ABSTRACT: Exploratory Drilling in the Western Interior Plains by the Geological Survey of Canada 1873-1875

KUPSCH, W. O., University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Although the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) was founded in 1842, it was not until 1872, two years after the transfer of Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) lands to the Dominion of Canada, that the first GSC geologist, Director Alfred R. C. Selwyn, came west. One year later a drilling program he had been promoting in Ottawa saw two wells brought to completion and a third one spudded.

In the period 1873-1875, five wells were drilled: at Fort Garry (the shallowest; 38 ft), Shoal Lake, Rat Creek, Fort Pelly (the deepest; 501 ft), and Fort Carlton. The objective was to locate sources of water and coal for the future transcontinental railroad.

The first three wells were drilled with a rotary, diamond steamdrill that had been used in the hard, coal-bearing rocks of Nova Scotia but proved unsuitable for penetrating the glacial drift, loose sands, and soft clays of the Prairies.

In 1874, an agreement between the GSC and John Henry Fairbank, Canada's most prominent oilman, was made for the drilling of two more wells. A percussion steamdrill, then in common use in the Petrolia, Ontario, oil fields, was the equipment of choice.

Besides having to deal with technical problems related to the transport of the heavy boiler, the drilling party became embroiled in the dispute between government and natives over land rights. After being halted and turned back by Chief Mistiwassis and his men on their way to a preselected site, the drill crew retreated behind the stockade of HBC's Fort Carlton to complete the last well of their exploratory program.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91012©1992 AAPG Annual Meeting, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, June 22-25, 1992 (2009)