The Bakken Goes Boom

The Bakken Goes Boom PDF Author: William Rodney Caraher
Publisher: Digital Press at the University of North Dakota
ISBN: 9780692643686
Category : Bakken Formation
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
In 2008, the Bakken went boom. Thanks to advances in hydraulic fracturing, oil production in western North Dakota exploded. As the price of oil went up, so did the oil rigs. People came from all over the country (and the world) in search of work, and cities and towns struggled to keep up. This book is about the challenges they faced. It is about the human dimensions of the boom, as told by artists, poets, journalists, and scholars. It captures the boom at its peak, before the price of oil fell and the boom went bust. It sheds light on the impact of oil on local communities that, until now, had not attracted much interest from the outside world. And it shows how North Dakotans, both old and new, have found ways to address the challenges they face in a turbulent, changing environment.

The Bakken Goes Boom

The Bakken Goes Boom PDF Author: William Rodney Caraher
Publisher: Digital Press at the University of North Dakota
ISBN: 9780692643686
Category : Bakken Formation
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
In 2008, the Bakken went boom. Thanks to advances in hydraulic fracturing, oil production in western North Dakota exploded. As the price of oil went up, so did the oil rigs. People came from all over the country (and the world) in search of work, and cities and towns struggled to keep up. This book is about the challenges they faced. It is about the human dimensions of the boom, as told by artists, poets, journalists, and scholars. It captures the boom at its peak, before the price of oil fell and the boom went bust. It sheds light on the impact of oil on local communities that, until now, had not attracted much interest from the outside world. And it shows how North Dakotans, both old and new, have found ways to address the challenges they face in a turbulent, changing environment.

The Good Hand

The Good Hand PDF Author: Michael Patrick F. Smith
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1984881523
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
“A book that should be read . . . Smith brings an alchemic talent to describing physical labor.” —The New York Times Book Review “Beautiful, funny, and harrowing.” – Sarah Smarsh, The Atlantic “Remarkable . . . this is the book that Hillbilly Elegy should have been.” —Kirkus Reviews A vivid window into the world of working class men set during the Bakken fracking boom in North Dakota Like thousands of restless men left unmoored in the wake of the 2008 economic crash, Michael Patrick Smith arrived in the fracking boomtown of Williston, North Dakota five years later homeless, unemployed, and desperate for a job. Renting a mattress on a dirty flophouse floor, he slept boot to beard with migrant men who came from all across America and as far away as Jamaica, Africa and the Philippines. They ate together, drank together, argued like crows and searched for jobs they couldn't get back home. Smith's goal was to find the hardest work he could do--to find out if he could do it. He hired on in the oil patch where he toiled fourteen hour shifts from summer's 100 degree dog days to deep into winter's bracing whiteouts, all the while wrestling with the demons of a turbulent past, his broken relationships with women, and the haunted memories of a family riven by violence. The Good Hand is a saga of fear, danger, exhaustion, suffering, loneliness, and grit that explores the struggles of America's marginalized boomtown workers—the rough-hewn, castoff, seemingly disposable men who do an indispensable job that few would exalt: oil field hands who, in the age of climate change, put the gas in our tanks and the food in our homes. Smith, who had pursued theater and played guitar in New York, observes this world with a critical eye; yet he comes to love his coworkers, forming close bonds with Huck, a goofy giant of a young man whose lead foot and quick fists get him into trouble with the law, and The Wildebeest, a foul-mouthed, dip-spitting truck driver who torments him but also trains him up, and helps Smith "make a hand." The Good Hand is ultimately a book about transformation--a classic American story of one man's attempt to burn himself clean through hard work, to reconcile himself to himself, to find community, and to become whole.

