Sydney Ells
Sydney
Ells received a Bachelor of Arts
degree in 1902 from McGill University. He continued his studies at
McGill, receiving his Bachelor of Sciences in 1908. In 1913, after studying oil
occurrences in the West Indies, he joined the Mines Branch in Ottawa.
Sydney Ells, an
engineer with the federal Department of Mines, demonstrated the first commercial
uses of the oil sands. In 1915, with great effort, he shipped several tons of bitumen by water, sleigh, and rail to Edmonton for a road paving
experiment.
Two additional
shipments were sent to Ottawa for similar trials on Wellington Street and on
Parliament Hill. Other notable oil sands paving projects of the day included the
access road to the Jasper Park Lodge in Jasper National Park, Alberta, and 22
blocks of sidewalk in Camrose, Alberta. His experiments saw oil sands used in road paving as far away as Ottawa.
Ells was also
the first to suggest the use of hot water to separate bitumen for the sand. To
lower transportation costs, Ells realized that some processing would have to be
done at the point of origin.
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Early Oilsands Exploration
Sydney Ells suggests three ways of separating the oil from the sand...
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