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Story

Humphrey Tracy

Contributor

Marion Doyle

Map Location

Latitude: 10° 5' 18.852" N
Longitude: 61° 39' 55.75" W

Date

1878-1940
  • Two International Drillers wearing white and eight labourers in work clothes standing in front of a rig. There is a pile of casing in front of them. Humphrey Tracy and his rig
  • A photo of a mound of earth covered in flowers in a cemetery. There are tombstones in the background. Humphrey Tracy's grave in Trinidad, where he died of malaria in 1940.
  • Mrs. Humphrey Tracy with her three children. She is sitting on a large chair with her youngest child and the other two children are standing. They are all wearing white. Mary Tracy with her children, Verne, Bell and Jess in 1910.
  • A photo of four International Drillers standing and six sitting in chairs on a boat deck. They are wearing dark suits and ties. They are standing in front of a wall that has five columns of rivets in it. On board the Empress of Asia, March 21, 1917. Humphrey Tracy is sitting, fourth from the left.
  • A bungalow set into a hill with a light roof and large latticework surrounding it. Three people stand on the stairs and another stands a few feet away. Humphrey Tracy's bungalow in Burma (modern Myanmar). The lattice work is to keep the tigers out.
  • Five people surrounded by barrels and shoveling cement to build up a well. Cementing a well in Yenangyaung, Myanmar. Tracy is standing by the barrels. Dr. Bleech, the head of the company, is in the left hand corner.
  • A photo of a covered oil rig. There is a group of men in front of it. There is casing in the foreground and trees in the background. Kyetyobin Well #1 of Union Oil, 40 miles from Salin, Burma (modern Myanmar)
  • A photo of a group of men wearing work clothes stand at the base of a metal oil rig. There is a piece of cloth covering the left side of the rig. The ground is bare and there are hills in the background. Oil rig and crew in Persia (modern Iran)
  • A photo of a camel with two humps being led by a boy and pulling an oil boiler on a cart with two wheels. There are buildings and a hill in the background. A camel pulls a boiler to the location of an oil rig in Persia (modern Iran).
  • A photo of three patterned rugs on the ground.Five International Drillers are sitting in chairs and two are sitting on the ground. There are bushes behind them. Humphrey Tracy and others sitting on his Persian rugs at their camp in Persia (modern Iran)
  • Six International Drillers wearing white inside a temple with five young boys and a monk. There are three pillars running from the floor to the ceiling and three statues in the background. Group of international drillers at a temple in Burma (modern Myanmar). Tracy is fourth from the left.
  • A photo of a thatched bungalow. There is a group of people outside the house, and two of the men are in uniform. There are trees on either side of the photo. A bungalow in Rangoon, Burma (modern Yangon, Myanmar).

The contracts signed by the International Drillers were generally for a period of three years. The company employing the drillers would pay for their travel, except in the event of the cancellation of a contract in which case, the drillers were responsible for paying their own way home. When travel to the international oil fields usually took months, it's no wonder that these men were not keen to come home early. In some cases, the feeling of adventure and discovery, as well as the excellent pay offered by work abroad continued to draw the men away from their families at home in Canada.

Humphrey Tracy spent 32 years drilling in the oil fields of Burma (modern Myanmar), Sumatra, Persia (modern Persia) and South America, and had many interesting stories to tell of his time abroad. On one occasion while trekking through the Burmese jungle, he and his crew encountered a snake slung between two trees. The snake was so long that neither the head nor the tail could be seen. Tracy's immediate reaction was to pull out his gun and attempt to shoot the snake but he was persuaded against it when his crew of local men ran away in haste. They knew if that if Tracy shot the snake, it would thrash hard enough to pull down the surrounding trees.

Tracy brought mementoes home to his wife and children who lived in Petrolia, including Persian rugs and 20-foot snake skins. He even brought home four elephant feet, but three of the feet rotted during his travel home. The remaining foot was hollowed out and used as a planter. Unfortunately, all of his time spent abroad estranged Tracy from his family and his choice to continue working in the international fields put a strain on his relationship with his wife. In 1931, Mary Tracy filed for divorce from her husband and Humphrey Tracy lived out the rest of his days in Trinidad where he died of malaria in 1940.

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