Robert Newman's History Of Oil (war, Europeans, years, America)

[Dude111]

http://video.google.com/googleplayer...68309327954402 -- 45 mins


A humorous look at war and oil...Robert Newman gets to grips with the wars and politics of the last hundred years - but rather than adhering to the history we were fed at school,he places oil centre stage as the cause of all commotion.

[texdav]

If it was oil it would be some other resource like before oil was king really.

[John Walmsley]

If someone asked what was the first oil well drilled in North America most of us would answer "Colonel" Drake's oil well in Pennsylvania. It would be close, but no cigar. Drake was beaten by a year or two by drillers searching for water in 1858 in Ontario, Canada. Oil seeps were known and used by the Indians for hundreds of years before Europeans arrived, but the first commercial oil well in North America was drilled in what became known as Oil Springs, Ontario.

This past summer we had the pleasure of visiting Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, which is also the first oil well in Western Canada National Historic Site of Canada. In 1897, William Aldrich became the first person to collect and commercially sell oil from the Waterton seepages to local residents for a lubricant and medicine. Aldrich partly supported his large family in this manner for seven years. Knowledge of the oil seeps set off an oil boom and a scramble to stake claims.

The Rocky Mountain Oil company became the first to strike and produce salable amounts of oil in Alberta.Today it's easy to drive the Red Rock Parkway to the site of the first crude oil derrick in that area. Grizzly and black bears are common, but it's the difficult terrain and extreme weather conditions that give one an appreciation for what those crews must have endured, including the teamsters who faced dangers in getting equipment and supplies to the drill site. For instance, a cable rig could way as much as 55,000 pounds! The wagon journey from Ft McLeod took nine days! It's a two-hour trip today. Toward the end of the rough wagon trail, loads could easily tip over and the terrain was so steep much of the equipment had to be lifted in by blocks and tackle to its final destination. A world first in oil drilling technique began at the Cameraon Falls drill site where core samples were taken at various depths. *

* Some of the information given here was paraphrased from a pamphlet titled Tales of Mountain Oil given by courtesy of Waterton Lakes National Park.