February 2001
by Barry Stagg
Garden Hill is a new oilfield onshore on the Port au Port Peninsula. The operative word is onshore as in on dry land. On Boxing Day the developers, Canadian Imperial Venture Corporation filed a brand new development plan which raised the estimated reserves of oil on site to a range of 70 million to 100 million barrels from an earlier projection of 8 million to 13 million barrels. The Newfoundland Department of Mines and Energy received the plan and the filing was deservedly the main business story in the St. John's Evening Telegram on December 29.
Garden Hill is parked ruggedly on the rocky terrain running between Cape St. George and Mainland near the new highway joining the north and south of the Port au Port Peninsula. Flaring hydrocarbons mark the spot where the economy of this hardscrabble region may burst into prosperity of the sort known previously only to Westerners of the Alberta variety. It will be no more than their due if this oil business turns the residents of this area into a new class of Newfoundland oilboomers.
There is a sobering aspect to this new development of oil fields on Newfoundland soil. It will be 19 years ago this February 15 when the Ocean Ranger drilling rig foundered and went down with all hands lost. The Grand Banks claimed the lives of 84 that awful night. The history of the oil business in Newfoundland should be and must be permanently associated with this tragedy that stands side by side with the triumphant production of the Hibernia and Terra Nova projects.
With the onset of the Cape St. George oilfield, I am reminded that the Ocean Ranger tragedy claimed lives from all over the province as well as many from outside Newfoundland. The Green family of Lourdes lost Cyril. The Caines family of Stephenville lost Greg. These are two from the 84 who perished in the service of the Newfoundland oil industry. We do well to remember them and the tragic end to the Ocean Ranger's pursuit of oil on the Grand Banks.
One of the best books on the aftermath of the Ocean Ranger tragedy is "But Who Cares Now?" by Professor Doug House of Memorial University. This collection of stories published in 1987, is about the survivors, the families left to mourn and attempt the unachievable task of rationalizing this horrible thing. The book was one of the more worthy products of the Ocean Ranger Foundation and remains both a sobering and inspiring testament today. It should be required reading for all who pursue oil in Newfoundland.
Optimism for the success of the Garden Hill project will ultimately overcome all obstacles in the service of the pressing need to make a profitable business for Newfoundlanders out of the less than hospitable hills of the Port au Port Peninsula. The people of Newfoundland have sent seamen away to wars and to tempestuous, dangerous waters. Newfoundland has given the lives of its people in the service of country and of industry. This will go on in the way that life itself must go on. Hope springs anew that this cluster of drilling equipment and oil tanks can lift the every day prosperity of Newfoundland in some meaningful and permanent way.
On February 15, we remember and honour the lost souls of the Ocean Ranger and then life must go on. That is the stern stuff of which Newfoundland and Newfoundlanders are made.