Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig's War Against Big Oil - Rilegato

Nikiforuk, Andrew

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 1551990539 ISBN 13: 9781551990538

Casa editrice: Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 2001

Riassunto

Winner of the 2002 Arthur Ellis Award for Best True Crime
Winner of the W.O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize
Finalist for the 2002 Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction
Finalist for the Wilfred Eggleston Award for Nonfiction

At Trickle Creek in northern Alberta, Wiebo Ludwig thought he’d buffered his tiny religious community from civilization, but in 1990 civilization came calling. A Calgary oil company proposed to drill directly in view of the farm’s communal dining room.

Ludwig hadn’t realized his land ownership didn’t include mineral rights. He wrote letters, petitioned, forced public hearings, and discovered the provincial regulator cared little about landowners.

After the oil company accidentally vented raw sour gas, Ludwig’s wife miscarried. Nearby parcels of land were clear-cut. Ludwig’s northern boundary became a highway for semi-trailers loaded with drilling equipment. Seismic crews raced up and down his road. More sour gas wells popped up. People defending their property rights gradually turned into monkeywrenching terrorists.

Hostilities began with nails on the roads, sabotaged well sites, and road blockades. They culminated in death threats, shootings, and bombings. The Mounties recruited a Ludwig acolyte as an informant, and in an attempt to establish the man’s credibility the RCMP itself blew up an equipment shack at a well site.

Ludwig was eventually charged with 19 different counts of mischief, vandalism and possession of explosives and later convicted on five charges.
While he was out on bail, joyriding teenagers went to Trickle Creek at four o'clock one morning. Someone fired at one of the pickups, killing 16-year-old Karman Willis. Despite a lengthy investigation, the RCMP has not laid charges.

This is a taut, careful work of nonfiction that reads like a thriller and raises unsettling questions about individual rights, corporate power, police methods, and government accountability. The reader comes to question whether Wiebo Ludwig can be dismissed as a zealot. And to ask: What would I have done in his shoes?

Su questo libro

Recensione:

"The most important non-fiction book released in Canada this year."
–Calgary Herald

"Saboteurs presents a grisly catalogue of the effects of hydrogen sulphide and flaring...Nikiforuk privides an eloquent and persuasive voice for all downwinders."
–Globe and Mail

"Andrew Nikiforuk does a masterful job of taking the reader, step-by-crucial step, through an extremely complex story. He builds a real mystery thriller out of a slice of someone's life – a difficult, acrimonious someone, but someone nevertheless."
–Wayne Skene, Edmonton Journal

L'autore:

Andrew Nikiforuk's work as a journalist – for such magazines as Saturday Night, Maclean's, Canadian Business, Report on Business Magazine, Georgia Straight, and Equinox – has earned him four National Magazine Awards, the Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy, and top honors from the Association of Canadian Journalists. His best-selling book School's Out: The Catastrophe in Public Education and What Parents Can Do About It was shortlisted for the Gordon Montador Award for writing on issues of key social interest. He lives with his wife and three sons in Calgary.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Macfarlane Walter & Ross
• Data di pubblicazione: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1551990539
• ISBN 13: 9781551990538
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 296