The Geological Survey of Canada Explores the Oil Sands

In 1870, the Dominion government took control of Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory from the Hudson’s Bay Company. A comprehensive survey of these new lands and their accompanying resources seemed in order. Who better to conduct such an examination than the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC)? The GSC had been conceived in 1841 for the purpose of assessing the natural resources that could contribute to Canada’s industrial development. Once active, the GSC spent the remainder of the century expanding its mission, collecting samples, making maps, sponsoring a museum, publishing reports, and conducting rigorous examinations—not simply of the mineral wealth but also of the topography and geological formations, the flora, the fauna and even the inhabitants of Canada.

Inevitably, the GSC turned its attention to the Athabasca river region in the newly absorbed western interior. The first GSC scientist to scrutinize the area was John Macoun (1831-1920), who participated in five strenuous expeditions west in the 1870s. Macoun ascended the Athabasca River north to south, tracing oil sands outcroppings along the way. Reflecting the organizing motive of the GSC, Macoun’s exploration of the unusual geology of northern Alberta differed from those who viewed the oil sands as either a novel natural feature or for its usefulness to the fur trade; Macoun and

his successors explored the oil sands as a potential resource for future economic development.

Macoun was followed into the region by another GSC scientist, Robert Bell (1841-1917), who went to study the Athabasca Basin in 1882 and 1884. Bell did not simply describe the “asphaltic sands” and “sandy pitch,” he also theorized on its origin and mused on its commercial value. As well, he introduced the theory that was to frustrate explorers and would-be developers for years to come. Bell proposed that the tarry substance saturating the sands had actually seeped out of large pools of oil trapped within the Devonian limestone that lay beneath the Athabasca area:

The attitude and conditions of the strata are favorable for the accumulation of the oil amongst the limestone themselves, and it is therefore to be expected that productive wells will be found by boring into these rocks along the part of the Athabasca where they may be reached.

This now-discounted theory was supported at the time by his observations of multiple gas wells beneath the river, since gas tends to lie atop oil pools. Bell endorsed the commercial possibilities of the area, although he noted that transportation from such a remote area could be a limiting factor.

Bell’s assertion that the sticky stuff was petroleum in nature, and thus worth pursuing, was proven by yet another GSC scientist, chemist G. Christian Hoffman (1837-1917), who tested samples Bell provided. In his lab, Hoffman even pioneered the effort to separate the bitumen from the sands using hot water in an early version of later experiments. With his opinion reinforced through Hoffman’s experiments, Bell heartily encouraged commercial application of the deposits.

Still another GSC scientist, Richard George McConnell (1857-1942), was dispatched to the Athabasca region and in 1888 estimated to a Senate Select Committee that the bitumen reserves exceeded four million tons. He encouraged drilling into the sands, if only to confirm their character and boundaries. In his 1893 Report on a Portion of the District of Athabasca, McConnell wrote,

The commercial value of the tar sands themselves, as exposed at the surface, is at present uncertain, but the abundance of the material, and the high percentage of bitumen which it contains, makes it probable that it may, in the future, be profitably utilized for various purposes, when this region is reached by railways. Among the uses to which it is adapted, may be mentioned roofing, paving, insulating electric wires…

He offered additional motivation by adding that the oil fields of Pennsylvania and Baku “... already show signs of

exhaustion, and as they decline the oil field of northern Canada will have a corresponding rise in value.”

It was the persuasive influence of McConnell and of George Mercer Dawson (1849-1901) that convinced the Dominion government to drill in Athabasca. Dawson supported the prevailing theory that “extensive deposits” of crude oil in “practically inexhaustible quantities” lay in wait beneath the oil sands layer. In 1888, a Senate Select Committee evaluating the economic potential of the Athabasca region heard their reports and arrived at an opinion:

The evidence…points to the existence in the Athabasca and Mackenzie Valleys of the most extensive petroleum field in America, if not in the World. The uses of petroleum and consequently the demand for it by all Nations are increasing at such a rapid ratio, that it is probable that this great petroleum field will assume an enormous value in the near future and will rank among the chief assets comprised in the Crown Domain of the Dominion.

At this point, the federal government was guided by the belief conveyed by GSC scientists that, while the oil sands themselves may eventually prove useful, the real value of the region would be derived only with the discovery of the elusive basement pool of oil. It was this theory that would continue to lure both government explorers and independent speculators.