Oil City is an epithet in the province of Alberta, Canada, derived from the province's first major oil well and subsequently used to refer to Northern Albertan cities such as Edmonton and Fort McMurray. [1] [2] [3] The epithet has been employed in the branding of businesses throughout the province, and as of 2021, yellow pages in Alberta show that at least twenty businesses continue to use the epithet in their business names. [4]
In 1892, the site of western Canada's first producing oil well in Waterton Lakes National Park was named Oil City. [5] Oil was struck just over 300 meters below the surface. Although the site was named in 1892, it was not until 1901 that extensive extraction took place under the leadership of Allan P. Patrick and John Leeson with the Rocky Mountain Development Company. By 1906 the oil well had stopped producing. [6]
In 2010, Ernest George Mardon wrote that "Oil City in Waterton National Park was a thriving community in 1902, but has totally disappeared." [7]
In 1968, Waterton's Oil City was designated as a National Historic Site of Canada. [8] The restoration of the site included the construction of a replica oil rig monument in memory of Oil City's historic advancement of Alberta's oil industry.
Edmonton's slogan "The Oil Capital of Canada" was instituted in 1947 and is the city's only slogan to be officially adopted by Edmonton City Council. [9] [10] As of 2020, a number of businesses in the Edmonton metropolitan region continue to employ the oil city nomenclature such as Oil City Crane Service, Oil City Energy, Oil City Signs, and Oil City Vapes. [11] Since 2005, the city has hosted the Oil City Roller Derby.
Edmonton's historic designation as "Oil City" is also related to the fact that both of Edmonton's hockey teams are named in connection with Alberta's oil industry: the Edmonton Oilers and the Edmonton Oil Kings. [12] The history of the team names are as follows: On 1 November 1971, the Edmonton Oilers got one of the 12 existing WHA establishments. The first proprietor was Bill Hunter. When Hunter was deciding on a name for his WHA team in 1972, he first called it the Alberta Oilers. Oil is one of Alberta's most prevalent natural resources; the province has the world's third-largest reserves behind Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Oilers was a nickname for Hunter's Junior A team in Edmonton, the Oil Kings. In 1973, the team's name was changed to the Edmonton Oilers. In 1979, when four teams from the WHA were absorbed by the NHL, the Oilers retained their name.
Oil City Roadhouse, formerly located at 10736 on Jasper Avenue, was one of many Edmonton businesses employing the reference to Edmonton as Oil City. [13] Oil City was owned and operated by the Oil City Hospitality Group. [14] The Edmonton Journal wrote that "the country-themed room, located in the old Saveco building between 107th and 108th Streets, was one of the most notorious venues in downtown Edmonton." [15] In 2012, Oil City Roadhouse closed and was replaced by an establishment named Knoxville's Tavern. [15] [16]
Business such as Oil City Press and Oil City Express have offices in Calgary. [17] [18] [19] Fort McMurray has also been referred to as Oil City due to its proximity to the Athabasca oil sands. [3]
The phrase "Oil City" and its relationship to Alberta's oil and gas industry and the sociology of place identity continues to be discussed in scholarship. [20] [21] In a paper published in Environmental Ethics titled "This is Oil Country: The Alberta Tar Sands and Jacques Ellul's Theory of Technology," philosopher Nathan Kowalsky and sociologist Randolph Haluza-DeLay discuss the relationship between cultural identity and the oil industry in Alberta. [22] In a section titled “I Am Alberta Oil: the Naturalization of Technical Identity" Kowalsky and Haluza-DeLay write that in Alberta, "tar sands advocates imply that oil is a necessary component of one’s own identity." [20]
Alberta's "oil identity" has also been discussed by writers Andrew Nikiforuk and Stephanie LeMenager. [23] [24] [25] In her essay, "Imaginary Alberta: Is It A More Appealing Place," Edmontonian writer Linda Goyette similarly discusses frustration while filling up with gas in Edmonton and asking oneself "why can't I write about a more appealing Alberta?" [26]
Alberta is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta borders British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Territories to the north, and the U.S. state of Montana to the south. It is one of the only two landlocked provinces in Canada, with Saskatchewan being the other. The eastern part of the province is occupied by the Great Plains, while the western part borders the Rocky Mountains. The province has a predominantly continental climate but experiences quick temperature changes due to air aridity. Seasonal temperature swings are less pronounced in western Alberta due to occasional Chinook winds.
The economy of Alberta is the sum of all economic activity in Alberta, Canada's fourth largest province by population. Alberta's GDP in 2018 was CDN$338.2 billion.
Oil sands, tar sands, crude bitumen, or bituminous sands, are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. Oil sands are either loose sands or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, soaked with bitumen, a dense and extremely viscous form of petroleum.
The Athabasca oil sands, also known as the Athabasca tar sands, are large deposits of bitumen, a heavy and viscous form of petroleum, located in northeastern Alberta, Canada. These reserves are one of the largest sources of unconventional oil in the world, making Canada a significant player in the global energy market.
Imperial Oil Limited is a Canadian petroleum company. It is Canada's second-largest integrated oil company. It is majority-owned by American oil company ExxonMobil, with a 69.6% ownership stake in the company. It is a producer of crude oil, diluted bitumen, and natural gas. Imperial Oil is one of Canada's major petroleum refiners and petrochemical producers. It supplies Esso-brand service stations.
