Oil in the Rocky Mountains
 

Sorry, people, this one has nothing to do with bikes.

I'm reading a book by Hammond Innes called Campbell's Kingdom, first published in 1947. It's a novel about finding oil in the Canadian Rockies and from what it says in the book it seems to be based around Quesnelle Lake in British Columbia. On Google Earth that's about 125 miles West of Jasper. I know that there are huge oilfields in the Edmonton -Calgary area to the East of the Rockies but I was wondering if HUBB members in that area (there does seem to be a lot of members in BC and Alberta) could tell me whether there are any wells actually in the Rockies. Come to think of it perhaps Quesnelle is to the West of the Rockies, I believe there are several other ranges running parallel to them- the McKenzie, Cariboo and a few others, perhaps it's in one of those. I've lost my map.

John

Oil in the Rocky Mts
 

You provide part of the answer in your preamble to the question: you were reading a work of fiction. Any resemblance of events and people in the book to actual events and people was" purely coincidental"- and intentional.
You say the book was published in 1947 . This fits nicely into a period when there was much excitement and interest in oil exploration in western Canada and the first big commercial oil well was struck in Leduc, Alberta in Feb 1947.
The author was probably playing in to this interest , and as a fiction writer was free to invent place names and locate them wherever he liked, even if geology was against te idea of finding oil right in the convoluted young Rocky Mountain range.
British Columbia does have some oil , but this is currently being sought offshore , and the older oil field is north east of the mountain zone in the Peace River area around Fort Saint John

Hi Sjoerd,

Thanks for that. Having driven through the Rockies several times as well as having flown through them it had ocurred to me that with such spectacularly convoluted strata the formations would have been broken up too much to retain oil deposits. Having said that, it's about all I do know about geology, hence my question.

The book, though a work of fiction, does mention the development of Leduc and others- that was fact, so I was wondering how much else was fact.

John

The BC govt is in the process of selling oil and gas exploration licences for the Prince George area and other areas west of the Rockies.
Coal bed methane is being found in all areas of BC including Vancouver Island ,new coal mines are being developed in my area of northern BC .
Very scary stuff ,because none of this is planned and the govt likes to work behind closed doors with the energy companies [usually US owned ] ,the resource is exported and not used for the benefit of Canadians other than the royalties which are paid into govt coffers.
Environmental standards are lowered to placate industry and social issues ignored .
Canada has a disturbing ability , to squander her long term wealth and security for the almighty dollar.
--Rant over and I'm not anti American [honest !] .
Just letting you know that "Big Oil " is everywhere !

Dodger