The End of Country is the compelling story about the epic battle for control of one of the richest natural gas deposits the world has ever known: the Marcellus Shale, worth more than one trillion dollars. In a remote northeastern corner of Pennsylvania, an intense conflict begins, pitting the forces of corporate America against a community of stoic, low-income homesteaders, determined to acquire their fair share of the windfall?but not at the cost of their values or their way of life. Though the natural gas is extracted through a controversial process known as hydrofracking, many couldn?t resist the offer to lease their land in exchange for the promise of untold riches.

For years, this part of the world was invisible to all but the farmers, urban transplants, and small landholders who called it home. But journalist Seamus McGraw, a native of the region whose own mother was one of the first to receive a leasing offer, opens a window on a stiff-necked group of Pennsylvanians as they try, with little guidance or protection from the state or anyone else, to balance the promise and the peril of this discovery. Along the way, McGraw introduces us to a host of colorful characters, from a gas company land agent with a Green Beret to a wizened quarryman with an old coonhound, a .22 rifle, and an unerring sense of right and wrong who leads a personal crusade to police the gas company's operations.

The cutthroat dash by petrodollar billionaires to secure drilling leases will make some poor residents rich, and put the entire community at risk of having its land tainted by toxic chemicals and its water supply contaminated by gas. Above all, it will test the character of everyone in the community as they fight against ?the end of country.?

Rich with a sense of place and populated by unforgettable personalities, The End of Country is a tale of greed, hubris, and envy, but also of hope and family?and the land that binds them all together.

Photographs from The End of Country
Click on the photos below to enlarge.

Narrow country roads more suited to tractors and rusting pickup trucks are quickly buckling under the weight of thousands of tons of heavy drilling equipment and the trucks needed to ferry it all.	A Cabot drill pad in Springville Township, Susquehanna County.	The heavy trucks and other equipment necessary for the drilling industry are tearing up the roads of northeastern Pennsylvania.

Barns and gas drilling rigs have become familiar pairs throughout the Marcellus Shale region.	A drilling rig in Meshoppen, Wyoming County. Once the rig is in place, the work of extracting the gas goes on around the clock.	Farm property along a winding country road near West Nicholson in Northeast Pennsylvania.

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