Ducks

Pursuing a humanities degree has left Kate saddled with a huge student debt and the only way she sees to pay it back is to go and work in the Alberta oil fields. Life in the camps is quite miserable: the same grind day in, day out, toxic dust and sludge that irritates the skin and kills ducks, an unsafe work environment with many work victims and, for Kate and the few women in the job, a daily experience of sexual harassment and, not infrequently, sexual violence. The drawings are simple, like a comic strip, and the narrative is very repetitive; intentionally, I think: every day is cold and filled with sexist comments. Something I enjoyed is how Kate is determined to not demonise the men around her, and tries to understand how they can be loving fathers to some distant daughters and absolute creeps to her. Loneliness and alienation are the answers she comes up with.

Something that I found maybe slightly problematic is her handling of indigenous people and their claims to the land that is being destroyed. She explains that, as a just-graduated twenty-something, she was barely aware of this issue, which is fair enough. And to be clear: I believe that we should always be curious and outraged when people are exploited and made to suffer. But the book was published a good 15 years after the end of the story, so possibly it's a shame she didn't wave this more into the stories.

1) Cape Breton used to export fish, coal, and steel; but in 2005, its main export is people. It's not a unique story in Atlantic Canada. Nor is it a new one. Every Cape Breton family has had its share of empty chairs around the table, for a hundred years. Fathers, siblings, cousins; gone to the "Boston States," gone to Ontario, gone to Alberta—gone to be cheap labour where booming industries demanded it. The only message we got about a better future was that we had to leave home to find one. We did not question it, because this is the have-not region of a have-not province, and it has not boomed here in generations. I need to tell you this—there is no knowing Cape Breton without knowing how deeply ingrained two diametrically opposed experiences are: A deep love for home, and the knowledge of how frequently we have to leave it to find work somewhere else.

2) "How's the dead hour treating you?" "It is quiet, why?" "'Course it is. It's the Newfoundland radio hour. Everyone is sitting in their trucks." "No mistaking that, I guess." "Aren't you from there?" "No. Cape Breton." "Same thing." "Excuse me, two different places! They're accordians and codfish, we're fiddles and lobster." "For god's sake."

3) "These young ones! Spending their money like fools." "That's not true now. I works hard for my pay!" "Jesus, got to enjoy life a bit too." "Wife's got the house she wants." "Houses too big, brand new trucks, piles of toys—you're only digging a hole." "Ha. Yeah, a hole that's full of oil for a hundred more years." "The Grand Banks were full too." "Jumpin' dyin' Jesus bah we's on a dory is it! The Grand fuckin' Banks is it!" "All I'm saying is you only knows the good times, don't you. Let me tell you my son, that don't last. You can't make it. It's not up to you." "..." "Ambrose—were you a fisherman, before?" "I'm still a fisherman. I'm just here."

4) "Doug, why are there so many of us here?" "Who?" "From home. Why are there so many of us here. Why here?" "Why not." "Well, people could go anywhere. But we're all here instead." "This is where the jobs are." "I know not just us. Half of Newfoundland is here. The U.K. The Philippines. But still, you could go to Toronto, somewhere else." "Toronto! And what am I going to do in Toronto! Why didn't you go to goddamned Toronto!" "I know. I know! I know I couldn't pay my debt there. I'm just... thinking. Do you think this place makes people better or worse?" "Wha??" "Well, camp's not a normal place, is it? Nobody likes it here. Everyone wishes they were somewhere else." "I've seen worse. Got a bed here, food. And the money." "Do you like it here?" "Doesn't matter." "Doug?" "What." "What did you do before you came here?" "I did it all. I did everything." "Were you a coal miner?" "Jesus, was I a coal miner? Coal, fishing, steel... But that's all gone, isn't it."

5) "You draw comics? You should make a website. Me and my friend have a comics website." "Really? How do I do that?"

6) "Did you hear about those ducks?" "Ducks?" "Yeah. Like three hundred of them got stuck in a tailings pond down by Syncrude or somewhere." "Really? Ugh, I used to work there."

This is a powerful memoir which has a lot to say about how we (particularly Canada as a resource extraction colony, but also a broader "we") treat the people whose physical labour runs parts of the economy we'd rather not think about. The experience turned out predictably badly for Beaton, but in looking back she maintained empathy for the people involved, keeping a clear on focus on what the context of oil sands work camps does to people.