machine for coating pipelines with tar paper in the field. Many problems related to construction work were solved by adapting other available equipment. Gradually the company continued to grow and diversify its activities including concrete bridges, trucking fleet, industrial camps and a machine shop known as Industrial Fabricators. Over the years, Bruce filed nine patents in Canada. Development of early tracked vehicles In 1947, Imperial Oil made the Leduc No. 1 discovery in Alberta, and the economy began to rapidly expand. As the oil exploration moved northward from the Leduc region, the oil men soon encountered muskeg, a wet boggy swamp-like matter through which conventional equipment could not pass. Even WWII tracked equipment either could not handle the requirement or did not have sufficient load capacities. Imperial Oil asked Bruce Nodwell to construct two vehicles they had designed to try to provide mobility over muskeg. These vehicles were unsuccessful, but Bruce had become aware of the need for large tracked vehicles. His first designs, that were to be either tracked or wheeled, were called North Kings and 16 were sold, but even they did not have enough mobility or durability. Bruce then concentrated on a vehicle design using soft tracks and single rows of wheels to support them. In 1955, Bruce's invention of the double sprocket made it possible to drive wide tracks and also keep them in place while using a single row of wheels. The combination of the splice in the belt and the double sprocket allowed the use of any size or shape belt the vehicles needed. The "wide track" concept was born. They were now able to build a new and different type of machine. The first of these was a small 1-ton-capacity vehicle called the Scout Car. However, the oil industry need a larger capacity in order to transport the geophysical "seismic" drilling rigs. Bruce's next step was to build a tracked trailer, since a method of steering a large vehicle had yet to be located. The powered trailer had tracks 40 inches wide, its own engine, and could carry a five-ton load through muskeg. Although it had its own power, it was navigated by the smaller Scout Car, which was attached to its front hitch. Imperial Oil, responding to this breakthrough in muskeg vehicles, bought 30 powered tracked trailers and 30 Scout Cars. The company, Bruce Nodwell Ltd., then began working on designing improvements