Kate Beaton’s DUCKS: TWO YEARS IN THE OIL SANDS, which vividly presented an untold story of Canada has been named one of New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year for 2022!

Beaton’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 Rocky Mountains.

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.

Before there was Kate Beaton, New York Times bestselling cartoonist of Hark A Vagrant fame, there was Katie Beaton of the Cape Breton Beatons, specifically Mabou, a tight-knit seaside community where the lobster is as abundant as beaches, fiddles, and Gaelic folk songs. After university, Beaton 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. With the singular goal of paying off her student loans, what the journey will actually cost Beaton will be far more than she anticipates.

Arriving in Fort McMurray, Beaton finds work in the lucrative camps owned and operated by the world’s largest oil companies. Being one of the few women among thousands of men, the culture shock is palpable. It does not hit home until she moves to a spartan, isolated worksite for higher pay. She encounters the harsh reality of life in the oil sands where trauma is an everyday occurrence yet never discussed. Her wounds may never heal.

To read more about DUCKS from the New York Times 100 Notable Books list, please visit:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/11/22/books/notable-books.html?campaign_id=69&emc=edit_bk_20221122&instance_id=78305&nl=books&regi_id=72342773&segment_id=113964&te=1&user_id=e2bb4c8fb33a8d08bb74e81bbc0b8291

Kate Beaton was born in Nova Scotia, took a history degree in New Brunswick, paid it off in Alberta, worked in a museum in British Columbia, then came to Ontario for a while to draw pictures, then Halifax, and then New York, and then back to Toronto.

Kate Beaton’s publisher Drawn & Quarterly is represented by Samantha Haywood and Evan Brown.

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