WINDFALL

A journalist investigates the life of her great-grandmother in the context of mineral rights, the oil and gas industry, and the American promise that anyone could get rich.

In this mix of history, memoir, and environmental writing, Bolstad, a former reporter for Climatewire, begins with an introduction to Anna Josephine Sletvold, her great-grandmother. The daughter of Norwegian immigrants, Anna homesteaded in North Dakota and, according to family lore, disappeared in 1907. “More than a century later, an oil company sent my mother a $2,400 check,” writes Bolstad. “The oil company was leasing mineral rights along the edges of the booming Bakken oil fields of North Dakota. From the oil company, my mother learned she was an heir to mineral rights below the surface of the land where Anna once had a homestead.” Following the death of her mother three months later, the author began her research, seeking information about her great-grandmother, how her family ended up with the mineral rights, and how this fit into the refrain that “my mother had heard all her life: We could be rich.” In addition to her personal story, Bolstad discusses the Homestead Act and its repercussions over time as well as the “multiple boom and bust cycles” in the North Dakota oil patch. Some of the problems associated with these cycles involve crowded, unsafe Walmart parking lots filled with oil workers, businesses struggling to survive on the promise of a potential windfall, and the many “toxic myths of manifest destiny.” By moving back and forth through her own life, her family members’ lives, and the realities of how oil booms have affected states like North Dakota over time, the author effectively examines the political, economic, and environmental issues involved in the production of energy across the country.

An engrossing look at the effects of the American oil and gas industry through the lens of family history.