Arctic & Northern History

The Whitehorse Star - Thursday, January 21, 1960

by Helen Bogart

    It's dog team country, but the big diesels are roaring through into the Arctic Yukon where once only lone prostectors or hardy trappers would dare travel.

    Beyond the Arctic Circle they're hauling equipment and supplies North in a costly gamble for oil.

    The job of setting up an oil rig 100 miles inside the Arctic Circle is bound to be unusual. When the Amerada-Ohio oil project at Bell River got under way, the route to the wellsite itself was the first hurdle.

    Proctor Construction carved a bush road in the wilderness in the record time of 89 days. Hardly had the last bulldozer shoved the final jackpine aside when the first of a long line of huge diesel trucks began to snort into action.

    The job of moving the equipment into the Arctic was accomplished by several different companies, who had to dovetail their freight hauls to ensure all equipment arrived on schedule.

    First the oil derrick or "rig" had to be moved. Kicking this off was a 1,470-mile haul from the Virginia Hills area of Alberta, 100 miles north of Edmonton, to Elsa where the staging area in the Yukon was set up.

Freightways Haul

    Northern Freightways took care of this job, moving 28 loads in all. There were 13 trucks in the first convoy, which reached Elsa December 30, and 15 in the second, which arrived January 16. Two companies joined forces for the rig-moving project. A Dawson Creek firm, Bruce Rome Ltd., who specialize in moving oil rigs, loaded the oil drilling equipment onto Northern Freightways trucks in Alberta, later unloading it at Elsa for onward transport.

    To supervise Freightways' part of the job, R.A. "Bob" Seddon, supervisor of tanker and contract division in Dawson Creek, spent a couple of weeks in the Yukon.

    During a visit to Whitehorse this week, Mr. Seddon detailed some of the problems of moving oil rigs. He emplained that Northern Freightways actually worked under Bruce Rome, Ltd. on the project. Rome's equipment includes enormous winch-trucks, capable of lifting up to 20 tons. There are three of these on the Amerada haul. They rumbled long from Alberta to the Yukon in the same convoy as the Northern Freightways vehicles.

Truck Pushes

    In charge of the operation for Bruce Rome was Gordie Stevenson, while his counterpart in Northern Freightways was Hugh Forsyth. These men are known to the trade as "truck pushes" and they might be referred to as trail bosses. Their vehicles carry spare parts and the two men kept an eye on schedules and geuerally supervised the move.

    On January 16 the first convoy of eight Northern Freightways trucks, three Bruce Rome winch-trucks and one Loiselle Transport truck left Elsa for the drill site, 370 miles away. All these vehicles are toting drilling equipment. In another convoy the White Pass trucks, hauling such drilling supplies as mud, casings and cement. These supplies came from Vancouver via the White Pass ship and railroad. White Pass are also supplying the fuel for the Amerada project.

Right From Texas

    Another part of the drilling equipment came all the way from Texas. A Texan trucking outfit, Hill and Hill, sent two flat bed trailers loaded with drill pipe from Houston, Texas, to Elsa.

    Impressive enough when seen loaded on trucks, the drill rig set up is even more eye popping. Towering 130 feet into the air in a skeleton of iron, the structure rests on two 20-ton substructures, which in turn rest on pilings. The substructures measure 40 feet long, 10 feet wide and 8 feet high and are made of solid iron.

    They are big, not so much for the drilling as for the strength required when pulling out the thousands of feet of drill steel when drilling stops.

    Transporting these huge hunks of iron along the highway presented a few problems. For one thing, the loaded trucks barley squeaked under some of the bridges with inches to spare. Then around some highway curves, the tremendous weight of the load lifted rear wheels of the trucks a foot off the ground. One driver watched this phenomenon in his rear-view mirror with worried awe, but as his vehicle came out of the curve the wheels came back to solid earth.

    Added to the tons of derrick and substructure, Northern Freightways and Bruce Rome trucks also hauled the rest of the oil "rig." This included the draw works, a 22-ton winch that pulls the drill pipe up and down as well as the three 9,000 pound diesel engines set up to run the winch.

U.S. Drill Firm

    When the 14,000 feet of drill pipe are finally in place at the Bell River site, Parker Drilling Company will get to work. An American firm, they are doing the actual drilling for Amerada. It is expeeted everything will be set up by the early part of next month.

    Before that, many long hours will be spent hauling equipment from Elsa to the well site, estimated at 175 hours round trip with one driver to each truck.

    So far, the drivers have slept in "Mack Hotel," if they are Loiselle or Northern Freightways men, or in "Kenworth Hotel" if they work for White Pass. However, Proctor Construction have under way construction of two "skid shacks" or plywood cabooses at Mile 90 and Mile 213 on the route. These portable quarters will have room for about a dozen men to sleep as well as a cookery. There are also camps set up at the staging area out of Elsa and at the wellsite.

    No strangers to this kind of a job, personnel of Northern Freightways and Bruce Rome are old hands at driving over a bush road. Last year, Freightways moved a school to Fort Simpson and the two firms have worked on dozens of oil-rig moving jobs around Fort Nelson and Fort St. John.

Gravel Route

    A "bush road," one driver explained, means that a bulldozer has been through to push all the trees out of the way. If possible, the route follows jack pines, because the tough, scrubby trees always grow in gravel.

    This month, the drivers now working between Elsa and Bell River will continue moving freight. Besides White Pass trucks, there are eight Northern Freightways, one Loiselle and three Bruce Rome vehicles in the area. The men will stay there until break-up, it is planned.