Preface

There are few greater wonders than the power of words to capture and captivate a reader’s imagination. Words can enlighten, entertain, and educate, and more than 200,000 words have been beautifully woven together by Earle Gray in the rich and colourful story of Canada’s petroleum sector. They found their way from difficult-to-arrange interviews and painstaking research into Mr. Gray’s storytelling talents and in turn, into the manuscript that became this book. The ways and means in which Earle sought out his stories and sources was not unlike the epic quests for the very hydrocarbons whose history he charts. In that sense, this book is about a journey of exploration and discovery and the words and subjects selected by Earle tell a compelling, complex, and colourful story that every Canadian should read.

For JuneWarren Publishing, the privilege of bringing to readers both within and outside of the oilpatch this important addition to the rich body of Canadian history leaves us both honoured and humbled. We have been blessed with the opportunity to contribute in our own small way to recording an important aspect of one of Canada’s greatest industries in a fashion that makes its complexity and sophistication accessible to a broad range of readers. As Canada’s largest energy publisher, we take seriously our obligation to keep the industry’s well-being front and centre.

There will be people who read this book and recall vividly the experiences and events it relates, for they lived and created them; others, of a younger, newer generation will marvel at the skills, talents, and tenacities of the men and women whose perseverance built our industry. From their reading, they too will develop a sense of both what the future holds—and what it needs to continue the oilpatch’s successful evolution.

The great 19th-century editor of the influential newspaper Harper’s Weekly, George William Curtis, once remarked that “While we read history, we make history.” There resonates an important truth to his words nearly 150 years later. We hope the thousands and thousands of readers who journey through these pages find within them their own sense of the petroleum industry’s incredible history, and its impact on Canada’s evolution. They too will realize they are simultaneously charting their own contributions to one of the world’s greatest stories.

Colin Eicher
Chief Executive Officer
JuneWarren Publishing