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Story

Harry Smith

Map Location

Latitude: 10° 9' 42.88" N
Longitude: 61° 35' 54.28" W

Date

1890-1950
  • Harry Smith dressed in a white suit and panama hat, with one leg up on a bench. Harry Smith in Trinidad
  • A baby ocelot sitting on a rock. There are stones and trees behind it. Ocelot brought home by Harry Smith
  • Harry Smith with a big hat, sitting on a mule. He is wearing white and there are hills in the background. Harry Smith riding "Saloo, my swimming mule" in Colombia, in 1935.
  • A group of seven International Drillers underneath a metal frame. Four are standing and three are kneeling. They are wearing work clothes. Group of International Drillers in Trinidad. Top row: Rudy Rostant, Trinidad; St. Claire, Scotland; Harry Smith, Ontario; Simmons, Alberta. Bottom row: Unknown; Wilson, England; Dick Lauld, South Africa.
  • Harry Smith riding a horse in a stony field, holding a polo stick. There are hills in the background. Harry Smith in Persia (modern Iran)
  • Harry Smith and an unknown man standing in a derrick, next to the drilling bit. Harry Smith (right), possibly in Persia (modern Iran)
  • A small group of people standing at the bottom of an exposed oil rig. There is a man standing in a bucket suspended by lines above them. Drilling rig in Persia (modern Iran)
  • Two men standing in the desert. One is looking at a device, possibly a total station. Taking measurements in the desert.

While many International Drillers brought exotic treasures back to Canada, Harry Smith was the only man to return home with an ocelot. One day while working in the jungles of Venezuela, Smith was attacked by an ocelot (a medium-sized jungle cat). Smith killed the cat in self defense only to discover that it was the mother to a small kitten. He took responsibility for the kitten, named it McGillicuddy and eventually brought it back to Petrolia with him.

McGillicuddy made quite a stir in Petrolia. Smith’s daughter Marion Hicks, later recounted a memory of how the town reacted to the ocelot living in their midst. One day her father took McGillicuddy into the Bell Telephone office to pay a bill. “[The operators] took one look at McGillicuddy and all screamed and jumped up on their stools. My dad was so embarrassed,” said Marion in a 2008 interview. Ultimately McGillicuddy the ocelot had to be given to the Detroit Zoo after he leaped onto Smith’s back, leaving deep claw marks.

In his career as an International Driller, Smith travelled across the world, working in Iran, Spain, Colombia, Western Canada, and Oklahoma. Smith was built to handle the hard work and long days of an International Driller - as a youth he was a well-known local hockey player and also played for the local Dominion rugby team.

But even men as hail as Smith were not immune to the dangers of international drilling. In 1959 while working in Venezuela, he suddenly fell ill. Despite being flown to a hospital in New York, Smith was not able to recover. He died in July of 1959.

 

 

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