ATHABASCA TAR SANDS / OIL SANDS 1967 BECHTEL CORP. PROMO FILM ALBERTA CANADA 10494
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 พ.ย. 2020
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This is a color film, produced in 1967 by Bechtel corporation called, "The Fabulous Oil Sands". The film looks at the development of the Athabasca Tar Sands, one of largest petroleum deposits in the world, and its effect on the nearby community of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada.
The film features photography by William Heick, supplementary photography by Richard Finney and Kenneth R.L. Hill and a Script and Narration by Richard Finney. The movie opens with some heavy excavation units digging into the site of a quarry wall and then an aerial view of Edmonton, capital of Alberta 1:00. The city streets of Alberta 1:20. A map of Edmonton is shown in shows the distance to Fort McMurray. Peter Pond visited Fort McMurray in the 18th century as a fur trader. Aerial view of Fort McMurray 2:00. The railroad depot called Waterways is shown 2:33. Steamship pushes a barge, 2:40. 1940s seaplane at Fort McMurray 3:00. Outcroppings at Fort McMurray 3:35. Max W. Ball, built a plant in 1936, with Canadian capital opened Abasand Oils, Ltd in 1940. Trains taking military equipment to Waterways to expedite the building and launching of barges for the war effort 4:40. The Canoil project. 4:43. Equipment on barges 5:13. Scientist test sand for oil 5:52. Sun Oil and Great Canadian Oil Sands (GCOS) Limited. 6:30. Forest clearing on Tar Island, 7:00. Aerial view of plant 7:15. GCOS and Bechtel do oil experiments at the plant 7:35. Edmonton businessmen sit down 8:05. Bechtel designers 8:21. Disassembling scale model of the plant, 8:38. Building of the plant begins 9:50. Plant workers board a bus to boarding house 10:15. The mess hall and the crew eats 10:35. Curling lanes for the men, 11:34. Man commutes to work by dogsled 12:11. Supplies are trucked in over icy winter roads 12:50. The Alberta Athabasca Bridge opens 13:20. Oil tankers come down the road with crude and equipment 13:45. Fort McMurray expands 14:41. Construction at Tar Island 15:00. Aerial view of the new refinery 15:50. Superstructures are built 16:10. Buildings are insulated for the second winter of plant building 17:43. Men lay the first pipeline for the refinery 18:30. Men fill in dirt over the pipeline 19:30. Workers try to keep warm in the frigid cold 20:00. Truckers continue to bring equipment to the site 20:18. Two giant bucket wheel excavators are brought, in exported from Germany, to dig out tar sand 21:20. The ice flow under the Alberta Athabasca Bridge 22:00. Testing of bucket wheel excavators. TCO control room 22:40. Older houses versus new ones in Fort McMurray after plant development. Aircraft land on paved runways in Fort McMurray. Opening Day luncheon for the plant 25:00. J. Howard Pew gives a speech 25:12. GCOS president, Clarence Thayer is honored 27:23. Robert McClements, JR gives a speech of welcome 28:03. An electric shovel is shown digging the sand 28:40. Dump trucks dump the sand 29:00. Bucket wheel excavators mine the tar sand 29:25. Tar sands are moved by conveyor into primary extraction plant 30:00. Sand is fed into conditioning drums with steam and caustic 30:30. Bitumen separation 30:47. Bitumen pumping station 31:40. Diluted bitumen goes into the storage tanks 32:00. Gas and oil power tanks 32:45. Coke is burned to use steam to power the plant 33:00. Blending tanks that lead to pipeline 33:48. Ernest C Manning the premiere of Alberta makes a speech 34:31. Sidney Blair, petroleum engineer wrote first oil report in 1950.Sid Blair’s original report is shown 36:30. Aerial view of finished plant 37:00.
The Athabasca oil sands, also known as the Athabasca tar sands, are large deposits of bitumen or extremely heavy crude oil, located in northeastern Alberta, Canada - roughly centered on the boomtown of Fort McMurray. These oil sands, hosted primarily in the McMurray Formation, consist of a mixture of crude bitumen (a semi-solid rock-like form of crude oil), silica sand, clay minerals, and water. The Athabasca deposit is the largest known reservoir of crude bitumen in the world and the largest of three major oil sands deposits in Alberta, along with the nearby Peace River and Cold Lake deposits (the latter stretching into Saskatchewan).