The Calgary Broncos were an original World Hockey Association franchise, founded November 1, 1971. In the first WHA draft, the Broncos chose Barry Gibbs, Jim Harrison, Dale Hoganson and Jack Norris. The team participated in the February 1972 WHA General Player Draft, but folded prior to the October 1972 start of the first WHA season when team owner Bob Brownridge died. The franchise license was sold to businesspeople in Ohio, who founded the Cleveland Crusaders, which played on the opening night of that inaugural WHA season.
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), with its head office in Calgary, Alberta, is a lobby group that represents the upstream Canadian oil and natural gas industry. CAPP's members produce "90% of Canada's natural gas and crude oil" and "are an important part of a national industry with revenues of about $100 billion-a-year ."
Jr. Gone Wild is a Canadian country/punk rock band based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The band toured for a number of years and recorded several albums in the 1980s and 1990s. After disbanding in 1995, the group began performing and recording again in 2013.
The Battle of Alberta is a term applied to the intense rivalry between the Canadian cities of Calgary, the province's most populous city, and Edmonton, the capital of the province of Alberta. Most often it is used to describe sporting events between the two cities, although this is not exclusive as the rivalry predates organized sports in Alberta.
Alberta has been a tourist destination since the early days of the 20th Century, with attractions including national parks, National Historic Sites of Canada, urban arts and cultural facilities, outdoor locales for skiing, hiking and camping, shopping locales such as West Edmonton Mall, outdoor festivals, professional athletic events, international sporting competitions such as the Commonwealth Games and Olympic Winter Games, as well as more eclectic attractions.
The Kearl Oil Sands Project is an oil sands mine in the Athabasca Oil Sands region at the Kearl Lake area, about 70 kilometres (43 mi) north of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada that is operated by the 143-year old Calgary, Alberta-headquartered Imperial Oil Limited—one of the largest integrated oil companies in Canada. Kearl is owned by Imperial Oil and is controlled by Imperial's parent company, ExxonMobil—an American multinational that is one of the largest in the world.
Andrew Nikiforuk is a Canadian journalist and author. His writing has appeared in many outlets, including Saturday Night, Maclean's, Alberta Views, Alternatives Journal, and national newspapers. He has won multiple National Magazine Awards for his work. In 1990, the Toronto Star awarded him an Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy to study AIDS and the failure of public health policy. He has also published numerous books, including Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig's War Against Oil, which won the Governor General's Award in 2002 and Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent, which won the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award for 2008-09 from the Society of Environmental Journalists.
Leduc No. 1 was a major crude oil discovery made near Leduc, Alberta, Canada, on February 13, 1947. It provided the geological key to Alberta's most prolific conventional oil reserves and resulted in a boom in petroleum exploration and development across Western Canada. The discovery transformed the Alberta economy; oil and gas supplanted farming as the primary industry and resulted in the province becoming one of the richest in the country. Nationally, the discovery allowed Canada to become self-sufficient within a decade and ultimately a major exporter of oil.
The following is a bibliography of Alberta history.
The Beaver Lake Cree Nation is a First Nations band government located 105 kilometres (65 mi) northeast of Edmonton, Alberta, representing people of the Cree ethno-linguistic group in the area around Lac La Biche, Alberta, where the band office is currently located. Their treaty area is Treaty 6. The Intergovernmental Affairs office consults with persons on the Government treaty contacts list. There are two parcels of land reserved for the band by the Canadian Crown, Beaver Lake Indian Reserve No. 131 and Blue Quills First Nation Indian Reserve. The latter reserve is shared by six bands; Beaver Lake Cree Nations, Cold Lake First Nations, Frog Lake First Nation, Heart Lake First Nation, Kehewin Cree Nation, Saddle Lake Cree Nation.
Western Canadian Select (WCS) is a heavy sour blend of crude oil that is one of North America's largest heavy crude oil streams and, historically, its cheapest. It was established in December 2004 as a new heavy oil stream by EnCana, Canadian Natural Resources, Petro-Canada and Talisman Energy. It is composed mostly of bitumen blended with sweet synthetic and condensate diluents and 21 existing streams of both conventional and unconventional Alberta heavy crude oils at the large Husky Midstream General Partnership terminal in Hardisty, Alberta. Western Canadian Select—the benchmark for heavy, acidic crudes—is one of many petroleum products from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin oil sands. Calgary-based Husky Energy, now a subsidiary of Cenovus, had joined the initial four founders in 2015.
The Canadian province of Alberta faces a number of environmental issues related to natural resource extraction—including oil and gas industry with its oil sands—endangered species, melting glaciers in banff, floods and droughts, wildfires, and global climate change. While the oil and gas industries generates substantial economic wealth, the Athabasca oil sands, which are situated almost entirely in Alberta, are the "fourth most carbon intensive on the planet behind Algeria, Venezuela and Cameroon" according to an August 8, 2018 article in the American Association for the Advancement of Science's journal Science. This article details some of the environmental issues including past ecological disasters in Alberta and describes some of the efforts at the municipal, provincial and federal level to mitigate the risks and impacts.
Urban Lounge was a historic live music venue in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.