By Dr. Johan F. Dormaar Robert A. (Rob) Watt

Have you ever heard about Oil City, Alberta?

Oil City is actually two sites located in the Cameron Creek valley of Waterton Lakes National Park. The K’tunaxa Nation, who used the South Kootenay Pass, were long aware of the “stinking waters”—thick, sticky, dark, strange-smelling seepages oozing from the banks of what is now called Cameron Creek. Discover the history of Oil City and all of the events that took place here from the original discovery of seepages around 1886 to the dedication of the First Oil Well National Historic Site in 1968.