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A Voyage Across an Ancient Ocean: A Bicycle Journey Through the Northern Dominion of Oil
Recently recovered from his epic bicycle journey that took him from the Delaware shore to the Oregon coast, distinguished climate scientist David Goodrich sets out on his bike again to traverse the Western Interior Seaway—an ancient ocean that once spread across half of North America. When the waters cleared a geologic age ago, what was left behind was vast, flat prairie, otherworldly rock formations, and oil shale deposits.
As Goodrich journeys through the Badlands and Theodore Roosevelt National Park and across the prairies of the upper Midwest and Canada, we get a raw and ground-level view of where the tar sands and oil reserves are being opened up at an incredible and unprecedented pace. Extraordinary and unregulated, this “black goldrush” is boom and bust in every sense. In a manner reminiscent of John McPhee and Rachel Carson, combined with Goodrich’s wry self-deprecation and scientific expertise, A Voyage Across an Ancient Ocean is a galvanizing and adventure-filled read that gets to the heart of drilling on our continent.
As Goodrich journeys through the Badlands and Theodore Roosevelt National Park and across the prairies of the upper Midwest and Canada, we get a raw and ground-level view of where the tar sands and oil reserves are being opened up at an incredible and unprecedented pace. Extraordinary and unregulated, this “black goldrush” is boom and bust in every sense. In a manner reminiscent of John McPhee and Rachel Carson, combined with Goodrich’s wry self-deprecation and scientific expertise, A Voyage Across an Ancient Ocean is a galvanizing and adventure-filled read that gets to the heart of drilling on our continent.
304 pages, Hardcover
Published August 4, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
May 10, 2021
Fast reading book that is partly about a rather epic bicycle ride, partly about the state of oil production in the northern United States and central Canada, and partly about the threat hydrocarbon production and use poses to global climate. The author decided to ride his bike from the oil sands of Alberta, Canada (where the oil that is or was to go into the Keystone pipeline would come from, specifically starting in Fort McMurray, going into some detail about “The Beast,” the great fire of 2016 that seriously threatened the town), down through Hardisty, Alberta (the place where the pipeline begins), through Saskatchewan (visiting places like Saskatoon and the wonderfully named Moose Jaw), south into North Dakota (through the midst of the Bakken oil fields all the way to Theodore Roosevelt National Park and spending some time there). Along the way the author would describe the countryside (including the environmental effects of climate change and oil production), talk with some of the people (regular people, environmentalists including an ornithologist, Native peoples, those in the oil industry), and talk more generally about climate change, some of the geology of the region, the history of oil exploration in the region, the history of fracking, and some of his own experiences (which include time on oil rig in the Gulf and as a climate change scientist). There is a bit of a cheat in the middle of the book or so where the author includes a few chapters where he had to drive a car, but for most of the trip he is riding his bicycle and describes in detail those experiences.
His bike ride is definitely an impressive trip, taking three weeks to complete and according to my notes taken from reading the book, 1,093 miles actually on his bicycle (alone the vast majority of the time). Along the way he dealt with the bugs of the boreal forest, mechanical problems with his bike, having to get to a preplanned place to spend the night each night as he didn’t carry any camping equipment with him, the possibility of bears, the possibility of wolves, sharing the road with enormous big rigs and oil processing vehicles, headwinds, thunderstorms (specifically the lightning), and sometimes crime-ridden oil boom towns in North Dakota. Fortunately, everywhere he went there were kind strangers, some he knew before hand, others he met at stops or who stopped along the road to help him. With the accompanying color photos, the reader gets a good sense of the bleak industrial landscapes around the oil sands, quirky stops along the road (like the Purple Palace, the Kenaston snowman in Kenaston, Saskatchewan, and the Old School in Fortuna, North Dakota, a school converted into a bar and hotel), the boom town that is Williston, North Dakota (“Off in the distance oil well flares flickered languidly on the horizon, a touch of Mordor out on the prairie”), and the beauty of Theodore Roosevelt National Park (which though beautiful, is, as he quotes a Park Service video, “an island in a sea of development” with a new refinery planned 3 miles from the park entrance).
Author David Goodrich is definitely not a fan of the oil produced in either the oil sands or the Bakken oil fields. He noted early on the oil from the oil sands is “the dirtiest oil in the world” in “terms of carbon dioxide released per barrel of crude,” with for each barrel of oil sands crude “about two tons of sand must be dug up, moved, and processed with about three barrels of water.” I hadn’t known the specifics of how dirty oil production was in either area but they didn’t surprise me. I knew about the induced earthquakes caused by fracking (something the author went into, spending time mainly on the incidence of them in Oklahoma). I hadn’t known about brine spills; the “process of fracking leads to a backflow of brine, remnants of the ancient sea that laid down the oil deposits,” with the “brines also containing drilling fluids, toxic chemicals, sand, sediment, and hydrocarbons,” with spills “actually worse than oil spills, because it can take years for the salt to leach out of contaminated groundwater,” essentially creating deserts. Sadly, he noted that North Dakota “has had at least 868 brine spills since 2008” (the book was published in 2020 and I would note as an aside, is the first book I ever read that talks about the Coronavirus pandemic).
