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Letter to the Editor: A note on oil patch workers Carlsbad Current-Argus A note on oil patch workers The debate over the impact of gas and oil on our environment and economy seems to have skipped over an important facet of the issues. What about the mental, emotional and physical health of those who work in the oil patch? What place do oil booms and busts have in shaping the lives of individuals, communities and economies?  Reading Michael Patrick F. Smith’s The Good Hand which relates his nine month pilgrimage as a laborer in the Williston Basin offers some insights. It is a hard read ...

But there is no harvest without work. Written By: Mike Jacobs | × Mike Jacobs, Grand Forks Herald columnist. GRAND FORKS — In another dry spring not so many years ago, while the wind howled and the dust blew, I expressed alarm to my farmer neighbor. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Plant in the dust and the bins will bust.” I laughed then, but as I’ve mulled those words through the years, I come to respect their profound message of resignation and of hope. So, on Saturday, I planted potatoes. In her column on Saturday, the Grand Forks Herald's Ann Bailey described the Irish ...

North Dakota’s Gold Rush: A Memoir About the Fracking Boom A new book chronicles the stories of sometimes broken, often desperate men who ventured to the northern plains in service of an industry that exemplifies late-stage capitalism. Clay S. Jenkinson, Editor-at-Large   |   April 4, 2021 Michael Patrick F. Smith would not seem to fit the profile of an oil field worker. He’s an actor, a musician and a playwright who sublet his Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment to head out west to Williston, N.D., during the height of the Bakken Oil Boom in 2013. As he admi...

The Promises and Pitfalls of a Modern-Day Boomtown A decade ago, Williston, N.D., became a magnet for desperate men, thanks to oil in the Bakken Formation. In an interview, author Michael Smith talks about life in an oil patch and the human cost of fueling the nation. Clay S. Jenkinson, Editor-at-Large   |   April 2, 2021   |  Features You can listen to the companion audio version of this and other essays in the series using the player below or on  . When the price of a barrel of oil peaked at $145 amid the 2008 economic meltdown, thousa...

By Michael Patrick F. Smith Viking: 464 pages, $29 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. What are you doing right now? Have you taken any risks lately? When’s the last time you were truly scared? In the summer of 2012, Michael Patrick F. Smith read an article in Men’s Journal about the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota. At the time, he was working a white-collar job in lower Manhattan, living in Brooklyn, engaging in the drug- and alcohol-soaked bacchanal of “postadolescent” life available to ...