Calgary Author Tells Early Oil Sands Story

Calgary Author Joyce Hunt loves a good mystery and that’s exactly what the early years of Alberta’s oil sands history were until she started doing some serious digging. After seeing a newspaper advertisement from 1915 encouraging the public to invest in the real oil fields of the great north, her curiosity was piqued.

Hunt moved to Fort McMurray in 1973, when her husband took a job with the Great Canadian Oil Sands, and started researching the oil sands in 1978. Today, more than three decades of research has culminated into the newly released book called Local Push – Global Pull: The Untold Story of the Athabaska Oil Sands (1900 – 1930).

Determined to discover everything she could, Hunt attended the University of Alberta to take the Archives Institute and Records Management course. She combed through thousands of newspaper articles, reams of papers at Alberta Consumer Affairs and found people to help her read and decipher handwritten maps, some of which are reprinted throughout her 400-page book.

“One theme that struck me was the influence that Great Britain tried to place on early petroleum development in Alberta,” says Joyce Hunt.

While the time period Hunt focuses on is quite different from the significant growth of today’s oil sands projects, there are common threads. “The major issues 100 years ago were not that different from the major issues the big players face today,” Hunt says.

As still sometimes occurs, logistics were a huge impediment for early oil sands development. All equipment a century ago needed to be moved along the Athabasca river and a 90-mile portion of that involved difficult rapids. Hunt also discovered that as early as 1917, in situ methods of extraction were being considered. As she did her research, she noticed that the development of the oil sands has always been driven globally. “one theme that struck me was the influence that great Britain tried to place on early petroleum development in Alberta,” says Hunt.

Others also recognized the potential of the oil sands and in 1917, Royal Dutch Shell tried to gain sole concession of northern Alberta, without success. Hunt’s book ends at 1930, the year that natural resources were turned over to the province from the federal government. “It was the end of an era,” she says.

Eric Newell, former CEO of Syncrude, wrote the foreword for Local Push – Global Pull, stating, “The early years of oil sands development were marked by daunting challenges and today many challenges must continue to be met and overcome . . . Much comfort can be gained through the perspective provided by Joyce Hunt in her book. Without her relentless pursuit of the records and lessons from those early years, pre-1900 to 1930, there would be a large gap in the formative history of Alberta’s oil sands.”

For more on the book, visit www.localpushglobalpull.com.