1 . There are jobs you take because you may find them fulfilling, or a stepping stone to your career. And then there are jobs you take for the money. The new book, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, is about the latter. It’s from Kate Beaton, a best-selling cartoonist. With her first graphic narrative, Ducks, Beaton examines her own life, specifically the years she spent working at the oil sands of Fort McMurray, in Alberta, Canada.
The book starts on Cape Breton Island, Beaton’s hometown. Once it was home to various industries, and then it wasn’t. So the island started sending its people out to wherever jobs were. This idea that you have to leave home to make a life for yourself is deeply rooted in the culture of Cape Breton. Her parents try to convince her to go into teaching, but she heads west, to the oil sands of Fort McMurray. It’s an oil boomtown populated mostly by men who are away from their homes and likely to fall into the traps of boomtowns-drugs, alcohol and loneliness.
The book follows Beaton as she tackles her own sense of isolation, while having to bear constant sexism. But she describes small moments of tenderness too, from people looking out for her in their own ways to those who are simply putting their heads down, just trying to get by.
In the book, a Cree elder talks about the impacts the oil companies have had on their community. “Everything’s ruined, our lives, our water, the air...as long as they get their money.” When the companies first came in, the locals weren’t given much say. And now they are economically tied up to the industries that are polluting their land, and leaving them with higher rates of cancer. But what choice did they have but to be involved, or be completely crushed?
Ducks is truly an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its equality and natural beauty while exploiting both the riches of its land and the humanity of its people.
1. Which factor leads Beaton to Fort McMurray?| A．The appeal of oil sands. |
| B．Her thirst for freedom. |
| C．The influence of her culture. |
| D．Her parents’ encouragement. |
| A．Depressing and unfair. |
| B．Helpless and aimless. |
| C．Miserable yet fulfilling. |
| D．Lonely yet still with warmth. |
| A．Because they can find no better place to go. |
| B．Because they are illegally trapped in oil sands. |
| C．Because their life is totally ruined by the oil mining. |
| D．Because they are financially dependent on the industries. |
| A．A novel. | B．A book review. |
| C．A biography. | D．A news story. |