I liked the coverage of some of the geology of the region, such as the origins of both the oil sands and the Bakken oil fields, including how and in what matter oil was created and concentrated in both areas, and other past geological aspects of the region such as glacial Lake Agassiz.
There was some coverage of the in fighting in Washington and elsewhere about the language used in describing climate change (with much encouragement by Republican politicians to use terms like “may” or “possibly” or “uncertainty” to described settled science); it wasn’t always interesting, but it was necessary in a book like this. I was pleased to note he didn’t spend vast amounts of time railing against Donald Trump (I had wondered if that would be the case, though he was no fan) and he was pretty fair in covering both the good and the bad about Barack Obama with regards to energy policy, climate policy, and the Keystone pipeline (he could have perhaps been a bit harder I think with regards to handling of the protests, but otherwise he was fair I think). Also he doesn’t spare Canadian politicians in the book and that was refreshing to see as well.
Not a bad book. It was a pretty quick read. Several maps, color photos, no index but there are extensive endnotes.
His bike ride is definitely an impressive trip, taking three weeks to complete and according to my notes taken from reading the book, 1,093 miles actually on his bicycle (alone the vast majority of the time). Along the way he dealt with the bugs of the boreal forest, mechanical problems with his bike, having to get to a preplanned place to spend the night each night as he didn’t carry any camping equipment with him, the possibility of bears, the possibility of wolves, sharing the road with enormous big rigs and oil processing vehicles, headwinds, thunderstorms (specifically the lightning), and sometimes crime-ridden oil boom towns in North Dakota. Fortunately, everywhere he went there were kind strangers, some he knew before hand, others he met at stops or who stopped along the road to help him. With the accompanying color photos, the reader gets a good sense of the bleak industrial landscapes around the oil sands, quirky stops along the road (like the Purple Palace, the Kenaston snowman in Kenaston, Saskatchewan, and the Old School in Fortuna, North Dakota, a school converted into a bar and hotel), the boom town that is Williston, North Dakota (“Off in the distance oil well flares flickered languidly on the horizon, a touch of Mordor out on the prairie”), and the beauty of Theodore Roosevelt National Park (which though beautiful, is, as he quotes a Park Service video, “an island in a sea of development” with a new refinery planned 3 miles from the park entrance).
Author David Goodrich is definitely not a fan of the oil produced in either the oil sands or the Bakken oil fields. He noted early on the oil from the oil sands is “the dirtiest oil in the world” in “terms of carbon dioxide released per barrel of crude,” with for each barrel of oil sands crude “about two tons of sand must be dug up, moved, and processed with about three barrels of water.” I hadn’t known the specifics of how dirty oil production was in either area but they didn’t surprise me. I knew about the induced earthquakes caused by fracking (something the author went into, spending time mainly on the incidence of them in Oklahoma). I hadn’t known about brine spills; the “process of fracking leads to a backflow of brine, remnants of the ancient sea that laid down the oil deposits,” with the “brines also containing drilling fluids, toxic chemicals, sand, sediment, and hydrocarbons,” with spills “actually worse than oil spills, because it can take years for the salt to leach out of contaminated groundwater,” essentially creating deserts. Sadly, he noted that North Dakota “has had at least 868 brine spills since 2008” (the book was published in 2020 and I would note as an aside, is the first book I ever read that talks about the Coronavirus pandemic).
I liked the coverage of some of the geology of the region, such as the origins of both the oil sands and the Bakken oil fields, including how and in what matter oil was created and concentrated in both areas, and other past geological aspects of the region such as glacial Lake Agassiz.
There was some coverage of the in fighting in Washington and elsewhere about the language used in describing climate change (with much encouragement by Republican politicians to use terms like “may” or “possibly” or “uncertainty” to described settled science); it wasn’t always interesting, but it was necessary in a book like this. I was pleased to note he didn’t spend vast amounts of time railing against Donald Trump (I had wondered if that would be the case, though he was no fan) and he was pretty fair in covering both the good and the bad about Barack Obama with regards to energy policy, climate policy, and the Keystone pipeline (he could have perhaps been a bit harder I think with regards to handling of the protests, but otherwise he was fair I think). Also he doesn’t spare Canadian politicians in the book and that was refreshing to see as well.
Not a bad book. It was a pretty quick read. Several maps, color photos, no index but there are extensive endnotes.
October 1, 2023
A scientist biking through a landscape forever altered by climate change and writing about it. Goodrich would be a great travel writer if the topic would not be both concerning and infuriating.
