1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,650
The crew was trying to shut off artesian
water.

2
00:00:02,650 --> 00:00:06,516
While seating casing, the manager reported
two surges of oil, gas and

3
00:00:06,516 --> 00:00:10,160
water powerful enough to force the drillers
away from their work.

4
00:00:10,160 --> 00:00:12,645
Some oil was caught after the flow
subsided.

5
00:00:12,756 --> 00:00:15,980
The provincial mining report for nineteen
fifteen printed a letter from

6
00:00:15,980 --> 00:00:18,453
the manager of the Flathead Oil Syndicate’s
operations.

7
00:00:18,453 --> 00:00:21,588
It is an operator’s account, reproduced by
the government, rather than

8
00:00:21,588 --> 00:00:23,046
an independent production audit.

9
00:00:23,157 --> 00:00:26,171
The report then turns from excitement to
equipment trouble.

10
00:00:26,171 --> 00:00:29,837
The available casing was described as
light. Another water flow appeared

11
00:00:29,837 --> 00:00:33,404
after a little more drilling. The crew
pulled the casing and tried to

12
00:00:33,404 --> 00:00:36,116
reset it. A bottom-hole packer failed to do
its job.

13
00:00:36,116 --> 00:00:38,980
During another attempt to pull the casing,
it separated.

14
00:00:38,998 --> 00:00:42,643
The well was shut down pending heavier
casing and another packer.

15
00:00:42,893 --> 00:00:46,190
In the provincial report for nineteen oh
three, the mineralogist

16
00:00:46,190 --> 00:00:49,031
described a visit to the Big Oil Spring on
Sage Creek.

17
00:00:49,031 --> 00:00:52,176
The oil was difficult to locate until its
smell gave it away.

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00:00:52,176 --> 00:00:54,916
Dark green oil floated on pools near a
water spring.

19
00:00:54,934 --> 00:00:58,503
But the appearance was deceptive. The pools
looked as though they

20
00:00:58,503 --> 00:01:01,640
contained much more oil than could actually
be collected.

21
00:01:01,640 --> 00:01:05,588
The investigator described laying cloth
over the surface, soaking up oil

22
00:01:05,588 --> 00:01:09,157
and water, wringing it into a container,
and separating the two.

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00:01:09,175 --> 00:01:13,543
That is an extraordinary image: a future
petroleum prospect being

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00:01:13,543 --> 00:01:15,042
sampled with a cloth.

25
00:01:15,154 --> 00:01:18,903
And this was never an empty landscape
waiting for oilmen to discover it.

26
00:01:18,903 --> 00:01:22,652
BC Parks describes the established routes
used by Ktunaxa people through

27
00:01:22,652 --> 00:01:26,247
this mountain country. The drilling chapter
came much later than that

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00:01:26,247 --> 00:01:26,710
history.

29
00:01:26,960 --> 00:01:30,525
The geology made the surface evidence
especially puzzling.

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00:01:30,525 --> 00:01:34,877
The exposed rocks were hard and compact.
Early investigators saw shale,

31
00:01:34,877 --> 00:01:39,289
slate, quartzitic rocks and carbonate beds.
They did not see an obvious,

32
00:01:39,289 --> 00:01:41,827
thick, porous oil sand beside every seep.

33
00:01:41,846 --> 00:01:44,967
The nineteen oh three report explained an
emerging answer:

34
00:01:44,967 --> 00:01:48,300
large thrust faults could place older rocks
above much younger

35
00:01:48,300 --> 00:01:52,004
formations. Oil might have come from deeper
rocks and migrated upward

36
00:01:52,004 --> 00:01:54,491
into fractures in the overlying mountain
mass.

37
00:01:54,509 --> 00:01:58,239
Think of a stack of pages pushed sideways
until one thick packet rides

38
00:01:58,239 --> 00:02:01,969
over another. The page on top is no longer
a reliable guide to the age

39
00:02:01,969 --> 00:02:05,750
of the page immediately beneath it. In a
thrust belt, a drill can pass

40
00:02:05,750 --> 00:02:09,221
through old rock and eventually enter
younger rock below a fault.

41
00:02:09,471 --> 00:02:13,013
Local heritage accounts place Akamina
Number One in nineteen oh seven

42
00:02:13,013 --> 00:02:15,442
and give a depth of about twelve hundred
feet.

