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Fuelling our economy
Imagine that you’re at the beach, spade in hand, digging a moat for your sandcastle. You dig and dig, then dig some more, but instead of finding water, you hit gas! Sound a bit strange to you? Well, a similar event, but on a much grander scale, took place in 1883, when an attempt to dig a water well led to the first major discovery of natural gas in Canada. While stores of natural gas turned out to be plentiful, transporting it to where it had to go wasn’t so easy. The answer? Constructing Canada’s first transcontinental pipeline.
The TransCanada pipeline is one of two major landmark events featured in a set of domestic rate (52¢) stamps issued by Canada Post on May 2, 2008, to celebrate the oil and gas industry. The Industries: Oil and Gas stamp issue also pays tribute to the drilling of Canada’s first commercial oil well by James Miller Williams in 1858 in Oil Springs, Ontario—home of the Oil Museum of Canada.
Today, Canada has a thriving oil and gas industry and has the distinction of being the ninth-largest producer of crude oil and the third-largest producer of natural gas in the world.
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