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit www.PeriscopeFilm.com
A guy could get addicted to these periscope films
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My Father came up to Fort McMurray in 1964 And Started with GCOS i was born and raised here, he was the Bucket Wheel Operator until 1991 when he Retired .... i was born in 1969 .... Fort McMurray will always be my home, I am working at Suncor and will retire in 15 more years
With all those $ why takes so long to retire?
@@formatagfys1903
For more $
@Gurpreet Singh yes, but what can we do about it? What makes times of our life important is knowing it is finite. It's why you must live like theres no tomorrow, and cherish the good times and being with loved ones. Dont take life too seriously, no one makes it out alive!
Hey Faron. My dad was Bob McClements who also went to Ft. Mc around the same time. He was the manager of the plant and always talked so fondly of all the people who worked there. We moved to the states in the early 70's, but I'm sure our fathers worked together. Good on your dad for being a bucket wheel operator for all those years!!
@@formatagfys1903 because is spend all buying new truck ect ...loll
Thanks for the upload.
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This was a great documentary. I’ve been welding pipe up fort Mac area for 16 years now . Thank you to all our construction workers past and present .
Wow, this takes me back, when Alberta had a future! Thanks for posting.
My dad is Bob McClements. He's in his last days of life and I know he would love to see this. GCOS was his life and the beginning of an incredible career and life. Boy did he grow into his public speaking skills over the years! :D
I am a 20 year employee of Sun company. he was part of the transformation of Canada. Too bad the company was driven into the ground by the Glenmeade trust. Dividends were sucked out when the company was on hard times. He managed the golden age when there was a long term vision.
@@KonfusedDude thanks for sharing this P JG. I never followed GCOS after dad retired and I'm sorry to hear that. Ahhhh the Golden age. So curious about what you see as the characteristics of the Golden Age? I have my thoughts but I'm a forever curious person about other people's views. Again, thanks for sharing.
My dad was a Chef from NAIT in Edmonton in the 80's, he worked at the Peter Pond Hotel, and occasionally helping to feed the Rig crews. Dad met my mom in the Pond hotel after she knocked another fella out cold from trying to hit on her at the bar. My dad also tells me stories of how it was so cold most winters in Fort Mac that he would take foil wrapped steamed potatoes home in his jacket pockets to keep warm.
Never get tired of watching this Bechtel film , after being part of the massive startup of this plant Great Canadian Oil Sands in Sept of 1967, I retired from GCOS/Suncor 1996, it was the best place for anyone who wanted to work , for the economy, GDP of Canada & environmentally now producing most ethically clean oil . Canada’s most strategic energy reserve , great to see again all naysayers are wrong...
It will be generations, if ever oil becomes obsolete. Cars are just one demand on oil, it powers, heats, manufactures, and moves our world. So long as there is demand, north America might as well produce as much as we can in our own back yard versus funding russia and the middle east. It's one hell of a piece of infrastructure, that's for sure. It looks like it will be producing for decades to come.
I saw someone write "THUMBS DOWN BECAUSE OF THE COUNTDOWN CLOCK ON THE SCREEN".... gtfoh. Thank you, mysterious periscope TH-cam channel for making these lost treasures available again. Can't imagine the time and effort it takes
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Just amazing what men built to become successful and create wealth not only for themselves but for tens of thousands of workers. All the criticism today’s entitled class has the privilege of casting upon the oil industry, would be dwarfed by the optimism of a generation back then. Today, tech giants create multiples of that wealth with a stroke of a keyboard and leave nothing of significance behind. In fact technology promotes the elimination of human capital to increase speed and efficiency. I am so glad I am old enough to have grown up in that period. Thank you for posting this film.
Well said.
Born and raised there. Loved it. It will always be home. My father started with GCOS in the summer of 1974. I was born two years later. The history there is amazing. I still work up there but live in Edmonton now. Lots of friends and family still living there as well.
Lived across from your dad's place in waterways.
Hi James. I think we just missed each other! My dad was at GCOS from 1967 until 1974 and I was 4.
My dad was the sole proprietor of Robstar general developments LTD, he demolished downtown Edmonton and Calgary in the 70s, then they rebuilt the skyline in the late 70s and early 80s.
