Canada at War: ALBERTA: Jumping Pound

The thin, 17-mile-long Turner Valley oilfield (only sizable field in all Canada except the Canol area in the far north) was obviously petering out. Nevertheless, oilmen were convinced that a great untapped oil reservoir lay somewhere under Alberta. War speeded up the search for the hidden pool. This year wildcat drillers spent nearly $15,000,000 in the search.

Last week came what looked like the biggest strike yet. Out in the sweeping range lands west of Calgary, within sight of the Rockies, a Shell Oil Co. test drill ing crew ran into a terrific gas concentration (a sign of oil) at 9,746 ft.

The well was only a few miles from the site of an earlier test, where a Shell crew had drilled down to a record-shattering 12,056 ft. and spent $600,000 without striking oil. But oilmen were sure they had something this time. In Ottawa, Dominion geologists admitted cautiously: the Jumping Pound strike is “extremely important.” In Alberta, the Shell Co. had already grabbed up drilling and royalty rights on a reported 73,000 acres near Jumping Pound. Other firms, U.S. and Canadian, were pouncing on whatever they could.