Early
ExplorationOil is Found in the Minds of Men
Leduc was not
Alberta's first oil discovery. In 1778, Peter Pond, an explorer and fur trader,
travelled to the Athabasca Riverthe first white man to do so. He observed the bitumen flowing on the ground and knew of its usefulness for calking and mending
canoes; the Cree Indians in the area showed him. Perhaps this is the first
account of a hydrocarbon as a useful resource. This surely was not the last
account, however. Large gas reserves had been discovered starting with Medicine
Hat in the 1880s and then Bow Island.
Before there
were geophysicists and modern seismic
technology, drilling for oil was a much
different operation, involving hunches, happy accidents as well as skill. It was
Thomas Sterry Hunt in 1861 who developed the theory of the natural conditions
needed for oil to be present. Drilling sites were chosen sometimes with the help
of a geologist, sometimes by witching, using a
divining rod, and sometimes just on
a hunch. The essential tool in oil exploration was the drilling rig. It was in
part because of this that whenever possible, the early sites were picked near a
natural occurrence of petroleum. In the case of the Norman Wells, in 1920, the
geologist, Ted Link, directed the crew to the site. The crew made use of a cable-tool rig.
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