If you worked in Edmonton or Calgary in the 70s and 80s, in construction, you more than likely worked for my dad, Robstar also financed a little company called Poole Construction Ltd, also known today as PCL.
Your Dad probably bought construction equipment from my Dad, who knew the Poole family well and had Poole Construction and PCL as customers for many years.
@@FAngus-ly8lk yes, that's 100 true, he had a few D6, Cat9's and the wrecking baller.
When demoing buildings downtown Calgary in late 70s, the Ball operator, got drunk, came in at 3 am and starting swinging the ball, destroyed parked cars, a damaged a few buildings and took out some connecting walkways from building to building, subsequently had to claim insurance for all the damage, my dad had to pay fines as the sole proprietor.
He would use the money from Demolition, to open escort services from Vancouver all the way to Quebec City, he owned 12 escort services, nearly 1 in each province at the time.
He attended Mt Royal in Calgary with Wayne Hart, Ed Whalen and Ralph Klein.
A wonderful time for Alberta and all canadians. I whole heartedly agree with the other comment of "Cleaning up the largest oil spill ever." better than it ending up leeching into the river.
Really cool - the people that really built this country!
Old school Bechtel project- solving problems you didn't know you had in ways you won't understand.
And leaving behind toxic superfund sites and bankrupt subsidiary companies to legally protect the parent from lawsuits.
Cool stuff Dave! I recently watched a really neat old mining/promotional PeriscopeFilm video on the oil sands of Albert . Good watch
To all who made this possible I thank you so much!! This project has made such a positive outcome for me and my family! Iam blessed to have worked on and in this industry throughout my career.. one thing is clear we are lucky to have mined this asset as reasonable as we do, anywhere else the cost to the environment could be way worse then we could imagine just look at Venezuela!
The narration sounds so endearing. Beautiful flowing intonation.
Gower23,
It is interesting how the timber and intonation in the voices of North Americans have changed over the decades... and the pauses, no one’s got time for that anymore.
Agreed, and I caught the Freudian slip!
(tree being failed) Tenor!!!!!
Is the Clearwater River still clear?
Two Thumbs Up Awsome
I worked at Syncrude and Suncor in the mid 1980's. Great pay but oh so cold in the winter. I still have some of training manuals and a jacket I think. The man who tested me (for a job at Suncor) in late 1983 had himself started at Suncor in 1967. I recognize the cokers and the hydrogen furnace in the model. The food was endless and GREAT! I gained weight even as I became the strongest I have ever been in my life. I lived in camp at Suncor for a few months. An employee was killed by a black bear in recent years at Suncor. The feeling of isolation was STILL there when bad weather the roads and airport was closed. Also for younger single men there were not may ladies around.
Cool! Thanks for your comment!
God how amazing one of these events must have been without screaming protestors
Was up there in 1968 and based in Edmonton. Just a gravel track up there in those days .Recognised the old town .
I had the privilege of working in the camps, as a coach driver 2010-2015, when there was no work for us in Edmonton, 4 months we were to be there turned into 5 years. It was a great experience and I learned what the oil sands were about, not what is portrayed, often. My first camp was Barge landing, north of the "bridge to nowhere in 1965." Interesting when barges came in how many cars were going down there😉 altold I took people to about 17 work sites and stayed in almost as many "camps". I imagined before my first turnaround, tents and sleeping bags😁
Never knew about this place. Learn something new everyday. Thank you Periscope for posting this film.
In the 24th minute there are various shots of people arriving by aircraft for the official opening of the GCOS plant in September, 1967. My Dad is shown stepping off a plane with a Bechtel insignia on it. His company supplied the Caterpillar equipment that was used to clear and prepare the site of the plant and operate the oilsands mine. He was involved in the development of the oilsands and Fort MacMurray from the beginning of planning of the GCOS facility right through the building of the Syncrude plant in the 70s and 80s. It's pretty cool to see him in this video.
Your father wouldnt happen to be the founder of R.Angus?
@@Jeff-go3pt - Yes.
Worked 30 years there. Retired at 50. Greatest place in Canada. Now it gets such a bad rap!
...The bad rap is mostly due the USA and its greed by trying to get the oil for nothing.
@@norcanexs.g.llc.4625 It's a commodity.
