During the Bakken oil boom beginning in 2008, people from all over the United States would once again flock to North Dakota, lured by economic possibilities. In this boom, however, images of monotonous doom have had no place. In the curious historical frame of post-terror insecurities and anger, of rising, if reluctant, acknowledgment that climate change has real consequences, of post-Iraq realizations that it might not be possible to truly control oil abroad, and of living through an economic depression that wiped away jobs (yet left wealth intact), messages about the Bakken have been very clear. The oil boom, while a temporary inconvenience, has helped North Dakota stay out of economic trouble, has brought a population increase, has revitalized the state, and has put the state on the map.