Oil City
HERE Will YOU Spend Eternity ? " challenges an. intimidating three-coloured poster beside one of the main roads leading into Alberta's second largest city. Whatever dissension this searching query may provoke among the citizens of Calgary, they are at least united in the determination to spend the remainder of their mortal lives in what the local Chamber of Commerce rather fulsomely terms " The Sunshine City of the Foothills."
This unanimity is all the more surprising when one considers that a very large proportion of the present population of 130,000 are not native Albertans at all. Immigrants in general, and exiled Glaswegians in particular—of whom there are vast numbers in Calgary—have an unfortunate tendency to com- pare their new abode unfavourably with the Old World serenity of the surroundings they have chosen to vacate. However, no devout Moslem arrived finally at Mecca could be less inclined to criticise than the average settler in Calgary.
Nevertheless, it would be idle to pretend that, for the movie- going European whose concept of the Roaring West has been built around the spectacular exploits of Gary Cooper and John Wayne, the city is not something of a disappointment. Six-shooters are little in evidence, though ten-gallon hats and similar ones of smaller capacity are worn, a trifle sheepishly, by business-men of every age; nor do the saloons echo to the tinkle of broken bottles or the crunch of collapsing furniture; for the excellent reason that there are no saloons. And indeed the' stranger may be pardoned for concluding that, in some respects at least, the city's day-to-day routine is merely a some- what idealised replica of the British way of life. Motorists are almost alarmingly obsequious to pedestrians; the policemen are youthful and courteous, and the Herald prints Nat Gubbins in its Saturday-night edition.
But a closer look at this Old Country façade reveals a number of differences, many of them inspired by the large and pros- perous Evangelical movement whose shadow falls heavily across the city. The public consumption of alcohol is restricted to a number of rather squalid " beer parlours," in which the sexes are rigidly segregated. Persons desiring a drink of any- thing stronger than beer must either belong to a private club or else purchase it by the bottle, having first obtained a licence, from a Governmenv:controlled liquor-store; they are then per- mitted to consume it in the decent seclusion of their houses or, which ii-more usual, in some hotel-bedroom rented for the occasion. The enormous increase in immorality which has been an inevitable consequence of this pious regulation may well be imagined. The cinemas remain firmly closed on Sundays, their function of entertainment devolving on Reviva- list groups who parade through the streets at night singing " The Old Rugged Cross," " It is No Mystery " and any other juke-box hymns suitable to the occasion. It is only fair to add that nobody appears to resent this disharmony.
Fortunately it is not necessary to examine all the benefits conferred on Calgary by the Hot Gospellers and their associ- ates in order to determine why so many newcomers—who are arriving daily in droves from Britain, the U.S.A. and Central Europe—are hailing the city as their personal Shangri-La. One reason is the location. Situated on the eastern fringe of the Rocky Mountains at an altitude of 3,500 feet, Calgary is blessed with invariably dry and invigorating weather; more- over it is a bare hour-and-a-half s drive from the millionaire's playground of Banff and some of the most spectacular scenery in the entire North American continent.
An even more potent reason, the magnet that is drawing people from all over the world—people as diverse as displaced Polish peasants and disgruntled British technicians from Abadan—is oil; for Calgary is the administrative nerve-centre for Canada's booming oil and natural gas industries. Although it is little more than five years since Imperial brought in the well known to history as Leduc No. 1, there are today more than a hundred oil-companies registered in Calgary. The majority of these, as one might expect, are American—staffed by Americans and financed by U.S. investors. Unlike the other booms, this one is fundamentally sound, in that the proven reserves are vastly greater than was originally supposed, and more than sufficient to justify the money that is being poured in. Nevertheless, there are still problems. One of these is the question of marketing what is produced. The Canadian domestic market is so small as to be quickly saturated, and much of it can be supplied more cheaply from American sources. Moreover, the U.S. Federal Government has not taken kindly to the idea of the North-Western States being supplied by pipeline with Canadian natural gas, and few European countries can afford the dollars to buy petroleum products from Canada. The result is that most of the new wells are being capped with concrete plugs and held in reserve until new markets are developed.
A further cause for disquiet consists in the fact that much of the foreign and domestic capital now being invested in Alberta oil is not being used to finance production but is going instead to the highly speculative " leasehold " companies— mainly two- and three-man firms which buy up options in the hope that the " producing " companies can eventually be per- suaded to purchase them at a handsome profit. The story is still told today of the farmer who bought a lease on 160 acres at $1 per acre and three months later sold the lot for $40,000. Inspired by this example, the get-rich-quick lease- hunters have moved in on a large scale, and, even with the minor recession which has followed the collapse of over-valued stocks last spring, a good many of them are already feeling the cold draught of impending bankruptcy.
But Calgary itself is serene and untroubled. -The wheat-crop reached a new high, and investors who have doubts about oil can always put their money in real estate, returns on which are quite as spectacular. Used-car lots, lunch- counters, laundries and Chinese herb-specialists continue to mushroom in the most unlikely places. With a steady influx of settlers and wealth, and with the cheapest power- resources in Canada the citizens of Calgary are con- fident that all is right with the world. For a city that seventy-five years ago was just a log trading-post, they feel they've come a long way. Defects and incon- veniences there undoubtedly are. The city is ugly with the ugliness that goes with unpaved roads, naked slopes and suburbs of cheaply built frame-bungalows springing up on the surround- ing hills. But these, they feel, will be remedied in time; even the cost Of living may eventually subside from its current record peak; and meanwhile the future holds prospects of untold wealth. The Social Credit Provincial Government, a form of experimental Socialism, is proving efficient and honest; only a major world-slump can halt the progress which the people of Calgary feel must come. As long as that is averted, They are in on the ground-floor of magnificent. prosperity and the sky's the limit.
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