Oilsands pioneers recall big promise, big problems with industry’s first mine
FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. — The launch of Canada’s first large-scale oilsands mine began on a cold and overcast September day in 1967, with speeches to a crowd of about 600 VIPs predicting incredible wealth would be unlocked from the massive energy resource in northern Alberta.
But veteran employees of the Great Canadian Oil Sands project say that early promise was soon met with harsh challenges, including emergency shutdowns, labour strife, cold weather and biting insects.
George Skulsky, 78, proudly remembers showing U.S. industrialist J. Howard Pew, chairman of project owner Sun Oil and a member of one of America’s richest families, which buttons to push to start process lines at the mine’s official opening.
Skulsky was also on duty during a night shift in the project’s extraction plant a few months later, when the powerhouse boilers all failed and the lights went out, triggering a months-long shutdown.