Norman Wells bids farewell to oil production

After 106 years, Norman Wells is no longer an oil town.

Imperial Oil ended production in Norman Wells on August 14 after announcing earlier this year that it intended to wind down operations due to declining production, accelerated by the shutdown of part of the site.

To mark the milestone, the company held a commemorative event in the Sahtu community on Saturday.

“As the longest-standing producing asset in Imperial Oil, Norman Wells has proudly supplied critical energy resources to the region and beyond for generations,” said Josh Hutchings, operations manager of Imperial Oil in Norman Wells.

“The achievement has not come easy. It’s the result of resilience, dedication and teamwork demonstrated through decades of challenges, change and success.”

Community members gathered at the arena to listen to speeches and enjoy food alongside performances by Sahtu Dene drummers and members of the Kole Crook Fiddle Association.

The event featured commemorative keychains shaped like a drop of oil alongside jigging, fish scale art and tufting demonstrations.

Imperial Oil’s legacy is prominent in Norman Wells.

The town is self-described as the first NWT community “established solely as a result of non-renewable resource development.”

Esso-branded vehicles from yesteryear and mining equipment are on display outside the town museum. The company hosted the inaugural Sahtu Mackenzie River Classic hockey tournament on the frozen river in March.

Imperial Oil said it provided around $6 million in property taxes annually to the town, accounting for approximately 70 percent of the municipality’s budget.

Long before the company arrived and began drilling, Dene people were aware of oil seepages in the area – a place known as Tłegǫ́hłı̨, meaning “where the oil is,” in Dene Kǝdǝ́.

Imperial Oil first drilled wells in the area in 1919 and struck oil at its Discovery well in August the following year, beginning commercial production.

The company’s Norman Wells site has since grown into a large oil and natural gas production and processing facility, including several natural and manmade islands in the river.

Heidi Hodgson, vice president of the Tłegǫ́hłı̨ Got’įnę Government, said on Saturday that Imperial Oil’s legacy in the Sahtu is one not only of prosperity but also exclusion and hardship. Through much of the company’s history in the region, she said, Indigenous workers faced unequal conditions and restrictions.

“We can honour the opportunities Imperial Oil brought while also being truthful about the times Sahtu Dene and Métis people were treated differently on their own traditional lands,” she said. “Both truths can coexist and acknowledging them is the only way to tell this story honestly.”

Hodgson called on the company to ensure adequate, lasting investments for Sahtu Dene.

“For more than one century the wealth beneath our feet helped build one of Canada’s greatest industrial success stories,” she said. “It is neither unreasonable nor unfair to expect that some measure of that prosperity should remain with the people whose traditional lands made it possible.”

Norman Wells Mayor Frank Pope said he viewed Saturday’s event as “a marker of a crossroads” for the community.

“The way I see our economy right now, I think we have a few difficult times ahead of us and together we will overcome them,” he said, adding the town will use what it has learned from Imperial Oil in planning for the future.

Now that production has ended, Hutchings said deactivation and decommissioning of Imperial Oil’s facility in Norman Wells has begun. He said around 50 people currently work at the site, a mix of workers who live in the community and those who work on rotation.

Once decommissioning is complete, Hutchings said, the site will enter a care and maintenance period. He described that as a transitional phase while the company goes through the regulatory process and finalizes a closure plan before remediation will begin.

He said a “core” part of the closure planning process is engagement with local communities and described reclamation as “a very large opportunity” for the region.

“We’ve thoroughly enjoyed being neighbours with Norman Wells and the Sahtu,” he said, “and we’re very much looking forward to many more years of that.”