Real-life story within fiction
Sulphur plant’s arrival echoes effects of oilpatch
We all live downstream. Literally and figuratively, the oilpatch affects our lives. Fred Stenson’s latest novel, Who by Fire, is intriguing, fast-paced and a delight. Living quietly on a mixed farm in southwestern Alberta, the Ryder family experiences unsettling change when a new neighbour arrives. It’s a sulphur plant, a few hundred metres away. Life changes forever.
Though a work of fiction, every incident in the novel actually happened.
Passion and disaster gallop through the story of two generations of westerners who make a living from the land and work in the oilpatch, too.
Courageous, talented, willing to fight for justice, and also addicted and flawed, the Ryder clan story unfolds like a hydrocarbon soap opera set in Texas. But Alberta is not Texas. Our peculiar context includes twists both intriguing and profound. The same provincial government that regulates the oilpatch also collects billions of dollars each year in taxes and fees from the same industry.
Rural residents experience more negative effects of the industrial process than their urban cousins even though we are all equal inheritors of the oily birthright.
Oil companies with annual budgets larger than many countries compete with elected provincial politicians for control over an industry that is both a runaway financial success and may derail in a carbon-constrained future.
Alternating between the foothills of southwestern Alberta in the 1960s and the booming oilsands today, the novel explores contemporary issues in the context of Alberta’s complicated past.
Is our government’s addiction to gaming as a source of tax revenue merely reflective of our society’s gambling mentality?
Why do engineers hold the power to direct a development process that forces citizens to prove that toxic effluents cause health issues and social discord?
In the past, Alberta premiers Manning (1940s to 1960s), and Lougheed (1970s) guided the petroleum development process with vision. Where is such leadership today?
Stenson was born in Alberta and has lived with these competing complexities his whole life so this novel is not one-sided.
Farmers win an out-of-court settlement with an oil company. Farm children attend governmentfunded universities and earn healthy salaries. Health care professionals funded by oil royalties treat the distressed.
Alberta-born or newcomer, every recipient of petroleum largesse needs to read this book.
Who by Fire is the biography of Alberta. The story we all live today.