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00:02:15,442 --> 00:02:19,034
The provincial geological compilation is
less tidy. It lists the Royal

44
00:02:19,034 --> 00:02:22,424
Canadian Oil Company Number One, probably
the same well as Akamina

45
00:02:22,424 --> 00:02:26,169
Number One, as nineteen oh eight or
nineteen oh nine, with a total depth

46
00:02:26,169 --> 00:02:28,294
of three hundred and eighty-three metres.

47
00:02:28,313 --> 00:02:31,922
Its entry records a reported oil-bearing
interval at one hundred and

48
00:02:31,922 --> 00:02:35,479
eighty-two metres, a second reported oil
zone near total depth, and

49
00:02:35,479 --> 00:02:39,243
tools lost in the hole. It also records
that other geologists discounted

50
00:02:39,243 --> 00:02:42,646
the favourable reports. Number Two is
listed at approximately one

51
00:02:42,646 --> 00:02:45,224
hundred and eighty metres, again with lost
tools.

52
00:02:45,243 --> 00:02:48,959
The dates remain uncertain. The historical
compilation itself warns

53
00:02:48,959 --> 00:02:52,675
about possible duplicate well names and
conflicting drilling years.

54
00:02:52,675 --> 00:02:56,446
We should not polish that uncertainty into
a precise anniversary we

55
00:02:56,446 --> 00:02:57,266
cannot defend.

56
00:02:57,284 --> 00:03:01,315
A cable-tool rig repeatedly lifts and drops
a heavy cutting assembly.

57
00:03:01,315 --> 00:03:04,115
Broken rock and fluid are removed with a
bailer.

58
00:03:04,115 --> 00:03:08,145
If equipment remains downhole, the drilling
problem becomes a recovery

59
00:03:08,145 --> 00:03:11,841
problem: can you engage what is left, free
it, and bring it back?

60
00:03:12,091 --> 00:03:15,058
In nineteen fourteen, geologist Ralph
Arnold spent eight days

61
00:03:15,058 --> 00:03:18,409
investigating the district. His report,
published by the province the

62
00:03:18,409 --> 00:03:21,472
following year, is valuable because it
mixes encouragement with

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00:03:21,472 --> 00:03:22,047
skepticism.

64
00:03:22,065 --> 00:03:24,920
He described three approaches to the
exploration country:

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00:03:24,920 --> 00:03:28,464
from Belton in Montana, from Corbin to the
north, and from the Oil City

66
00:03:28,464 --> 00:03:31,958
direction. He considered the Belton route
the best available, but said

67
00:03:31,958 --> 00:03:35,355
it was suitable for wagons and pack animals
rather than automobiles.

68
00:03:35,466 --> 00:03:39,110
Arnold was interested in the Sage
Creek–Kishinena anticline, an arch in

69
00:03:39,110 --> 00:03:42,704
the strata along which seeps occurred. He
thought there were plausible

70
00:03:42,704 --> 00:03:46,096
places to drill there. At Akamina, however,
he described the wells

71
00:03:46,096 --> 00:03:49,538
associated with Gloyn in a syncline, a
downward fold, and doubted

72
00:03:49,538 --> 00:03:50,955
reports of significant oil.

73
00:03:51,066 --> 00:03:54,519
He also described an oil-bearing Sage Creek
well that had never been

74
00:03:54,519 --> 00:03:57,922
properly tested. He would not assign it a
dependable capacity from

75
00:03:57,922 --> 00:03:58,822
appearance alone.

76
00:03:59,072 --> 00:04:02,540
The manager reported that Number Three had
reached nine hundred and

77
00:04:02,540 --> 00:04:06,007
seventy feet in badly broken bluish-grey
limestone. He believed the

78
00:04:06,007 --> 00:04:09,627
drill was still in the overthrust
formation, with more of that section

79
00:04:09,627 --> 00:04:09,984
below.

80
00:04:10,002 --> 00:04:13,707
The sequence is specific. Fresh water had
been cased off at seven

81
00:04:13,707 --> 00:04:17,468
hundred and fifteen feet. Twenty feet
deeper, a whitish limestone

82
00:04:17,468 --> 00:04:21,453
carried a strong petroleum odour. The rock
became darker and somewhat

83
00:04:21,453 --> 00:04:23,136
grainy, and oil was reported.

84
00:04:23,155 --> 00:04:26,470
At around eight hundred feet, drilling
stopped to weld the stem.

85
00:04:26,470 --> 00:04:29,479
When work resumed, the crew recovered oil
with the bailer.