I used to have a fascination with ghost towns, especially those that were abandoned during the gold rush. It felt the same reading this, that 200 years from now some traveler will visit the ghost towns of the oil rush and wonder at the greed and grit of humanity.
I used to have a fascination with ghost towns, especially those that were abandoned during the gold rush. It felt the same reading this, that 200 years from now some traveler will visit the ghost towns of the oil rush and wonder at the greed and grit of humanity.
June 19, 2024
I latched onto this book hoping to get a feel for the bicycle journey (subtitle) across Alberta, Saskatchewan and North Dakota, but came away disappointed. Nearly the same story could have been told without referencing his bike ride, though his encounters after a 60-mile ride with roughnecks and drilling workers at local diners and roadside motels were insightful.
Regardless, I did learn about the oil deposits of the ancient ocean stretching across Canada and the northern US plains - tar sands in Fort McMurray, Alberta, and shale oil in the Williston, North Dakota sector. As a climate scientist retired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and former Director of the UNN Global Climate Observing System, his perspective was broad and knowledgable.
Goodrich's writing was entertaining and informative, covering topics as diverse as drilling impact on birds, sulfur and chemical residue ponds excreted in the drilling process, and the overall impact of releasing all that carbon into the atmosphere.
Regardless, I did learn about the oil deposits of the ancient ocean stretching across Canada and the northern US plains - tar sands in Fort McMurray, Alberta, and shale oil in the Williston, North Dakota sector. As a climate scientist retired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and former Director of the UNN Global Climate Observing System, his perspective was broad and knowledgable.
Goodrich's writing was entertaining and informative, covering topics as diverse as drilling impact on birds, sulfur and chemical residue ponds excreted in the drilling process, and the overall impact of releasing all that carbon into the atmosphere.
December 24, 2020
3.5 stars.
Disappointing. Goodrich is a retired climate scientist who also likes going on marathon bike rides. So he combined the two by going on a bike trip through North America's oil sands territory: from northern Alberta to North Dakota, over a thousand miles. But it reads more like a travelogue than anything about the climate.
The organization is a bit off as well. There three chapters from after his bike trip when he visited places by car - but rather than space those chapters out, he puts them all back-to-back-to-back. Thus we spend a weirdly long consecutive time off the bike in a book about a bike trip.
Disappointing. Goodrich is a retired climate scientist who also likes going on marathon bike rides. So he combined the two by going on a bike trip through North America's oil sands territory: from northern Alberta to North Dakota, over a thousand miles. But it reads more like a travelogue than anything about the climate.
The organization is a bit off as well. There three chapters from after his bike trip when he visited places by car - but rather than space those chapters out, he puts them all back-to-back-to-back. Thus we spend a weirdly long consecutive time off the bike in a book about a bike trip.
April 29, 2021
The author’s bike trip kept me engaged while he delivered doses of views on climate change as both a scientist and a person with an understanding of out right denial from those who make a living in fossil fuels. Explanation of how these oil deposits exist, the process of extraction, to the costs of continuing to do so is indeed informative and sobering. As in how he needs to balance his bike on extremely dangerous roadways, he continues to share what he knows as a climate scientist while trying to present the information to a skeptical public without causing them to stop listening and slam the book shut.
January 27, 2022
I picked this book up as much for the bike ride as the discussion about oil and fossil fuels, and sadly, there wasn't much about the bike riding. I did learn a lot about an industry I don't know a lot about though. There's a lot of food for thought here, and though he is a staunch believer in climate change and the role of fossil fuels as a driving force of climate change, he is not all gloom and doom about it.
April 6, 2021
This wasn’t just an interesting expedition from the paced perspective of a bicyclist, it was an informed and captivating commentary on global warming and its effects on the observable environment. I also love how this book emphasizes the necessity of traveling with purpose.
August 11, 2020
So nicely written combining a good bike ride with the horrors of what humans do to our planet. Two books this week the really, really frightened me.
September 11, 2020
More about climate change than a bike trip. An important book.
October 5, 2020
This year, I’ve read a couple books about long distance bike rides across non-scenic landscapes.
This was pretty boring and was light on any unknown facts. Pretty boring.
This was pretty boring and was light on any unknown facts. Pretty boring.
March 13, 2021
Impressive and depressing.
November 28, 2022
On and on the calamity of our changing world and not enough long distance cycling and camping to break up the discouragement. Would not recommend
August 13, 2020
A fascinating journey through oil country by a climate scientist. Author David Goodrich takes readers along on his solo bike trip, talking to locals and exploring the history of each area he visits. He brings a sense of humor to his travels and provides a unique perspective on the rapidly-changing fossil fuel industry in both the U.S. and Canada. Highly recommended.
September 6, 2020
Enjoyable travel style read with a weave of climate science and on-the-ground analysis from a well respected climate scientist. Worth a read.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews