didn’t necessarily provide: one in the world’s socio-economic complexities, one that helps Beaton find herself in those cold, vast Alberta days and nights.Īll this sounds like the typical “privileged young adult finding themselves in menial labor” story trope. But it also leads to an education in the ways of the world that four years working towards that B.A.

After all, they sent her and her sisters to university so they can escape the menial and limited job opportunities that their Cape Breton community provides.īut it’s the life that Kate needs. It’s not the life that her parents wanted for her. Facing a need to make money, Kate ships herself out west to Alberta, working in the oil sands and waitressing on the side, not rolling in the dough, but making enough to get by. from Mount Allison University, asks herself as she confronts the mountain that is student debt with the reality of finding meaningful work that uses that degree. in English?” No doubt that was a question Kate, recently with her B.A. In the year that Kate Beaton’s autobiography of her early adulthood takes place (2005), the musical Avenue Q was taking Broadway by storm, featuring the opening lyrics of “What do you do with a B.A. 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.

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. Before 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.

Ducks kate beaton