It was no surprise when oil was discovered at Leduc in 1947. Or, at least, it shouldn't have been.
There were visible petroleum outcrops in the northeast corner of Alberta, in the vast Athabasca oil sands deposits. In the southwest, there were oil seeps in what is now Waterton National Park.
Those in the know could amaze their friends and cook their meals by putting a match to natural gas vents along the North Saskatchewan River, east of Edmonton, and in the streams emerging from the Rocky Mountains near Turner Valley southwest of Calgary.
In 1883, a Canadian Pacific Railway crew looking for water found natural gas near Medicine Hat. That deposit still heats Medicine Hat's homes and fuels its commerce and industry. Turner Valley enjoyed a brief boom in the 1920s from the drilling of many gas and gas condensate wells.
The real surprise was, or should have been, that it took so long to find oil in commercially recoverable quantities. The Great Depression of the 1930s and the Second World War in the early 1940s intervened to dry up investment and divert attention and resources. Bad luck and lack of geological knowledge may also have played a role. Imperial Oil drilled 133 dry holes before striking it rich with Leduc No. 1 on February 13, 1947.
Once the wildcatters of the day knew where to look and with the benefit of a booming economy after the war, new discoveries followed in dizzying succession for about 20 years. The places of discovery are now part of the romance of Alberta's history: Redwater, Golden Spike, Pembina, Kaybob, Swan Hills and Virginia Hills.
The focus of exploration shifted to natural gas as the last of the big oil deposits were discovered in the 1960s. Today, the major focus is on development of huge shallow heavy oil and oil sands deposits in east central and northeastern Alberta, with deeper deposits running west from Fort McMurray to Peace River waiting for future attention.
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