Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands

The Canadian oil sands are a naturally occurring combination of sand, clay, minerals, water, and bitumen (a heavy, viscous oil that must be refined and extracted before use). These oil sands are mostly found beneath the vast boreal forests of Alberta, Canada. For contemporary usage, it must be mined, which means forest clearing and creating tailings ponds that separate the various components of the oil sands to extract the bitumen. This is then transported via pipeline to refineries elsewhere.

Originally, the oil sands were used by First Nations people (including the Cree and Dene) to waterproof their canoes. Western explorers eventually found an early method for extracting bitumen. By the early 20^th century, oil sands were used for road surfacing, and by the 1920s, the first oil sand separation plant was constructed near Fort McMurray in Alberta. Research into oil sands and bitumen continued, and the industry took off in the 1950s. Today, the Alberta oil sands is “the world’s largest industrial project” and “the world’s third-largest proven oil reserve at 170 billion barrels” (Leahy, Stephen, and Ian Willms. “Alberta, Canada’s Oil Sands Is the World’s Most Destructive Oil Operation-and It’s Growing.” National Geographic, 11 Apr. 2019).

However, this comes at a significant environmental cost: Oil sands plants have turned swaths of Alberta’s forests into barren landscapes, and Alberta’s many tailings waste ponds are so deadly that they kill birds (including ducks, the memoir’s titular fowl). Acid rain and air pollution affect a region about the size of Germany, and while depleted land is supposed to be replanted, only minimal lands have been so, and they are given over to bison rather than used to regrow trees.

Birds, including heavily endangered species, are not the only ones affected by this environmental devastation. Fish, caribou, moose, and bison are also affected, which also affects the Indigenous First Nations communities culturally tied to the land. These communities, whose traditions include hunting and living off of the land, have a complicated relationship with the oil sands industry; located primarily in Fort McKay, they are now surrounded by oil sands plants, which have rerouted waterways and poisoned groundwater with heavy metals. The electric lines, constant air cannon blasts, and industrial scarecrows also contribute to dangers and stressors. Cancer rates have also risen, and high levels of carcinogenic compounds have been found in lakes far from the mines, leading many to believe that regulations are not as stringent or honest as they seem.

However, many Indigenous communities in the area are impoverished and turn to oil sands companies for jobs. Some activists believe this dependence is created purposefully; Indigenous communities may be more likely to agree to oil sands expansion if they rely on them. However, opposition to oil sands companies is difficult. When First Nations communities objected to planned oil pipeline construction through their land, the industry pressured Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to approve it anyway. Even when the oil industry eventually declines, the environmental impact will endure, and clean-up costs are estimated at over $100 billion (Kusnetz, Nicholas. “Canada’s Tar Sands: Destruction So Vast and Deep It Challenges the Existence of Land and People.” Inside Climate News, 21 Nov. 2021).

While Beaton only briefly touches on these impacts of the oil sands plants, she makes a point to include Indigenous perspectives in Ducks. She includes excerpts from videos by Celina Harpe of the Fort McKay Cree community to highlight these issues and emphasizes cancer risks by mentioning her own back welts, her sister Becky’s death, and Leon’s slow death from cancer. As for environmental impacts, Katie and her colleagues scoff at the new mining techniques that are supposedly healthier, and she notes the disastrous oil spill that killed 500 ducks in the tailings pond. She also questions the efficacy of scarecrows and recorded gunshot noises to scare birds. In this way, Beaton acknowledges both the importance of diminishing the oil sands’ negative impacts on the natural environment and the communities who live, work, and honor their ancestors and traditions there, another type of forgotten “shadow people.”