Place gets a bad rap because it’s a shit hole. Companies are garbage, town is garbage. Whole place is a gutter.
50! You must of had a great pension then?
@@norcanexs.g.llc.4625 our own govt sabotaged fort mac.
Thanks for the old film...almost 28 ...1993
Born there in 86, worked on the bucketwheel and dragline on the last year of operation
Same here my birth place fort McMurray alberta was working in that same area as a boom operator started in 1975 this is a good film
🇨🇦 I was sent to Syncrude and Suncor numerous times as a contractor to build massive RCC pads (Roller Compacted Concrete) for the heavy haulers. (huge dump trucks) I enjoyed working in Fort Mac because of the great pay and the awesome food. The bitumen covered everything and made driving hazardous because the roads were so slick.
Syncrude basemine has another 4 years or so left, however they have another deposit just 15 minutes away to the east and will have more 797s in the next 2 years, they are slowly bringing shovels out there. Then the big reclamation will be ongoing at old basemine. Basemine is incredibly depressing 😂
Had wild times in the riviera hotel,
Also the Peter Pond Hotel...
@@arliesample8632 bet you didn't. know Kathy Hanna?
That is absolutely incredible!
18:40 - what a sight. 7 welding rigs all welding away at the same time. That's some production going on right there. When you have hundreds of miles of pipe to lay, that's how its done.
what a great film....thanks
I was born and raised in Fort McMurray 25 years
that was a LOT of work to get oil production giong. Good job to ALL involved with this massive undertaking.
Amazing!
My birth place, 58 years ago, 😉
Wow
Cool
403
Do you poop tar?
So you got cancer then?
@@michellecarew7778 yes
Great video! Love Alberta and love working in the oil industry!
Great history!
Great video keep it going ! Very informing and interesting please do more videos of this type ! Most of us never know how the oil was produced !
I didn’t realize oil sands were a thing back then.
Awesome undertaking!
That was great. Thank you
You're welcome
Crazy seeing how it used to be! Worked in Ft Mac for years! Until 2016
i worked on the assembly of the marion draglines during winter of 1977, had some chilly shifts,
I was there in 77 too, I was on the bucyrus Erie then the Marion then extraction building
Thru this entire documentary I seen only one somewhat obese man. EVERYONE was skinny and healthy. These were real true working men. Most men nowadays can't even step out into that weather not alone work a full day in 60 below.
True.
And we live 25 years longer because of it
Good Advent, Merry Christmas🐾🐾😻🕯🎄
Yummm, tar sands- I love it on toast😳
Super interesting
I am surprised that the engineering juggernaut Bechtel (Canada), doesn't capitalize on their impact on such projects of such nature. 😊
Waow! This is a very good video. I learnt a lot from it.
Long live the worlds greatest resource to mankind.
My son both stocks from oil sand industry, I wish to thank you and wish you luck.
21:53 that bridge is still standing today and is now the southbound bridge after the highway was twinned.
Alberta bound...Alberta bound
It’s good to be..Alberta bound
Very interesting.....
Thanks for the video! If you think about it, nothing can replace oil unless we're all willing to dog sled while our leaders jet around
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@@PeriscopeFilm you still need donations to fund a video that was filmed and no doubt paid for by the oil industry FIFTY THREE years ago!
Only a few places on earth are smart and responsible enough to handle the blessings of such great natural wealth, and Canada is one.
Was.
@@gumbootcloggers8330 ..IS!
What part of "responsible" involves the ONE TRILLION-liter tailing ponds leaking a toxic sludge all over Alberta?
Turns out Alberta has not been responsible at all at handling this blessing.
when us needs our oil, it was called oil sand. When us dont need it, the name quickly changes to dirty tar sand.
You just want our warm water ports to send your oil to China. If it destroys our Ogallala Aquifer will you send Canadian water down the pipeline to water our wheat fields?
Brandon has no brain. Gone in 26 months or sooner.
Oil sands now, thanks to Brandon.
14:40 Unfortunate that at the production time of this documentary, they predicted the future wrong. I truly miss my past in Alberta, boom-time abundance of work, affordable living and most of all, thee most kindest, open hearted, friends I’ve ever met. The only things that lead to me exiting stage left after 8 years were the winters and the continuous horizontal plane...err..FLAT!
