Alberta’s history is based on cattle, crops, railways, oil and gas. When gas and then oil were discovered in the region, it began an onslaught of exploration and exploitation that continues today. Read about the winners, the losers, those who got rich and those who went broke. There are gentlemen and scoundrels, adventurers, scientists, government squabbles, multinational corporations and small businesses, booms and busts, and victims:

• Early explorer Peter Pond, the first European to see the oilsands, was implicated in the deaths of two men
• A dispute between William Herron and Archibald Dingman sparked the province’s first oil rush at Turner Valley, and the two fought each other for control
• Federal investigator Sidney Ells and provincial scientist Karl Clark were rivals in the race to unlock the secret of separating oil from the Athabasca sands
• Leduc No. 1, the famous Imperial Oil strike of 1947, put Alberta in the energy big leagues
• Eric Harvie became one of the wealthiest men in Canada on oil leases then spent vast sums collecting artifacts that provided the initial inventory for the Glenbow Museum
• Jack Gallagher built Dome Petroleum into one of Canada’s most important firms only to see it fall apart and be sold off
• Wiebo Ludwig fought oil development near his Peace River
• The National Task Force on Oil Sands led to a blitz of development in the Athabasca oilsands worth an estimated $100 billion.

And more….