The origin of petroleum wouldn’t be discovered until 1778, when the first European fur trader, Peter Pond, personally witnessed and confirmed this as a petroleum seepage in the Athabasca country and noted the Aboriginals' use of the material to waterproof canoes.
Next came Alexander MacKenzie, about 10 years later, who provided another recorded description of the Athabasca tar sands. The deposits he saw were the first known commercial quantities of oil in Canada.
By the end of the 1700s several French and English fur trade companies arrived in the west by canoes, enduring back-breaking portages. The early 1800s saw fur trading posts on rivers in many locations in Alberta. Fur traders at Fort Edmonton in the early 1800s were known to have used coal, found in abundance along the banks of the North Saskatchewan River, for the blacksmith forges. This was one of the first mining activities in Alberta.
When Canada acquired the territories formerly owned by the Hudson's Bay Company in the late 1800s, government researchers began the scientific inventory of their physical resources. The government planned to develop and administer 2.5 million square miles of the western interior of the continent. This task was assigned to the scientists from the Geological Survey of Canada who began in 1875 a systematic inventory of the natural resources.
Scientists and explorers conducted studies of the waterways, the topology, the geology, the people, as well as the fauna and flora of the region and later the nation. The survey's subject areas included coal, natural gas, oil, and bitumen.
In addition to the surface finds of bitumen and coal, there were also a few areas in the province where oil and gas were found seeping from the ground and bubbling up in waterways.
Before white people came to western Canada, the Ktunaxa (Kootenai) and the Stoney, members of the First Nations tribes, discovered the presence and medicinal value of oil seepages along what is today called Oil Creek in present day Waterton Glacier International Peace Park.
The well-educated homesteader and guide, John "Kootenai" Brown, who had been living in the Crowsnest Pass area since 1862, asked Indigenous people to show him the oil seepages. He dipped gunny sacks into the seeps at Oil Creek and squeezed the oil into containers , thus becoming one of the first in Alberta to collect, bottle and commercially market oil. In 1874, he filed an affidavit to assert his rights of discovery. Brown sold his oil as a machine lubricant to farmers for $1 a gallon.
John Macoun's 1875 resource survey, for the Geographical Survey of Canada, was the first attempt to commercialize the oil sands.
In 1883 a CPR crew drilling for water was surprised to find natural gas. The rig caught fire and injured a number of the men. This was the first gas well in Alberta.
In 1888, one of Alberta's first cowboys, John Ware, was riding west of Okotoks when he stopped at a pond to water his horse. The animal refused to drink and he noticed a light film on the water emitting a sulphurous odour. When he tossed a lit match onto the surface, the resulting explosion frightened his horse into the brush. John Ware and Sam Howe are credited for discovering an oil seepage on the Stoos farm in Turner Valley.
Another well drilled near Medicine Hat in 1890, this time in search of coal, led to a large flow of natural gas. The discovery made town officials ask the CPR to drill deeper wells for gas, resulting in finding the Medicine Hat gas field in 1904.
In 1894, the Dominion Government began a drilling program to help define the region's resources. Using a rig brought from Toronto in 1893, contractor A. W. Fraser began drilling for oil along the Saskatchewan and Athabasca Rivers.
A second well drilled by the rig at Pelican Rapids struck gas at 250 meters in 1897 and then blew wild. It burned out of control for 21 years, wasting natural gas at an estimated 240,000 cubic meters per day until 1918. This discovery led Dr. George Dawson, of the Geological Survey of Canada, to make an accurate prediction: that the territory would some day produce large volumes of natural gas. The mysterious geology of the Western Sedimentary Basin, which covers most of Alberta, was yet to be researched and recognized as a guide to where to find the energy treasures.
