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Pembina: The Hidden Elephant

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Arne was raised on the farm, attended the small school at Standard, and in 1943 had found himself the only boy in the entire grade 12 class. Most of his friends had enlisted in the armed forces to serve in the Second World War. Like many Alberta farm boys, Arne was a crack rit1e shot, and he too itched to join up for the great adventure. It was only at his father's insis­tence that he had completed high school before enlisting in the army at 17, still a year younger than the legal age limit.

He served as a rifle and mapping instructor with an armed corps in Ontario, eagerly awaiting the opportunity to ship overseas and see some of the action, and some of the world. He was on his way to Halifax and embarkation overseas when the war in Europe ended. He volunteered for service in the Pacific, but again, Japan had surrendered, the war was over, and 19-year-old Private Arne Nielsen returned to civilian life, a frustrated home-front veteran.

Two-and-a-half years in the army brought an abrupt change in the direc­tion of Nielsen's life. With the financial help of veterans' credits, he could consider the possibility of university.

On the farm at Standard, Arne and his father had gathered a small but intriguing collection of fossils and sea shells, turned up from the rich prairie soil by the plow. Sea shells on a land-locked prairie-moved thou­sands of miles from what arc now the Arctic Islands and deposited more than 30,000 years ago by North America's last retreating ice age-had long intrigued the farm boy. This, and his mapping experience with the army, led him to decide on a study of geology.

Petroleum exploration was almost dormant in Western Canada when Nielsen began studying geology at the University of Alberta early in 1946, and the mining industry seemed to offer a more likely career. Leduc changed that, as it set off a surge of exploration which quickly confirmed the vast petroleum potential of Western Canada. Even at university, Nielsen caught the sense of drama and excitement of this petroleum search, which was radically altering the post-war economy of the prairie provinces. During the summer months he worked as a student geologist with field parties, first with the Geological Survey of Canada and later with oil companies, working in the Alberta foothills and the virgin wilderness areas of the Yukon and Northwest Territories.

In 1950, his diploma as master of science in geology still uncrinkled, Nielsen joined the Canadian division of the Socony-Vacuum organization, working in the quiet and serious manner that has characterized his career. Less than three years later, in January 1953, he was named to head Socony's new four-man district exploration office in Edmonton (the Canadian divisional office remained in Calgary).

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