Contrails of a Fevered Dream

Lissa Yellow Bird-Chase searches for the missing and murdered in North Dakota. An Arikara woman, she is a Three Affiliated tribal member of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. From 2006-2014, an oil boom rocked the small reservation, attracting thousands of transient workers...and crime.

KC Clarke, a trucker for oil company, went missing February 22, 2012. His boss, a hitman and a driver all took part in his death and lonely burial, deep on the badlands.

The homelands of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara turned into a prairie of flares, oil pads and money. Yellow Bird has been searching five years. KC Clarke is still missing.

Our contrails dissipate behind our bodies in clouds of heat and turbid memory. In the delirium of life we find no cure for this fevered dream and no relief from unqualified impromptu awareness, perception.

Gas flares in the Bakken shale. Parshall, Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, North Dakota. July 2017.

Crow Flies High beside Lake Sakakawea. Four Bears Village, Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, North Dakota. July 2017.

Father and Daughter, Three Affiliated Tribal members. Trenton, North Dakota. July 2017.

Searching for missing and murdered person in badlands. North Dakota. July 2017.

Filmmaker and volunteer searcher. North Dakota. July 2017.

Searchers begin to dig for missing and murdered person. North Dakota. July 2017.

Searchers aided by dog team begin to dig for missing and murdered person. North Dakota. July 2017.

Volunteer searcher. North Dakota. July 2017.

Horses. Trenton, North Dakota. July 2017.

Basketball Court. Parshall, Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, North Dakota. July 2017.

Lake Sakakawea. Four Bears Village, Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, North Dakota. July 2017.

Parshall Lake. Parshall, Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, North Dakota. July 2017.

Badlands, North Dakota. July 2017.

Basketball Court and Grain Storage. Parshall, Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, North Dakota. July 2017.

Roadside cross. Trenton, North Dakota. July 2017.

Midair. North Dakota. July 2017.

Valley beside Crow Flies High. Sahnish, Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, North Dakota. July 2017.

Kalen Goodluck

Contrails of a Fevered Dream