Steamer and Barge at International Bitumen Refinery, Bitumount, 1936.
In the early 1920s, Robert C. Fitzsimmons, a Maritimer who had moved west in 1902, became interested in the potential of the Alberta tar sands. Forming the International Bitumen company in 1927, he developed his lease on the east bank of the Athabaska River, 65 kilometres north of Fort McMurray. By 1929, about 38 cubic metres of heavy bitumen had been produced by the hot water and skimming process. Some of this oozy tar was sold for waterproofing roofs in Edmonton and some was used for paving the Banff-Windermere highway.
Barrels of bitumen were transported by barge along the Athabaska River to Fort McMurray and Waterways where it was transferred to Northern Alberta Railway flatcars for the southward journey to the Dunvegan Yards in north Edmonton.
Though plagued by lack of development capital during the depression, Fitzsimmons persisted and even expanded his operation at Bitumount in 1936 to produce a maximum 55 cubic metres per day and added a distillation unit to his plant. By 1938, the plant only produced 711 cubic metres of asphalt and 316 cubic metres of fuel oil. In 1942, it was taken over by Lloyd R. Champion, who reorganized the company's finances and renamed it Oil Sands Limited; in 1944 he received support from the Alberta Government for building a plant with the capacity of 450 tonnes per day. With the Leduc discovery after the war, however, the Oil Sands project lapsed into disuse and obscurity by 1950.
