The oil patch is full of colourful characters. Calgary recently lost one of them: James Carl (J.C.) Anderson, a founding baron of the industry. Born in Nebraska and schooled in Texas, J.C. packed all the clichés along with him when he arrived in Alberta in the 1960s—the big heart, the big boots and the big dreams. He started Anderson Exploration with only $400,000 in cash and sold it for a whopping US$4.6 billion in 2001.
Don Gillmor in his latest novel, Long Change, could have modelled his protagonist, Ritt Devlin, on J.C. Anderson, but Devlin’s story is instead the poor cousin’s tale. J.C. enjoyed a devoted family, a long career of successful business enterprises and numerous philanthropic endeavours. No, Gillmor’s Devlin rides the boom and bust patterns of the oil and gas industry in his personal life as well as in his business life, with the bust times outnumbering the boom. In a year when Alberta is experiencing a bust year of suspended projects and...
Diane Guichon is a poet and instructor at the University of Lethbridge. Her first book of poetry, Birch Split Bark, won Calgary’s W.O. Mitchell book prize. She also spent ten years working for Imperial Oil in contract administration for exploration and development services.
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