Hard oil! How the Canadians discovered oil

The story of the early Canadian oil industry from its start in Petrolia and Oil Springs, Ontario, from about 1850 to 1900. Dramatic re-creations blend with archival photographs and diaries to tell the rags-to-riches-to-rags tale of a boom that went bust. Voice and narration by Max Ferguson, Allan McFee.

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Collection

In ACMI's collection

Credits

director

Nicholas Kendall

co-producer

Brian Arnott

David Springbett

Don Hopkins

production company

ONF | NFB

Duration

00:28:30:00

Production places

Canada

Production dates

1980

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

311876

Language

English

Subject categories

Agriculture, Business, Commerce & Industry → Industries - Canada

Agriculture, Business, Commerce & Industry → Oil industry - History

Anthropology, Ethnology, Exploration & Travel → Ontario

Documentary

Documentary → Docudrama

Documentary → Documentary films - Canada

Historical films

History → Canada - History

History → Historical re-enactments

History → History

Places → Ontario

Short films

Short films → Short films - Canada

Sound/audio

Sound

Colour

Holdings

16mm film; Access Print (Section 1)

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/89200--hard-oil-how-the-canadians-discovered-oil/ |title=Hard oil! How the Canadians discovered oil |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=18 June 2025 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}

Canada, 1980

Please note