Yellow Bird

Yellow Bird PDF Author: Sierra Crane Murdoch
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0399589171
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • The gripping true story of a murder on an Indian reservation, and the unforgettable Arikara woman who becomes obsessed with solving it—an urgent work of literary journalism. “I don’t know a more complicated, original protagonist in literature than Lissa Yellow Bird, or a more dogged reporter in American journalism than Sierra Crane Murdoch.”—William Finnegan, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Barbarian Days In development as a Paramount+ original series WINNER OF THE OREGON BOOK AWARD • NOMINATED FOR THE EDGAR® AWARD • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • NPR • Publishers Weekly When Lissa Yellow Bird was released from prison in 2009, she found her home, the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, transformed by the Bakken oil boom. In her absence, the landscape had been altered beyond recognition, her tribal government swayed by corporate interests, and her community burdened by a surge in violence and addiction. Three years later, when Lissa learned that a young white oil worker, Kristopher “KC” Clarke, had disappeared from his reservation worksite, she became particularly concerned. No one knew where Clarke had gone, and few people were actively looking for him. Yellow Bird traces Lissa’s steps as she obsessively hunts for clues to Clarke’s disappearance. She navigates two worlds—that of her own tribe, changed by its newfound wealth, and that of the non-Native oilmen, down on their luck, who have come to find work on the heels of the economic recession. Her pursuit of Clarke is also a pursuit of redemption, as Lissa atones for her own crimes and reckons with generations of trauma. Yellow Bird is an exquisitely written, masterfully reported story about a search for justice and a remarkable portrait of a complex woman who is smart, funny, eloquent, compassionate, and—when it serves her cause—manipulative. Drawing on eight years of immersive investigation, Sierra Crane Murdoch has produced a profound examination of the legacy of systematic violence inflicted on a tribal nation and a tale of extraordinary healing.

The Bakken

The Bakken PDF Author: William Rodney Caraher
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780911042870
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The arrival of fracking technology in western North Dakota led to an industrial renaissance that transformed sleepy farm communities into crucial cogs in the global extractive economy. Fracking technology made the area a global destination for roughnecks, petroleum engineers, pipeline "cats," fishers (who "fish" for tools and other objects accidentally dropped down wells), truck drivers, carpenters, contractors, and electricians as well as journalists, adventure scientists, academic scholars, photographers, and filmmakers. The bustle of heavy industry and a landscape of dramatic contrasts present a magnetic attraction for the adventurous traveler. Pack your camera, your sulfur dioxide sensor, a pair of steel-toed boots, and your flame resistant Carhartt clothing as you get ready for a unique journey to a frontier landscape forged by industry.

O Beautiful

O Beautiful PDF Author: Jung Yun
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250274338
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
A New York Times Editors' Choice Book From the critically-acclaimed author of Shelter, an unflinching portrayal of a woman trying to come to terms with the ghosts of her past and the tortured realities of a deeply divided America. Elinor Hanson, a forty-something former model, is struggling to reinvent herself as a freelance writer when she receives an unexpected assignment. Her mentor from grad school offers her a chance to write for a prestigious magazine about the Bakken oil boom in North Dakota. Elinor grew up near the Bakken, raised by an overbearing father and a distant Korean mother who met and married when he was stationed overseas. After decades away from home, Elinor returns to a landscape she hardly recognizes, overrun by tens of thousands of newcomers. Surrounded by roughnecks seeking their fortunes in oil and long-time residents worried about their changing community, Elinor experiences a profound sense of alienation and grief. She rages at the unrelenting male gaze, the locals who still see her as a foreigner, and the memories of her family’s estrangement after her mother decided to escape her unhappy marriage, leaving Elinor and her sister behind. The longer she pursues this potentially career-altering assignment, the more her past intertwines with the story she’s trying to tell, revealing disturbing new realities that will forever change her and the way she looks at the world. With spare and graceful prose, Jung Yun's O Beautiful presents an immersive portrait of a community rife with tensions and competing interests, and one woman’s attempts to reconcile her anger with her love of a beautiful, but troubled land.

Oil, Gas, and Crime

Oil, Gas, and Crime PDF Author: Rick Ruddell
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137587148
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
This book addresses the causes of rising crime rates resulting from the rapid population growth and industrialization associated with natural resource extraction in rural communities. Ruddell describes the social problems emerging in these boomtowns, including increases in antisocial behavior, as well as property-related and violent crime, industrial mishaps and traffic collisions. Many of the victims of these crimes are already members of vulnerable or marginalized groups, including rural women, Indigenous populations, and young people. The quality of life in boomtowns also decreases due to environmental impacts, including air, water and noise pollution. Law enforcement agencies, courts, and correction facilities in boomtowns are often overwhelmed by the growing demand as these places are seldom able to manage the population growth. The key questions addressed here are: who should pay the costs of managing these booms, and how can we prepare communities to mitigate the worst effects of this growth and development and, ultimately, increase the quality of life for boomtown residents. An in-depth and timely study, this original work will be of great interest to scholars of violent crime, criminal justice, and corporate harm.

