PETROLIA, ON: Canada's Victorian Oil Town

[flar]

Petrolia is located near Sarnia. The beginnings of the world oil industry can
be traced here. Oil men from Petrolia pioneered methods for pumping and
processing crude oil and travelled all over the world to discover most of the
world's major oil fields. The oil fields in the Petrolia area are still producing
today and major oil refineries are located nearby in Sarnia's Chemical Valley.

These are typical Southwestern Ontario houses:

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

all i gotta say is wow!!

that place is beautiful and your photo's have captured that!

love this one..

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k28/segaert/petrolia/00209.jpg

 

[Observer Walt]

It's an attractive town in the middle of a fairly prosperous agricultural area, and not far from the refineries and chemical plants of Sarnia. I have family living not far up the road. The downside of life in Petrolia is the number of old oil wells still around, not all of which were properly capped years ago. There is sometimes a sulphur smell in the air, and sometimes inside buildings including at least one of the schools in town.

Good photos, flar. Always enjoyable to see your work!

 

[Tuscani01]

Wow... Impressive for a town I never heard of before.

 

[ShonTron]

Wow! More impressive than I thought. Picture #4 is the old railway station (on a branch of the CN railway from Wyoming), and looks well kept.

 

[Sir Novelty Fashion]

Awesome photos! Can I ask what kind of camera you're using?

 

[smuncky]

Awesome photos! Can I ask what kind of camera you're using?

it's a nikon d50. u can find all the info in the exif.

 

[flar]

Petrolia definitely has a healthy downtown and much richer architecture than most of the towns in extreme SW Ontario. Still, I think a lot of Petrolia's buildings have gotten paint jobs over the last few years because I don't remember it looking this good.

Now imagine what it would look like if there were a Wal-Mart here.

it's a nikon d50. u can find all the info in the exif.

You can even download an extension for Firefox called fxif that will give you exif data with a right click. Usually I delete the exif data in my photos during processing, but for these I didn't.

 

[Zephyr]

Big in its way (judging by a few homes and public buildings), bold to a fault (note the statement made below) and charmingly colourful - Petrolia apparently had a rip-roaring past, in which many of its buildings have managed to survive the fate of the wrecking ball and perhaps become a tourist destination of sorts. I am half-expecting an Edna Ferber type novel in the offing.

I join the chorus in thanking flar for these photos.

I’d like to address a phone message I received from a citizen who took issue with my calling Petrolia “The Best town on Earth.” Look, we may not be the “Perfect Town on Earth” but we certainly live in the best Town on earth. ...

Sure, like all communities, we have kvetchers, curmudgeons (I count myself among them), critics and complainers, but they serve to remind us that there is a great deal of work to be done. However, I have been constantly reminded in the past year that we also have an inordinate number of people in this town who are amazing neighbours; creative and enthusiastic people willing to volunteer and who contribute in all kinds of ways to make certain that this continues to be THE BEST TOWN ON EARTH!

Pictures and Quote are from the official Petrolia website. CLICK HERE to access.

 

[smuncky]

Petrolia definitely has a healthy downtown and much richer architecture than most of the towns in extreme SW Ontario. Still, I think a lot of Petrolia's buildings have gotten paint jobs over the last few years because I don't remember it looking this good.

Now imagine what it would look like if there were a Wal-Mart here.



You can even download an extension for Firefox called fxif that will give you exif data with a right click. Usually I delete the exif data in my photos during processing, but for these I didn't.

cool, but im an IE user

may i ask why you delete the exif info?

 

[flar]

cool, but im an IE user

may i ask why you delete the exif info?

When I save images there are options for optimizing jpegs, one of them is whether to save exif data. Sometimes it's unchecked, it probably makes the file size a couple bytes less.

 

[Edward]

Thanks for the photos. Have to get out of town more often.

 

[junctionist]

Why do they ban cycling downtown?

 

[flar]

^^I thought that was strange too. I'm guessing the reason is that in Petrolia it's mostly kids who ride bikes, and people don't want them riding around on the sidewalks. Kinda like how skateboarding and rollerblading are banned in many places.

 

[Softee]

Great looking little town with a very cute Main street!

I must say that places that ban bikes really tick me off, Just ticket people who ride on the sidewalks, not the entire street! Barrie has also banned bikes from it's Main Street which strikes me as a very backward thing to do for a city of over 100,000 people.