Rivers of Oil: The Founding of North America's Petroleum Industry

Gerald J. Stortz is an assistant professor of history at the University
of St. Jerome’s College in Waterloo.

Hope Morritt is a writer of considerable experience—an author of
fiction, a poet, a playwright, a journalist, and a popular historian.
While she was raised in Alberta, she now lives in Ontario’s oil patch,
the subject of Rivers of Oil. Those who are used to the dry, technical
accounts that often pass for industrial history are in for a pleasant
surprise. Morritt does not ignore the technical aspect, but she has the
good sense to intersperse it with the human side of this story. Most
readers will be surprised at the extent of the Ontario fields (some of
which still operate on a local level) in terms of production, the
development of technology, and the export of both knowledge and
personnel to the far-flung corners of the world.

Morritt’s superb storytelling abilities are displayed in her
depiction of larger-than-life figures such as Jacob Englehart, who is
famed not only for his oil endeavors but for overseeing the construction
of what is now the Ontario Northland Railway; the con men who
“salted” wells for the benefit of unwary buyers; and prostitutes
like “Bootjack Annie.” The author turns social history into a good
read. The saddest part of the book deals with the decline of both the
industry and many of the communities whose survival depended on it.

The editors are to be congratulated for their choice of illustrations
and photographs, and especially for their elucidation of technical
matters.