The image of the roughneck of the Turner Valley era as an experienced, permanent worker in a relatively stable geographic environment was dramatically altered as the industry moved far afield in the post-war era. Crews generally became younger and many were seasonal labourers such as students and farmers. Under the experienced eye of the rig boss or "tool push," they worked six weeks on and two weeks off. They were variously attracted by the high hourly wages, good food and lodging in the modern mobile trailer camps, not to speak of the physical challenge and "roughneck" mystique promoted by the industry. This romantic description of the roughneck's work on the frontier appeared in the Imperial Oil Re view in 1964:
But for men who don't fancy white collars, time-clocks, car pools or office broadloom, it is one of the good jobs. And fortunately there are such men because no machine can climb hand over hand into the towers to manoeuver a length of 90-foot steel pipe over the drill hole. As yet no computer can slap a pair of 1200-pound tongs around a drill stem or spin two lengths of threaded pipe together and step back, cat-footed, on a slippery rig floor while the motors growl and the pipe thrusts into the earth.
This Royalite drilling crew, being liberally spattered with drilling mud, is changing the casing by applying the tongs to the pipe.
Courtesy: Provincial Archives of Alberta, H. Pollard Collection (P 1639)