A drilled well that gave Alberta its first oil strike was indicated by the surface shows of oil at Cameron Creek. The Rocky Mountain Development Company, incorporated by A.P. Patrick, J. Leeson and J. Lineman, found oil in 1902 at a depth of 312 meters. A flow of fine crude oil commenced with an estimated rate of 300 barrels/day. Rocky Mountain Development No.1 was western Canada's first producing oil well. That initial strike was enough to launch Alberta's first oil boom, inspiring other oil companies to come to this field which became known as Oil City. Because of limited production, this did not become Alberta's first commercial field as the formation was an anomaly. Drilling activity greatly declined by 1905.
"Millions of dollars worth of gas was just going up into the air... wasted."
The first major gas field discovery in Alberta was made by Eugene Coste at Bow Island, southwest of Medicine Hat. Drilling of old Glory No.1 began in 1908. A large natural gas field was found in 1909 which launched Western Canada's natural gas industry and a pipeline was constructed. It was Canada's first major pipeline, built with 16 inch pipe. It traveled southwest of Medicine Hat to small communities along the way, ending with Calgary in 1912, a distance of 274 kilometres. The pipeline was mainly hand dug with picks and shovels through rock, gravel and hard packed soil. Little in the way of mechanized equipment was used.
In the early days the rough and tumble working conditions contributed to serious injury and death. Roughnecks began with little experience, and received their training on the job, in the school of hard knocks. Safety training and operational procedures were limited. Twelve-hour shifts and seven day work weeks created exhaustion that contributed to dangerous errors. Wellhead pressure, poisonous fumes, moving equipment, and speed also led to deadly conditions.
The turning point in Canada's exploration effort came with the discovery in 1914 of the province's first major oil field. This milestone event in Turner Valley led to an oil and gas boom in which over 500 oil companies were formed in one day. Dingman No. 1 became the cornerstone of the province's young oil and gas industry.
During the 1920s, large corporations and small companies alike searched for petroleum, using a combination of intuition, good luck and surface geology. Geological clues had to be wrestled from the clutches of muddy roads, frigid temperatures, primitive equipment, poor training and lack of money, supplies and support. Despite such difficulties, hope and optimism were in good supply and investors continued to support oil exploration.
"By the end of the 1940s ninety percent of all crude oil refined in Canada had to be imported".
The modest wet gas find at Turner Valley in 1914, with fuel suitable to pour directly into the gas tanks of vehicles, was the precursor of the nearby deeper zone find of 10 years later.
The 1924 discovery of Royalite No. 4 launched the area south of Calgary soundly into the Canadian oil industry consciousness. The third oil strike was completed in June of 1936, with the Turner Valley Royalties wildcat well kicking off another boom, allowing Turner Valley to retain the status of the largest oil field in Canada.
Because of a lack of markets, many Turner Valley operators flared off millions of dollars worth of gas. This damaged the reservoir by reducing the pressure, resulting in diminished oil production from many wells. In 1938 the Petroleum and Natural Gas Conservation Board was created to try and ensure that Alberta's petroleum resources were well managed and used for public interests.
Throughout every decade of the twentieth century, the Athabasca Oil Sands continued to attract the attention of federal, provincial and independent explorers who were trying to find the answer to the sticky problem of how to profitably extract oil from the world's largest known petroleum deposit.
Even more money was spent on drilling some 1,000 exploratory wells for conventional oil in Alberta, which did not produce any large oil fields.
With the outbreak of WWII Canada needed as much petroleum as the industry could provide. Petroleum consumption, particularly of gasoline, had soared. Aviation fuel came from Turner Valley crude refined in Calgary. Vehicles building and traveling on the Alaska Highway needed fuel and they consumed thousands of barrels. Canada could not meet the growing domestic demand for petroleum products, and by the end of the 1940s ninety percent of all crude oil refined in Canada was imported. Turner Valley's declining reserves saw oil production spiral downward after 1942. Total production at the end of 1946 stood at seven million barrels while Canadian consumption was over 10 million.
Most petroleum workers had little formal training. Provincial certificates were required only for steam engineers. Most workers learned the necessary skills on the job. Fortunately, the end of WW II brought home men more skilled than many of the earlier workers.
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