By MARTHA IRVINE
AP National Writer
WILLISTON, N.D. – You can almost smell the opportunity along Highway 2. It oozes deep from the sloping North Dakota prairie where oil derricks and natural gas wells sprout among the drying rolls of hay.
People come here hopeful, drawn by the promise of jobs. But they probably also utter a few prayers, or expletives, when they realize just how far from home this place really is.
Or when they see the makeshift villages of narrow metal-sided buildings rising from the plains – temporary housing to accommodate what many are calling the largest oil boom in recent North American history.