86
00:04:29,479 --> 00:04:33,049
According to the letter, a few runs filled
a fifty-four-gallon drum

87
00:04:33,049 --> 00:04:34,222
about two-thirds full.

88
00:04:34,241 --> 00:04:38,243
Then the well went deeper. By nine hundred
and seventy feet, the

89
00:04:38,243 --> 00:04:42,308
reported influx included larger quantities
of water, oil and gas.

90
00:04:42,326 --> 00:04:45,383
The manager wanted to evaluate the upper
oil-bearing interval.

91
00:04:45,383 --> 00:04:48,537
The account says material below the
eight-hundred-foot level was

92
00:04:48,537 --> 00:04:52,127
cemented off, and a pump and storage tanks
were ordered from Pittsburgh.

93
00:04:52,127 --> 00:04:54,505
The plan was to pump continuously for two
weeks.

94
00:04:54,523 --> 00:04:57,481
The drillers estimated two to ten barrels a
day.

95
00:04:57,481 --> 00:05:01,385
The manager added four words that deserve
to survive the century:

96
00:05:01,385 --> 00:05:02,746
“only test will tell.”

97
00:05:02,764 --> 00:05:04,851
That test was a plan in the letter.

98
00:05:04,851 --> 00:05:08,967
The letter does not establish that the test
achieved the estimated rate.

99
00:05:08,967 --> 00:05:11,787
It records what the operator wanted to
determine.

100
00:05:12,037 --> 00:05:15,657
The same letter describes Number Two, also
called the Davenport well.

101
00:05:15,657 --> 00:05:17,984
This is a Flathead operation at Sage Creek.

102
00:05:17,984 --> 00:05:21,656
It is not Akamina Number Two, even though
the repeated numbering makes

103
00:05:21,656 --> 00:05:23,104
the stories easy to mix up.

104
00:05:23,215 --> 00:05:27,300
The practical difficulty is vivid enough.
Water entry complicated the

105
00:05:27,300 --> 00:05:30,801
evaluation. The equipment needed to isolate
it was failing.

106
00:05:30,801 --> 00:05:34,593
Replacement material was not sitting on a
nearby service truck.

107
00:05:34,612 --> 00:05:38,302
The manager expected the pump, tanks and
casing to reach Belton, then be

108
00:05:38,302 --> 00:05:41,740
freighted into camp after the first snow.
The operation had stocked

109
00:05:41,740 --> 00:05:45,279
provisions, coke and horse feed to get
through the seasonal period of

110
00:05:45,279 --> 00:05:45,835
bad roads.

111
00:05:45,853 --> 00:05:48,347
Here, snow was part of the supply plan.

112
00:05:48,347 --> 00:05:52,524
A mechanical failure could be tied to an
entire transport season.

113
00:05:52,524 --> 00:05:56,888
The well’s next decision depended on rock,
steel, weather, money, and

114
00:05:56,888 --> 00:05:59,943
the condition of a trail through the
mountains.

115
00:06:00,193 --> 00:06:03,493
The early campaigns did not establish the
lasting commercial oilfield

116
00:06:03,493 --> 00:06:06,934
their backers hoped for. Later drilling
revisited the region, and modern

117
00:06:06,934 --> 00:06:10,233
work investigated very different objectives
beneath the Lewis thrust.

118
00:06:10,233 --> 00:06:13,627
The old seep hunt became part of a much
longer effort to understand a

119
00:06:13,627 --> 00:06:15,371
difficult mountain petroleum system.

120
00:06:15,390 --> 00:06:18,869
The equipment also acquired a second life.
The Fernie Derrick Society

121
00:06:18,869 --> 00:06:22,201
describes the recovery of metal components
in nineteen eighty-four.

122
00:06:22,201 --> 00:06:25,582
Local preservation accounts describe the
later work that created and

123
00:06:25,582 --> 00:06:28,914
maintained the roadside landmark. That
heritage history has its own

124
00:06:28,914 --> 00:06:32,246
chronology; recovery and reconstruction
should not automatically be

125
00:06:32,246 --> 00:06:33,568
treated as the same event.

126
00:06:33,680 --> 00:06:37,534
When you next pass the derrick at Fernie,
imagine the distance between

127
00:06:37,534 --> 00:06:40,846
that landmark and the remote holes whose
metal it preserves.

128
00:06:40,846 --> 00:06:44,537
Then imagine the larger distance between
finding oil and proving an

129
00:06:44,537 --> 00:06:45,080
oilfield.