(D)RIVEN

 


 "Far. / Dark. / Cold. / (I am on a journey toward a distant / And perfect wound)" -- Thomas McGrath

The destructive force of mining booms on the land and human lives is not a new phenomenon. Great aunts and uncles spoke of the demoralizing nature of the iron-ore rich town of Hurley, Wisconsin.

Wisconsin has been caught up, too, in the more recent fracking boom in the Bakken region. In 2012, I witnessed the sand dug from new pits, dropped into hundreds of freight cars circling up to new elevators on new looping tracks, hauled west and blown forgettably under the Great Plains. 

Recently I was able to document one of the North Dakota truck drivers, an old classmate, who was part of this boom. He is an energized individual and, like any of us, divided within from the need to be more. It is the riving of lives as his that has driven the fracking industry, to eke a bit of oil and gas from the earth: (D)RIVEN.





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