen conveys a sense of moody displacement. Ducks, her first full-length graphic novel, feels a long way from the quirky, quickfire comedy of Hark A Vagrant.

With the singular goal of paying off her student loans, Katie heads out west to take advantage of Alberta’s oil rush-part of the long tradition of East Coasters who seek gainful employment elsewhere when they can’t find it in the homeland they love so much. Kate Beatons new graphic memoir, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, focuses on her time working at the oil sands of Fort McMurray, in Alberta, Canada. 'An exceptionally beautiful book about loneliness, labor, and survival.“-Carmen Maria Machadoīefore there was Kate Beaton, New York Times bestselling cartoonist of Hark! A Vagrant, there was Katie Beaton of the Cape Breton Beaton, specifically Mabou, a tight-knit seaside community where the lobster is as abundant as beaches, fiddles, and Gaelic folk songs. There’s an active system in Kate Beaton’s Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands that’s designed to exploit its workers. Where Hark was all humor and history and sideways glances at the idea of authoritative truth, Ducks is a monumental synthesis of Beaton herself, incorporating her personal history, her sense.

Ducks beaton