Photostory #396: Sub-Arctic Supply Route in Canada's Search for Oil: Along the Walnut Run

Photographers
Ted Grant
Maker
National Film Board of Canada
Release Date
August 10, 1965
Collection
CMCP fonds
Credit Line
Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography fonds, National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives
Main Text
When the high-riding sun of mid-summer casts constant daylight over Canada's northern sprawl, the pace of oil exploration lengthens into seven-league strides for hardy crews in sub-arctic wastes. Despite big-engineering necessary to drill down over two miles in the quest for black gold, the explorers remain mobile. Several weeks of work underway at one site is already planned for repetition at the next site miles away and as new gear arrives other equipment which has finished its part of the job is sent back on returning transport for shipment to the next drill site. Typical of varied equipment required to grind a 12,000-foot-deep hole through the sub strata just a few degrees from the arctic circle are strange and powerful vehicles to bring drillers vital supplies. Nodwell Transporters, used by one Shell Oil exploration crew in the Wrigley area of the Northwest Territories this year, proved their capabilities of moving over ultra-soft terrain with heavy loads, when they plowed through feet-thick soft mud, swamps, streams and brush. Their loads at one time - tons of cracked walnut shells, brought north by Mackenzie River barge. Used as a filler, the walnut shells are part of a thick mix forced down the drill hole under pressure to plug porous gaps in the rock thousands of feet below so that vital cooling-cleaning-circulating drill mud will not be lost and prevent further drilling.