near the ancient Indian landing place Pelican Portage. Here they built their first log cabin, later they built a second cabin near House River. In their first Canadian winter Naumann's and Hinsche's living conditions were dramatic. They suffered from hunger and severe frost (frostbite). Boat trips on the unpredictable Athabasca River nearly ended in disaster. Once Max Hinsche was suffering from a dangerous gunshot wound when Naumann together with Indians of Plains Cree (Paskwa Wi Iniwak) was able to save his companion's life. After the first winter they parted from each other for economic reasons. Naumann started his own way of life near Athabasca River 10 km downstream. In the summer months he lived on fishing, hunting and growing of arable crop, in winter on being a trapper and selling skins. He ran a trap line of up to a hundred kilometers. Naumann's Canadian citizenship was documented in 1938. Naumann was not married. He had 15 children in several intimate relations, who were descended from the French family line Cardinal. After the separation from the women he brought up five of his children as a single father in his log cabin in Pelican Portage: George, Hazel, Garry, Rose Mary and Jerry Naumann. Naumann died on June 6, 1978, at the age of 76 years in Athabasca, Canada – without ever returning to Germany. He is buried in the cemetery in Athabasca. Work Naumann noticed some constant escape of natural gas in the vicinity of his settlement. That had never been described before. His tests indicated gas resources from oil deposits, which were still unknown then. At that time Naumann covered long distances because he worked as a postmaster in the district of Athabasca/Alberta from 1949. His area of responsibility as a postmaster of the post office "Pelican Portage – Settlement" included – aside from correspondence and accountancy – the delivery of the mail by motor boat to the trappers and native inhabitants. Going about his daily work he discovered new leakage of gas time after time. There seemed to be rich deposits of oil in the ground layers. Being self-taught he did his researches empirically. For a long period he carried out his systematic analyses and structured tests from the catchment areas of the Athabasca River to the Fort McMurray decades before the boom in the oil business in Alberta in the 1970s. In this way he concluded from the