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In good times, there is a lot of tut-tutting about the oil sands – dirty oil and so on...
When oil prices decline, however, Canada’s economy suffers and there is
widespread concern. Yet even in bad times – this year, for example – capital
spending in the oil sands sector will total about $20 billion. Not bad for a
crippled industry and one which, this month, celebrates its 300th anniversary.
The first historical reference
to this uniquely Canadian resource came on June 27th, 1715. A factor with the
Hudson’s Bay Company fur trading operations, James Knight wrote that he had
learned about
A minor player in Canada’s history, Knight became wealthy through the
fur trade. He and his crew disappeared from history in 1720, seeking the
Northwest Passage to Asia.
Minor this story may
be, but it illustrates that, from the beginning, the oil sands have been a
joint venture representing government, industry and science. In Knight’s time,
the British wanted to extend their continental dominance, fur traders sought
new trapping and trading opportunities, and the Hudson’s Bay Company wanted to
better understand its resources. The particulars have changed. The joint
venture has not.
Alberta’s oil sands today are a global powerhouse, but the “bitumen” – essentially
weathered oil, sometimes heavier than water– made Canada a petroleum pioneer on
two other occasions.
Nova Scotia: In the 1840s Nova Scotia’s Abraham Gesner (image of commemorative postage stamp, above) developed a refining process
which transmuted bitumen and oil into kerosene. In the 1850s he focused on
producing what he termed “kerosene” as a liquid lamp fuel, and that product was
the world’s principal source of light until well after Edison developed his
electric light bulb. His work lit homes and factories throughout the world.
By Gesner’s
reckoning, in the two decades from about 1846 he conducted about 2,000
experiments, all of them aimed at converting coal or bitumen-like substances
into a lighting fuel.
The first geologist
appointed by a British colony, he made geological surveys of both New Brunswick
and Prince Edward Island. His inventions included one of the first electric
motors driven by a voltaic battery, briquettes made from compressed coal dust,
a machine for insulating electric wires, a wood preservative, and a process for
using asphalt to pave highways.
Gesner also founded
the first science museum in Canada – a collection of 2,000 preserved animals
and other artifacts. Today, that collection is a cornerstone of New Brunswick’s
provincial museum.
And Ontario: Charles
Nelson Tripp gets credit for being the first to recover petroleum for
commercial use in central Canada. Tripp’s journey began in 1851, when he
started dabbling in the mysterious "gum beds" of Enniskillen Township
on the north shore of Lake Erie, and three years later, the Province of Canada incorporated
its first oil company.
Parliament chartered the
International Mining and Manufacturing Company in 1854, with Tripp as
president. The charter empowered the company to explore for asphalt beds and
oil and salt springs, and to manufacture oils, naphtha paints, burning fluids,
varnishes and related products.
Tripp soon sold his interests to James Miller
Williams, who brought in light oil at Oil Springs, Ontario, in 1858. The
usually untold part of that story is that Williams had been drawn to that
location through his investigation of the surface seeps of bitumen that had
attracted Tripp.
Williams
got a crew to start digging, and soon found that light oil was the source of the
gum beds. One outcome of his early efforts is that nearby Sarnia became a refining
and petrochemical centre.
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