Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands

Ducks (2022) by Kate Beaton is an adult graphic memoir about Beaton’s two years working in the Alberta, Canada oil sands after graduating from university. It highlights her experience as a young white woman in an isolated, hypermasculine environment before the rise of the internet. Ducks is Beaton’s first print publication for adults, though she is known for her 2011 Ignatz Award-winning webcomic Hark! A Vagrant and two picture books, King Baby (2016) and The Princess and the Pony (2015). The latter book has been adapted into an AppleTV+ show. Ducks featured on several 2022 best book lists and won many awards, including the Eisner Awards for Best Graphic Memoir and Best Artist/Writer, the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Graphic Novel, and Ringo Awards for Best Nonfiction Comic Work and Best Cartoonist.

This guide references the first edition of Ducks, published by Drawn & Quarterly in 2022.

Content Warning: The graphic novel and study guide discuss rape, sexual harassment, and victim blaming.

Plot Summary

Katie Beaton is from Mabou, Cape Breton, in Nova Scotia, Canada. She describes it as a “have-not region of a have-not province” (10), and says it has been so for generations—leaving home to find work is written into the local culture. As a 21-year-old recent university graduate with an arts degree and looming student loans, Katie looks to the Alberta oil sands to find work and pay off her debt. Although her parents are reluctant, they send her off across the country. Katie works first as a waitress, then in the oil sands tool crib. Along the way, she finds unexpected kindness and connections through local family friends and colleagues from the same home region.

However, the oil sands are a rude awakening for naive Katie. In a hypermasculine environment where men outnumber women 50 to 1, she is thrust into relationship dynamics that she must quickly learn to navigate. Men are interested in her because she is a woman, not because she is Katie, and women set her up on dates even though she is not interested. Katie is surrounded by male chauvinism and struggles to deal with it in the oil sands and town; at the same time, she needs male connections to get lucrative jobs. While at work one day in Syncrude’s Mildred Lake location, she encounters a three-legged fox. Soon after, she is relocated to the Aurora plant.

Now more familiar with tool crib and oil sands work, Katie can get to know her coworkers better. She begins to understand the complexities of social dynamics in the oil sands: Young men celebrate their earnings, older men mourn defunct industries closer to home, and women of color are viewed by their race or ethnicity rather than their personalities and experiences. Katie is still frustrated by certain social dynamics but is comforted by the Northern Lights. She is later offered a job but turns it down in favor of a more lucrative opportunity in Long Lake.

Long Lake is different from any oil sands plant she has thus far experienced because it is a plant in progress, a work camp rather than an established location. Here, worker transience and isolation are more pronounced than elsewhere, which can lead them to do dangerous things. Katie makes friends with some of the younger male employees, though the male chauvinism and harassment are worse here; she is openly stared at and gossiped about, and when she tries to report it, she is told to suck it up. Things come to a head when she is invited to two parties and is raped at each of them. After this, Katie struggles with her trauma, especially when her male friends don’t take her experiences seriously. A month later, her sister, Becky, and friend, Lindsay, arrive at Long Lake. Katie does her best to protect them, but they also experience major culture shock. Becky notices the change in Katie’s personality and realizes what happened to her. Aghast, Becky confides about similar trauma in her past and encourages Katie to leave Long Lake.

Katie finds a museum job in Victoria, British Columbia, and loves it. She also looks for supplementary customer service work but struggles with the big city elitism and is fired from several of her jobs. She tries dating again with mixed results. She starts her comic website and is hopeful overall. Eventually, however, she returns to the oil sands out of financial need. This time, she works in administration at Albian Sands, where she reunites with Lindsay and some of her coworkers from Long Lake. Katie is more direct and cynical at Albian Sands and gets along well with her supervisor, Ryan; they are both jaded about the industry they work for. She continues to question how the oil sands affect the men who work there, especially their mental health, social behavior, and drug use.

Scandal breaks out when hundreds of birds die in the oil sands tailing pools, prompting outrage from environmentalists. Surface-level deterrents are put in place by upper management. First Nations activists also speak out. Katie and Lindsay ponder the oil sands’ effects on their own health and attempt to write about their experiences with the industry but face unexpected negative backlash. Katie has complicated feelings about the oil sands and her connection with them.

As the scandal dies down, Lindsay and Becky leave for graduate school. Ryan, whose mental health is worsening, goes through a divorce and then disappears. Katie finally pays off her debt and begins making plans to return home. She is triggered every so often by encounters with her second rapist. She puts in her resignation, and her replacement knows nothing about the job and is paid much more than her. She confronts management about it, eventually winning back the bonus money they tried to withhold because of her resignation. As a parting gift, her colleagues throw a farewell barbecue and give her a photo of Long Lake with a rainbow.

Katie returns to Cape Breton and reunites with her family, but she is a changed woman. She values the natural vistas of her hometown but has no response when older members of her community extol the lucrative oil sands despite never having been there. When she and Becky go out with friends and encounter a man from the oil sands, their friends are aghast at the way the man treats them, but again, Katie and Becky have no response. They ask themselves what “normal” life is after the oil sands.