Then and now, province’s wealth fuelled by oil jobs
With work came money that transformed lives, writes Fred Duckett
I can remember Alberta before oil. Alberta was a poor province.
I was born in 1939, and raised in Tomahawk, a hamlet about 100 kilometres west of Edmonton and about 35 km northeast of Drayton Valley.
I can remember Alberta before oil. Alberta was a poor province. The men (my father, uncles and others) used to go long distances looking for work and there was not that much.
I listened to them tell of how they rode the rails, where they travelled to. In about a 16-km radius from where we lived there were maybe 15 or 20 farmers, three or four that owned tractors, and about the same number had a car or truck. Most of the farming was done with horses.
In those days Drayton Valley consisted of two buildings: one was a store post office, and the second building was a hall 150 metres to the west and a ball diamond. The road to Drayton Valley was just a trail through the bush.
I remember the day in school when the principal came in the room and said, “They have struck oil . ... A field big enough to make us equal to Texas.” I was in Grade 9 or 10. When oil came, there was work. All you needed to get a job was an axe. There was an oilfield to drill out, a town to build, roads and right-of-ways and well sites to be cleared. In Drayton Valley at one time there were five drilling companies — some having four or five rigs, with each rig employing about 16 people.
Anything that was available and livable was taken there for the workers to live in.
It took about 10 to 15 years to drill out the field, get all the wells connected by pipelines to points they called batteries, and the batteries connected to the pipeline. With the work came money, and with money tractors, cars and other things began to appear.
After the Pembina field was drilled out, the rigs and the workers moved. They did not leave the province; they just moved to other areas and so did the work. The Pembina field was serviced by just a few people. There is a saying in the oilfield when the rigs are working, men are working.
By 1965 people were talking about Drayton Valley becoming a ghost town. Producing oil in what they call the conventional way creates a lot of work in the beginning. As soon as the field is brought into production the work is then reduced to a few maintenance people.
The oilsands are quite different, every barrel is quite labour-intensive from the first one to the last.
And that is the way it will be, producing wealth through oil and through work.
It is my opinion, Alberta got as much wealth from the work that was created as from the oil we sold. The money from the work created wealth in the communities where the people lived, buying things they needed. I think this is something to think about.