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Coal Mining
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 Alberta is renowned for its
vast deposits of oil. Coal mining, however, is the
foundation of Alberta's energy industry, dating back to
when Alberta
became a province. Coal mining was the original economic
base for several large Alberta communities, including Lethbridge, which,
earlier, was called Coalbanks, Medicine Hat, and Drumheller. The legacy
continues today: As of 2002, Alberta
was the largest producer of coal in Canada, producing 31 million tonnes (46
percent of all Canadian production), worth $387 million.
When Alberta became a province in 1905, coal-mining methods involved hand
loading and horse-driven carts. Early patents, such as the
wheel flange, patented in 1909, an improvement to the wheels-on-coal carts,
illustrate the technological state at the time. Some patents, however, clearly
had an eye on the future, such as the
car
propelling mechanism, patented by Henry Gibeau of Frank.
Non-petrochemical mining patents are surprisingly few and far between in the
opening decades of the century, given that coal was what kept prairie houses
warm and trains on the move. With the 1920s, however, came the mechanization of
the mining industry, and more Alberta mining inventions. Frederick Whitmarsh of
Edmonton, for example, invented a
magnetic ore separator in 1922, and Jay Smith of Vulcan invented a
coal-cutting machine in 1931.
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