In oil exploration there have always been periods of intensive activity or booms followed by periods of moderate and steady progress. In western Canada the first "boom" took place at Pincher Creek in 1891 in the area where now there is a great gas-distillate field at a depth of 12,000 feet, but where in the early days excitement arose from the discovery of oil seepages on Cameron Brook in Waterloo Park, in beds now known to be pre-Cambrian and lying above the great Lewis overthrust. Gas was discovered in Medicine Hat in 1901 and this was described by Kipling as that "town having all hell for a basement." From these beginnings progress was steady but slow, the main boom events being recorded by Turner Valley in 1913-14, 1924, and 1936 and the Leduc discovery in 1947 leadin to present developments.

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