Barack Obama usually shares the readings that impress him the most. At the end of 2022, the former US president designated this graphic novel as one of his books of the year. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is a voluminous autobiographical work written and drawn by Kate Beaton now published by Norma Editorial with translation by Gema Moraleda.
A long-winded work in which the author tells, through anecdotes taken from her day-to-day life, the operation of the Canadian oil industry. Experiences, emotions, fears, reflections… Small stories that, together, form a close and sincere story, told with kindness and even with moments of humor, but also forcefully when dealing with such delicate issues as sexual harassment, labor risks or the environmental threat of this powerful economic engine of the country.
Kate Beaton speaks of exploitation and toxicity in a double sense: the exploitation of the territory to extract energy resources, at any cost and without worrying too much about the impact on the environment, but also and above all human exploitation. She describes the hard work in a cold and isolated territory, the need to live in a dehumanized work environment, with often unsafe working conditions that are toxic for the few women who dare to work in this very masculine environment. Human exploitation then reaches harassment and even rape.
The story begins in 2005, when Kate Beaton is a recent graduate in Art, History and Anthropology worried about repaying the loan that allowed her to pay for her degree. Her uncle advises her to go to work much further west of where they live, in the province of Alberta, where about 70% of Canadian oil is produced. In the same way that previous generations sought their fortune in the mines or fishing, the young Kate, at 21 years old, will leave home to work in the oil industry.
Ducks narrates with sensitivity and closeness that solitary work, that life almost of pure survival. And that he is physically and mentally far from the world we know. Those who are in those extraction fields in the oil sands know this well. His life there is not his normal life. They left normal life behind when they decided to go to work in those extraction fields. And that makes them behave differently. Or maybe it is here, precisely, where they behave as they are?, wonders the protagonist. Besides, she is a woman and she is young. And she must work in an essentially male environment.
Beaton takes a bleak look at the human condition. Because he analyzes it in an environment where life and personal relationships are not governed by the usual parameters. It is a world that seems to live in a parallel reality, with other rules and other threats. Beaton is capable of moving without loading the inks; to point out without recreating what he explains. And perhaps it is this way of saying things, so close and at the same time so brave, that makes the experience told in this book reach us with even more authenticity. Without losing an iota of power. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is a book that stays in our memories. A powerful and vibrant graphic memory exercise.
