Last week we took a trip to Lambton County to visit the Oil Museum of Canada. I grew up and currently live only 1.5 hours away from Oil Springs, but I had honestly never heard of it before. Before going on the trip, I was a bit skeptical whether I would enjoy the museum as I don't have much of an interest in oil, but I was pleasantly surprised by the Museum and the personal tour we received of the Fairbank Oil Field property. The morale of the story is to never judge a museum by its cover.. or subject matter.
After watching a short introductory video about the history of oil in Canada, we were shown the downstairs of the museum where the collection is stored. This is always my favorite part of a museum as I previously worked in collections management and know that all the coolest artifacts are stored in collections. It was down here where I realized the diversity of artifacts that the Oil Museum had. After
the discovery of Canada's first oil well in Oil Springs, several men in the late 19th to early 20th century started to travel the world to teach others about drilling for oil. These men went to 86 different countries and brought souvenirs home with them after their travels. There were jewelry, textiles, instruments, figurines, photographs, natural items and much more from all over the world- which was very unexpected to see in a museum that I assumed was all about white men finding oil. We headed upstairs after seeing the collections storage and wondered through the exhibit space in the main building and outside in the smaller buildings. The main building had a great selection of interactive exhibits, including a Virtual Reality station which I tried out for the first time. It was also great to see the variety of topics that the museum covered such as the diversity of workers and of course the environmental concerns that comes with the history of oil.
Next we were taken for a tour of Fairbank Oil Fields by Charlie Fairbank and his wife Pat McGee. I really enjoyed how personal the tour was as Charlie Fairbank's great grandfather, John Henry Fairbank, was one of the major oil producers in Oil Springs and eventually in the town over, Petrolia. John Henry was also the creator of the jerker line system which was adopted throughout the area and is still used today for producing oil on the Fairbank property. Charlie and Pat were extremely knowledgeable of their family history, the history of oil in the area and of all the oil producing equipment that wraps around their property. Coming from a small town myself, it was great to see two people who were very passionate about their local history and who work very hard to keep their family's story alive.
The tour we received by Pat and Charlie represents how important the atmosphere of a historical site or museum contributes to your learning experience. The sound of the oil jerker along the Fairbank property, the smell of the oil, and the rural south-western Ontario landscape all contributed to a great experience that day and made me feel more in touch with the history of oil. We had discussed in our Digital Public History class the rise of online exhibits and museums, especially during the covid-19 pandemic, but our tour in Oil Springs is a great example of how these in-person experiences simply cannot be replicated in an online setting.
So the next time you're driving through a small community and see a local museum, take a chance on it cause it might pleasantly surprise you...