Fabulous
Been to Fort Mac, huge operations! But the sad part is the tailing ponds left to rot forever...
Sorry partner but you had better find some better information. Pit 86 was recovered and return to nature in 2012.
♥.♥
Thanks...
Kept the rest of canada going for decades.Was called the capital of newfoundland.
We were visiting St Johns 2 years ago and many of the cars had Alberta plates !
Lots of them working in the BC mining industry also .
Extraction plant @30 min. I worked there after the 1987 fire
And then along came Ralph Klein and broke open the piggy bank and spent it all and now the goose can't lay as many golden eggs.....
This is good stuff
Worked there for 12 years
Want a reward?
@@mikecheques3833 don’t need another one the pay was fine just a point my lost little friend hopefully your life gets much better
Alberta has shared over $600 billion to our fellow Canadians, not including our brothers and sisters from other parts of the country that found a high paying job from places that don't have employment. You're welcome!
Cool video. Glad they went over the extraction process. So, they. just put the sand.back where it came from? Wouldn’t it be full of chemicals from the separation process?
No it's all separated
Wow . Amazing how much activity was done and now should be mothballed like other pollutants .. a bye gone era.. great nostalgia .
Look what's been stolen from us. Such better times.
June 2023 👍👍🇨🇦
"In any system of energy, Control is what consumes energy the most.
Time taken in stocking energy to build an energy system, adding to it the time taken in building the system will always be longer than the entire useful lifetime of the system.
No energy store holds enough energy to extract an amount of energy equal to the total energy it stores.
No system of energy can deliver sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it.
This universal truth applies to all systems.
Energy, like time, flows from past to future" (2017).
How on earth did they build a pipeline with no reflective vests or hard hats?
The horror
Cleaning up the world's biggest natural oil spill.
I want that scale model for my model train layout !
Whatever your believes, engineers and scientists can tackle any problems and will solve those to come like global warming.... Loved my time there but is it ever cold....
Those were the days when men where in charge. Their magnificent machines were of secondary importance - their wives came first.
Pew was ahead of his time
Humans can conquer just about anything…..except himself
And so the politics of Sand oil started before everyone of us were born and continues even today !
Yeah this was understand when that big digger was 50ft from the plant.
Tar sand? Watch out for that well!
Ernest Manning, the last politician in Alberta who actually earned their salary.
Peter Lougheed.
@@nightshift5201 Ernest Manning, the last politician in Alberta who actually earned their salary.
This is how Suncore came into being.
Now if only our brainless President would reverse his stance on the pipeline going south from Canada it would lower the price of gasoline and several other petroleum based products.
I'm fine with the toxic sludge remaining in Canada where it belongs. No one stopped Canada from piping it west so it could be sold to the Chinese directly.
@@texaswunderkind have to kind of agree. Lots of backlash when they wanted to pipe it to BC. It failed to get built there too.Einstein in the above comment doesn’t realize most was destined for offshore consumption.
@@texaswunderkind You do realize the "toxic sludge" gets put in to train cars and sent to the US anyway?
Rail shipment is much less efficient and more likely to leak.
37:22 and I now declare this here oil all the money that's going to help Quebec survive.
fabulous? yeah right
Bechtel in to everything.
what - they're referring to this deposit as the Athabasca tar sands ??
And out comes $500/gallon gas!
Вобщем город Эдмонтон, это как для росийских вахтовиков город Нижневартовск - пепевалочный пункт для вахтовиков
How do they separate the sand from the oil ? Think I need to head to google
They explain that around 29:30
If you trust Google your a moron.
Hot water steam and caustic
@@number62 ..if you think that the answer can’t be found there...YOU!....are a moron
@@number62 Be kind now - no need to be so gruff...
Now for this company to tie getting the fluid out of the sand and not waste half the product by burning this fluid to get it out with molten salt thorium reactors and to chemo
What?
your title is wrong. It should be Athabaska oil sands.
Apparently the world believes the spelling is correct. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_oil_sands
It was like being in prison for a lifetime working in the Muskeg , the the frozen Hell North of shity Fort Mac........
The stories I've heard about the oil sands & Macky is just astounding lol! Some wild people went to work up in those areas...
Railcars CN Canada national.
Irving🤔