Ocean Ranger

Remaking the Promise of Oil

Susan Dodd

On February 15, 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank off the coast of Newfoundland taking the entire crew of eighty-four men — including the author’s brother — down with it. It was the worst sea disaster in Canada since the Second World War, but the memory of this event gradually faded into a sad story about a bad storm — relegated to the “Extreme Weather” section of the CBC archives. Susan Dodd resurrects this disaster from the realm of “history” and maps the socio-political processes of its aftermath, when power, money and collective hopes for the future revised the story of corporate indifference and betrayal of public trust into a “lesson learned” by an heroic industry advancing technology in the face of a brutal environment. This book is a navigational resource for other disaster aftermaths, including that of the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, and a call for vigilant government regulation of industry in all its forms.

Contents

Preface: Feb 14–15, 1982
• Introduction: The Promise of Oil ... Broken
• “The” Ocean Ranger Story: The Royal Commission of Inquiry
• The Families’ Financial Settlements
• Blood Money: Right, Responsibility and Stigma
• Commemorations: Giving Shape to Loss
• Remaking the Promise of Oil: A Map of the Aftermath of the Ocean Ranger Disaster
• Remaking the Promise of Liberal Capitalism: Legitimation Crisis and Working Through
• Select Bibliography
• Index

About the Author

Susan Dodd is an assistant professor in the Foundation Year Programme at the University of King’s College.