Chronologically, therefore, the first move was the 

 accumulation of geological data, and while, as I have 

 intimated, this research, as it progressed, produced no 

 very definite encouragement, there existed a situation 

 which caused the directors of Imperial Oil to accept what 

 might be termed longer chances in taking action upon the 

 geological information furnished them than would have 

 been their policy if their attitude had been governed 

 entirely and absolutely by commercial considerations. 

 The war had demonstrated the vital importance to a 

 nation of petroleum resources. Although, through the 

 fine spirit, and enthusiastic support of the cause of the 

 allies, which was manifested by the great American oil 

 companies, this country received during the war period an 

 unstinted supply of petroleum, while in the countries of its 

 origin petroleum was being rationed, the fact remained 

 that Canada produced but 2 per cent of her annual 

 consumption of petroleum. It almost seemed that the great 

 oil fields of North America stopped just south of the 

 International boundary. 



The Imperial Oil Co. 



As the largest of the Canadian oil companies, moral 

 responsibility lay upon Imperial Oil, Limited, to conduct 

 a careful search for the natural resource of which the 

 country stood so greatly in need, and therefore our directors 

 upon the reports of their geologists considered the risk of 

 the expenditure of many million dollars in the search for 

 oil as much from the national as from a profit-making 

 corporation standpoint. Although petroleum could be 

 profitably imported from the United States, Mexico, or 

 South America, it was apparent that the potential oil 

 supply of the North American continent was diminishing 

 at a rapid rate, and that therefore the search in the land of 

 the 'Midnight Sun' was not a wild chimera or an im- 

 praticable dream, but the natural evolution of i.n 

 imperative necessity. 



If the wheels of industry were to revolve, there must 

 be more oil, and to find oil the explorer must go to where 

 the oil was even though that locality be assumed to be 

 beneath the Arctic lights. 



In brief, this is the explanation and the justification 

 for the string of drilling rigs scattered across a territory 

 two thousand miles from the Canadian boundary to the 

 frozen ocean, and from the foothills of the Rockies to the 

 crystalline rocks that border the eastern zone of the 

 Cretaceous laid down in the pre-historic bed of Agassiz 

 Lake. 



Drilling in Several Fields 



As an outcome of the geological reconnaissance, several 

 potential fields were fixed upon and drilling commenced. 

 In the farthest north, one possibility was located near Fort 

 Norman, at a point where oil seeps had been noted by Sir 

 Alexander Mackenzie, the first white man to visit the 

 country, nearly a century and a half since. A rig was 

 shipped to this point over a rail and water route of nearly 

 fifteen hundred miles beyond Edmonton, and a drilling 

 party was sent in to spend the winter in the highest 

 latitude in which oil exploration has ever been undertaken. 

 This party arrived on the ground, after many difficulties 

 and mishaps, in time to get the derrick erected and the 

 plant installed late in the autumn of 1919, and stayed in 

 the north all through the winter, ready to make an early 

 start in the spring. 



Between the farthest north and the so-called civiliza- 

 tion at Peace River Crossing, another drill was installed at 

 Windy point on Great Slave lake. This vast water body 

 is fringed on the west with a dolomite country, which is 

 prodigal in promise of oil, but owing to natural conditions, 

 is very difficult for the explorer, and more difficult for the 

 transportation of plant except along the very shores of 

 the lake. A selection was made, however, at a point 

 which was chosen as much on account of its accessibility as 

 of its promise, and here the rig was placed on the ground in 

 the summer of 1919, ready for the next year's operations. 



Route from Peace River Crossing 



From Peace River Crossing, the end of steel, the route 

 to these northern locations is by water for fifteen hundred 

 miles. Two different portages, one at yermillion chutes, 

 on the Peace, and the second at Fort Smith, on the Mac- 

 kenzie, constitute very serious handicaps to travel, and the 

 ice reduces the navigation season to about one hundred or 

 one hundred and ten days. The Peace river is a placid 

 stream, except for the break at the chutes, where a volume 

 of water a mile and a half wide and a hundred feet deep 

 falls over a fourteen-foot limestone ledge: giving promise 

 of almost immeasurable power to the future generation 

 which will develop its possibilities, but effectually barring 

 the possibility of continuous navigation for ths present. 

 The portage here is about four miles, and unbelievably 

 difficult. The Peace rises in the inter-mountain country 

 to the west of the Rockies, is the real headwaters of the 

 Mackenzie system, and is the greatest river on the conti- 

 nent to cut its way through the continental divide. 



The milder climate in the country around its head- 

 waters beyond the range guarantees an early break-up, 

 and this river is usually open about May 1st. For its 

 whole length below the mountains it traverses a rich alluvial 

 plain which will some day become one of the great granaries 

 of the world. In the lower stretches it is sluggish, and 

 where it converges with the Slave river it skirts the Buffalo 

 plains, a fertile northern park country of great agricultural 

 possibilities, where a herd of possibly a thousand buffalo, 

 constituting the last uncaptured remnant of the shaggy 

 millions, graze in peace under the jealous protection of 

 the Mounted Police. 



Down the Slave river, the course is rocky and shallow 

 in places, until at Fitzgerald comes the second break in 

 navigation, the Smith rapids. Here there is a sixteen- 

 mile haul, and the problem of getting a drilling outfit, 

 together with the casing, commissary scows, and camp 

 equipment, over the indifferent trail has been a problem 

 in transportation which has taxed all the resources of our 

 western organization. 



Down The Slave River 



To Slave lake the route down the Slave river presents 

 no great obstacles to the experienced river man, but at 

 the lake there is always a wait for the ice, which does not 

 go out of the river until the latter end of June. 



Slave lake is a magnificent body of water, nearly three 

 hundred miles in its greatest length and eighty miles across 

 at the point where it has to be traversed en route north. 

 It is clear and cold, and rich in resources of fish. Its 

 eastern stretches lie in the igneous rocks; they are charac- 

 terized by bluff and rugged shores, and thousands of little 

 islands that all look alike, and they hold some possibilities 

 of mineral wealth. The westerly arm of the lake is in the 

 Devonian; it is shallow, with low shores, and is subject to 

 summer squalls of unbelievable suddenness and violence. 



At the outlet, Slave lake is a fan dotted with islands. 

 The best draft at low water is four and one-half feet. 

 Some very comfortable steamers navigate the lower stretch 

 from Smith to the Arctic, and it is usually considered that 

 when Mackenzie river proper has been reached the real 

 difficulties of the voyage are over; although, as a matter of 

 fact, it is not safe for any but skilled river men to attempt 

 the trip. 



As for the possibilities of the field, the question is one 

 which can be answered only by the continued application 

 of the drill, and four drills will be operating in the north 

 for our company next summer. 



The results to date, (December 1921,) are entirely 

 inconclusive. No news as to progress of operations can 

 be expected by us until the spring or early summer of 

 1922, except the possibility of one mail which may come 

 out by dog team through the winter. We confidently 

 expect that these four wells will be drilled to the desired 

 depth in the coming season, and they should demonstrate 

 to a great extent the existence or non-existence of a com- 

 mercial oil field in that locality. The expenditure in this 

 district has been and will be very heavy. 



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