Early Petroleum Uses in Canada

First Nations have long known about the oil resources of Canada which frequently bubbled up through streams, or oozed to form large surface deposits of thick, heavy crude oil called bitumen*. These were scooped up in baskets or gathered by spreading a blanket over the water to which the oil would stick. The settlers of Lambton County who drilled the first oil wells found evidence that the First Nations had also dug for the resource. Early accounts of excavating through the clay along Black Creek describe finding an older well shaft which contained deer antlers which were possibly used as digging tools, and cribbing suggesting that First Nations had been digging wells in order to collect the oil beneath the surface deposits. Although these pits have not been identified locally in modern times, archaeological excavations conducted in Pennsylvania on similar pits have shown that First Nations were collecting subsurface oil from as early at the 15th century.

From the journals of explorers like Alexander Mackenzie and missionaries such as Joncaire, we know that First Nations used bitumen to waterproof their canoes and for medicinal purposes, applying it to surface wounds and bruises. Due to the frequency with which the surface deposits would ignite from lightning strike, the First Nations were also surely conscious of the flammable properties of oil and may have used it for lighting fluid, but this appears not to have been its primary purpose.

First Nations used bitumen to waterproof their canoes and for medicinal purposes, applying it to surface wounds and bruises. Image: Oil Museum of Canada

*Bitumen is a sticky, black semi-solid version of petroleum, which naturally seeps from the ground in and around the Oil Springs area. Locally they are referred to as "Gum Beds"