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Robert C. Fitzsimmons was born 1881 in
Prince Edward Island, moved to Spokane area. Always
argumentative, in 1921 he claimed his company had
been illegally taken away. On August 12, 1927,
Robert C. Fitzsimmons formed the International
Bitumen Company Ltd. (lBC). He continued to drill on
the lease looking for the ever-elusive pools of oil
that never appeared. Discouraged by the results of
conventional drilling, he turned to mining and
extraction techniques. In 1930, Fitzsimmons built a
smallhot-water separation plant on the site. It was
a simple design based on Dr. Karl Clark's
experimental plant located on the Clearwater River.
It was a labour-intensive, primitive, small-scale
operation. The seven-man crew at Bitumont is
reported to have produced about 300 barrels of
bitumen during the summer months of 1930.
I nvestment funds were a constant problem for
Fitzsimmons and the plant did not operate between
1932 and 1937. Between January and June 1938, Elmer
Adkins, an engineering graduate, worked to rebuild
the separation plant and the company started to
produce again. In 1941, Fitzsimmons was forced to
sell the company to Lloyd Champion, a Montreal
entrepreneur and financier who renamed it Oil Sands
Limited.
Champion retained Fitzsimmons in an advisory
capacity at the plant site until 1944. For two
years, Champion tried unsuccessfully to raise
private capital and gain government contracts as a
supplier of petroleum products. He submitted a
proposal to the Provincial government to join his
company in a business partnership. The Provincial
Minister of Lands and Mines hired Dr. Karl Clark to
evaluate Champion's proposal. Clark recommended a
joint public-private venture for the construction of
an experimental separation plant at Bitumont.
December 1944 Premier Manning announces a pilot
plant at Bitumont ($250,000) okayed by the
legislature to be known as Oil Sands Limited
(operated under two Cabinet Ministers and one
Company representative under the direction of an
"expert technical staff").
In November 1948, the new plant became the sole
property of the Provincial government. It in turn
sold the Bitumont plant complex to Stan Paulson,
entrepreneur (CanAmera Oil Sands Development Ltd.)
for $180,000. CanAmera installed new Coulson
separators based on spin-dry washers but the
extremely abrasive sands ate up the innards.
CanAmera sold the Bitumont plant to Royalite Oil
Company for $180,000 plus royalties (Lincoln McKay
were "consultants"). The interest in the property
was taken over by Gulf who had acquired Royalite.
In 1974, Bitumont was declared a Provincial
Historic Site, and is currently managed by Alberta
Community Development (Bill Almdal?). Access is
prohibited due to the many hazards on the site and
to ensure its long term preservation.
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