Great American Outpost

Great American Outpost PDF Author: Maya Rao
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610396472
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
A surreal, lyrical work of narrative nonfiction that portrays how the largest domestic oil discovery in half a century transformed a forgotten corner of the American West into a crucible of breakneck capitalism. As North Dakota became the nation's second-largest oil producer, Maya Rao set out in steel-toe boots to join a wave of drifters, dreamers, entrepreneurs, and criminals. With an eye for the dark, absurd, and humorous, Rao fearlessly immersed herself in their world to chronicle this modern-day gold rush, from its heady beginnings to OPEC's price war against the US oil industry. She rode shotgun with a surfer-turned-truck driver braving toxic fumes and dangerous roads, dined with businessmen disgraced during the financial crisis, and reported on everyone in between--including an ex-con YouTube celebrity, a trophy wife mired in scandal, and a hard-drinking British Ponzi schemer--in a social scene so rife with intrigue that one investor called the oilfield Peyton Place on steroids. As the boom receded, a culture of greed and recklessness left troubling consequences for investors and longtime residents. Empty trailers and idle oil equipment littered the fields like abandoned farmsteads, leaving the pioneers who built this unlikely civilization to reckon with their legacy. Part Barbara Ehrenreich, part Upton Sinclair, Great American Outpost is a sobering exploration of twenty-first-century America that reads like a frontier novel.

Yellow Earth

Yellow Earth PDF Author: John Sayles
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1642590789
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
In Yellow Earth, John Sayles introduces an epic cast of characters, weaving together narratives of competing agendas and worldviews with lyrical dexterity, insight, and wit. When rich layers of shale oil are discovered beneath the town of Yellow Earth, all hell breaks loose. Locals, oil workers, service workers, politicians, law enforcement, and get-rich-quick opportunists—along with an earnest wildlife biologist—commingle and collide as the population of the town triples overnight. Harleigh Killdeer, chairman of the tribal business council of the neighboring Three Nations reservation, entertains visions of "sovereignty by the barrel" and joins forces with a fast-talking entrepreneur. From casino dealers to activists and high school kids, everyone in the region is swept up in the unsparing wave of an oil boom. Sayles’s masterful storytelling draws an arc from the earliest exploitation of this land and its people all the way to twenty-first-century privatization schemes. Through the intertwining lives of its characters, Yellow Earth lays bare how the profit motive erodes human relationships, as well as our living planet. The fate of Yellow Earth serves as a parable for our times.

The New Wild West

The New Wild West PDF Author: Blaire Briody
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1466871520
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Williston, North Dakota was a sleepy farm town for generations—until the frackers arrived. The oil companies moved into Williston, overtaking the town and setting off a boom that America hadn’t seen since the Gold Rush. Workers from all over the country descended, chasing jobs that promised them six-figure salaries and demanded no prior experience. But for every person chasing the American dream, there is a darker side—reports of violence and sexual assault skyrocketed, schools overflowed, and housing prices soared. Real estate is such a hot commodity that tent cities popped up, and many workers’ only option was to live out of their cars. Farmers whose families had tended the land for generations watched, powerless, as their fields were bulldozed to make way for one oil rig after another. Written in the vein Ted Conover and Jon Krakauer, using a mix of first-person adventure and cultural analysis, The New Wild West is the definitive account of what’s happening on the ground and what really happens to a community when the energy industry is allowed to set up in a town with little regulation or oversight—and at what cost.

The Frackers

The Frackers PDF Author: Gregory Zuckerman
Publisher: Portfolio
ISBN: 9780670923670
Category : Hydraulic fracturing
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
Meet the Frackers. George Mitchell, the son of a Greek goatherder, who tried to extract gas from rock that experts deemed worthless. He faced an unexpected obstacle in his quest to change history. Aubrey McClendon, the charismatic descendant of an Oklahoma energy dynasty, who scored bil­lions leading a land grab. He wasn't prepared for the shocking fallout of his discoveries. Tom Ward, who overcame a troubled childhood to become one of the nation's wealthiest men. He could handle natural-gas fields but had more trouble with a Wall Street power broker. Harold Hamm, the son of poor farmer, who believed America had more oil than anyone imagined. Hamm was determined to find the crude before others caught on. Charif Souki, the dashing Lebanese immigrant who saw his career crumble and his fortune disintegrate, leaving one last, unlikely chance for success. Mark Papa, the Enron castoff who panicked when he realized a resurgence of American natural gas was at hand: one that his company wasn't prepared for. Praise for The Greatest Trade Ever 'Simply terrific. Easily the best of the post-crash financial books.' Malcolm Gladwell 'The definitive account of a strange and wonderful subplot of the financial crisis.' Michael Lewis 'Zuckerman is a first-rate reporter who is able to explain the complexities of finance in layman's terms. At times, The Greatest Trade Ever reads like a thriller.' The New York Times