Fonds F2107 - Alfred von Hammerstein fonds

Count Alfred von Hammerstein was born in Germany, and as a young man embarked on a military career. In 1895 he gave this up and moved to New York, USA. In 1898 he headed for the Klondike gold rush via Edmonton, Alberta, but turned back before reaching the Yukon. Instead, he joined another adventurer and travelled down the Athabasca River to Fort McMurray. Here he first encountered the Athabasca Tar Sands, which he later attempted to develop. Between 1898 and 1907 he ran German language newspapers in Edmonton and Winnipeg, and learned about the oil industry in Oklahoma. In 1907 he took a drilling crew to Fort McMurray and spent the next five summers drilling. He was unsuccessful in finding a way to extract the oil from the sand. In about 1912 he married Dorothy Clarke, 1877-1964, of England. He died in St. Albert, Alberta.