Williston, N.D., is desolate, cold and 563 miles from Kalispell, but the oil boom there has supplied jobs of last resort for hundreds of Flathead Valley breadwinners such as Dave Smith.

Desperate for a decent job, Smith packed up some clothes and left his family behind for a chance to make money via his commercial truck driver's license.

"I didn't want to go," Smith said. "But people kept saying there was employment there. It's given me a job."

Dave, 61, and his wife Linda, 58, no longer have a child at home. But they face other challenges associated with living apart after 39 years of marriage.

Dave was on his final day in town before returning to work in Williston when he and Linda sat down for an interview. Like others in the Flathead Valley, Dave found the recent dire economy to be a whole new experience.

"I worked for Columbia Falls Aluminum Company for 30 years, on and off," he said. "Every time I'd get laid off, I'd drive a truck in the construction industry."

After getting laid off Dec. 12 three years ago, he spent the next 18 months looking for a full-time job while working part time for a fire investigator. It was a strain for Dave, who usually worked more than one job at a time.

"He beat the streets for a year and a half and that was never the case here," Linda said. "He always had a job within two weeks."

Their biggest headache was trying to maintain health insurance. At first, their Cobra coverage from the aluminum plant insurance was affordable, but the premium grew to hundreds of dollars a month.

"We had to cash in our 401(k)s," said Linda, who is disabled. "With my back injuries and my arthritis, I couldn't go without health insurance even though I have Medicare."

A year and nine months ago, help arrived via Dave Ruis, a former colleague at the aluminum plant who found a job as a laborer with Halliburton in North Dakota. Dave had stayed in contact with Ruis who encouraged him to come to Williston to apply for one of the plentiful jobs.

He quickly went to work hauling raw crude oil in a tanker with a pup, a job he really didn't enjoy. With truck drivers in demand, Dave decided to look for another position in the oil fields.

"I quit one job by 7 in the morning and by 9 o'clock, I had another job," he said. "I had to go take a physical and everything else. There's just an unbelievable amount of jobs over there."

He now works for Superior Well Services driving a pressurized pneumatic tank truck picking up fracking sand from trains and hauling it to a vehicle called a mountain mover that holds six loads for use in drilling in the oil shale of the Bakken Formation.

Dave works seven days a week, 14 hours a day with two weeks on and one week off. His waiting time keeps him under the 70-hour-a-week restriction for commercial truck drivers.

"I'm actually making less [per hour] than I make here but I get more hours," he said. "You get into overtime by the third day."

In an unusual benefit, the company pays him for 40 hours for the week he has off. Superior Well Services also covers his housing and food expense of $130 a day at the man camp, a huge advantage with the housing shortage in the area.

When he first got to North Dakota, he bought a fifth wheel for housing and had to pay expensive lot rent and buy high-priced food for meals. The man camp offers more amenities and very good food but the lifestyle is hardly what Dave would call enjoyable.

Just like a hotel, he has to check out on his week off and check back in when he returns for two weeks. At times, he shares the room with three other people.

"We live in trailer houses - skids, they call them - that remind me of Army barracks," he said. "You don't have any privacy which is one thing that is maddening. You miss your big easy chair at night and you have eight people fight over a TV set trying to decide what to watch."

Dave either takes the train or makes the 10-hour-plus drive back to Kalispell for his week off. Linda said she can't wait for her hugs and kisses after the two weeks apart.

His laundry comes next.

"I start the wash and he gets in his recliner," she said. "He's really tired."

Since her husband started commuting, Linda has had to redesign her life. For years, she had dinner on the table at 5 p.m.

"We always ate dinner together and watched TV- just normal activities," she said. "Holidays are really hard."

Dave had to miss Thanksgiving. He had the day off and a nice Thanksgiving dinner but he missed that family gathering as well as his grandson's birthday.

Turning a negative into a positive, Linda started the Journey to Wellness program at The Summit. The program has helped her lose weight and more.

"I've got a bad back and that's really helping," she said. "It helps with the loneliness."

She walks with a girlfriend each day.

"We usually walk to the hospital and eat at the cafeteria," she said. "I can bring leftovers home."

Dave and Linda call each other on the cell phone almost every night but Dave has to go outside or talk in his car to have any privacy. Linda has to worry about waking up Dave's roommates so she has to time her phone calls carefully.

Linda has friends and relatives in the valley to help her. She said the snow still needs shoveling and she has to solve any problems that develop with their basement rental unit.

"I have to ask for help," she said. "That's a hard thing to do."

Neither Dave nor Linda has any idea how much longer they might keep this up.

They need to keep the medical insurance and they still haven't made up their financial losses since the expenses of traveling and living with two households take a large bite out of their earnings.

"It's hard to get back once you've been unemployed for a year. It's hard to regain your footing. I had to buy a different vehicle for over there," Dave said. "The hardest part is just the long hours. It's definitely worth it. It's a job, it's steady and it's got insurance."

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.