Lisa Westberg Peters is a children’s book author who began investigating the Bakken boom after oilfield royalty checks began pouring into her mother’s mailbox. Peters’ grandfather, Oscar Westberg, purchased several parcels of farmland near Tioga, North Dakota, nearly a century ago. Today, that investment is paying big dividends.

But Peters wondered: Did Oscar buy that land as a short-term business bet or a long-term oilfield gamble?

In a conversation with Black Gold Boom’s Todd Melby, Peters discusses her book, “Fractured Land: The Price of Inheriting Oil,” and how her family’s history and North Dakota’s decades-long search for oilfield riches intersect.

Minnesota Historical Society Press, publisher of “Fractured Land”

Photo by Ben Garvin

Made possible by a grant from the North Dakota Humanities Council