My Father's Time in the Alaska Oil Fields (1973-74 in Prudhoe Bay)

Here is the story, as told to me by my father, Robert Unsworth, of his time in Alaska in the winter of 1973-1974, working the oil fields. After the story, is a brief historical overview of that time period in Prudhoe Bay and the seismic surveys he participated in.

Heading to Alaska

In the late months of 1973, the coastal economy of Southern California began to stall. For Robert Unsworth, a 22-year-old journeyman carpenter with a newborn son, Jake, and a toddler, Noah, the lack of work was more than a professional frustration—it was a threat to the future he was building on a third-acre lot in Leucadia.

His mother-in-law, Marion DeVol, stepped in to bridge the gap. She hired Robert at her business, the DeVol Pet Center in Santa Ana, paying him his full journeyman’s wages to handle odd jobs. It was there, two weeks into the work, that a friend walked through the doors with a wild proposition: there was work to be had in Alaska.

Just before Christmas, Robert and his friend, Johno, left the warmth of California for the frozen reality of Fairbanks. They arrived as a team—Robert, the experienced Journeyman, and Johno, the Apprentice. When they reached the local union hall, the dynamics of the era became clear. Because Robert was Native American, the union offered him a position immediately. However, they refused Johno because of his apprentice status. Robert didn’t hesitate; he refused the job, telling the union he wouldn't work without his partner.

While Johno’s family back in California scrambled to pull strings and send up the Journeyman paperwork for him, the delay cost them. By the time Johno was "official," the specific carpentry jobs—building the massive wooden forms for the pipeline’s concrete supports—had been filled.

The two men found themselves in a Fairbanks basement, renting cots alongside a dozen other workers. Seeking a new path, they applied for positions with Geophysical Service Inc. (GSI), which was conducting seismic surveys across the Prudhoe Bay. On the way to their interview, they caught a ride with a local man named Bud. When Bud realized he had two skilled carpenters in his car, he made a trade: if they would insulate and drywall two small houses he owned, he would provide them with room and board at his home while they waited for the GSI call.

Robert and Johno moved out of the basement that same day. They attacked the first house with such speed that they finished it in twenty-four hours. Bud, stunned by the quality and pace, laughed and asked, "What am I going to do with you guys?" When winter frost made digging foundations for a local bank impossible, Robert had an idea. He had Bud set up canvas tents over the frozen earth and blasted the ground with diesel space heaters until the soil softened. Bud was so impressed he began paying them money on top of their room and board. They stayed with him for a month, though GSI called within two weeks to offer them the job. The company was so eager to get them to the North Slope that they put both men on the payroll immediately, two weeks before they even stepped foot in Prudhoe Bay.

A North Slope Education

Before flying north to Deadhorse, Bud took Robert to a local supply store to buy the heavy-duty overalls required for survival in Prudhoe Bay. They were the uniform of a new world, one where the first day on the job involved a "Prudhoe initiation." Robert and Johno were sent out to the airfield to light smudge pots with matches to guide in a cargo plane. After several minutes of struggling with freezing fingers and failing matches, the veteran crew finally revealed the propane torches actually used for the task.

The true baptism, however, came when the cargo plane landed. As the crew began offloading diesel fuel, a transfer hose was handed to Robert; it leaked, drenching the chest and legs of his overalls in a gallon of fuel. For the next four months, the scent of diesel became his second skin.

Robert began his time with Geophysical Service Inc. (GSI) as a "Juggie," placing geophones into auger holes along survey lines—marked with red flags for inland and blue for the shore. When a driller’s helper departed for Canada, Robert seized the opportunity. He moved from geophones to the rig, eventually becoming a driller himself, responsible for boring the holes and setting dynamite along the blue-flagged shoreline.

The work was dangerous and precise, but human error was always a factor. One day, a surveyor mislaid the blue flags inland. Because the technique for shoreline drilling differed from the tundra, the auger repeatedly seized in the frozen earth. As the crew used a torch to thaw the equipment, they struck a gas pocket. The back of the rig ignited instantly. Knowing the truck was loaded with dynamite, Robert and the crew fled into the deep snow, fearing an imminent explosion. They had not run far when a sudden, powerful arctic wind swept across the plains, miraculously blowing out the flames before the fire could reach the blasting caps.

Though a "Shooter" offered to train him inside the warm, computer-filled "Doghouse" van to record seismic readings, Robert declined. He was a man of the outdoors and preferred the physical rhythm of the rig to the confusion of the special instruments.

His favorite memory of the north, however, was one of profound silence. While driving a rig to a civilian weather station to fill up the water tank, the Northern Lights erupted with such intensity that he turned off the engine and stood in the vast, dark quiet for thirty minutes, watching the sky. When he finally arrived, the station operator greeted him with a knowing smile. "What took you so long?" the man asked, but he guessed before Robert could answer, “Watching the lights?". He told Robert to tell his supervisor the pump had malfunctioned—a small gift of time between men working at the edge of the world. 

The Return to California

In early 1974, as the ice began to melt and the drilling rigs were pulled off the softening tundra, a call came from a family friend. Robert was told he needed to come home. He and his wife separated shortly after his return; at 22, the pressures of the era had taken their toll.

Robert took his two young sons, Noah and Jake, and moved south to the 1/3 acre lot on Jasper Street in Leucadia he had purchased two years earlier with his one-time payment from the 1972 Judgment Fund Roll of California Indians. For years, the three of them lived in a fifth-wheel trailer parked in the driveway, beside a freestanding garage Robert had built himself.

Between carpentry jobs and raising his boys as a single father, Robert chipped away at the Tudor-style house he was building on the property. The stucco, the dark beams, and the leaded glass windows were installed piece by piece over the following years. Finally, in 1980, when Noah was ten years old, the trailer was traded for the house.

 

 

The winter of 1973–1974 was arguably the most pivotal moment in the history of the North Slope. Your father arrived at Prudhoe Bay just as the "Oil Rush" shifted from a crawl to a frantic sprint.

Here is the historical context of what he experienced during those four months and how his work for GSI (Geophysical Service Inc.) fit into the birth of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

1. The Global Catalyst: The 1973 Energy Crisis

When your father left for Alaska in December 1973, the world was in the grip of the Arab Oil Embargo. Gasoline prices in the Lower 48 had quadrupled, and there were massive shortages.

• The Pipeline Act: Just weeks before your father flew to Fairbanks, President Nixon signed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act (November 16, 1973). This law bypassed all environmental lawsuits that had stalled the project since 1968.
• The Rush: Because the government had finally given the "green light," every oil company (BP, ARCO, Exxon) was desperate for seismic data to finalize exactly where to drill their production wells before the massive construction of the pipeline began in April 1974.

2. GSI: The "High-Tech" Pioneers of the Tundra

Geophysical Service Inc. (GSI) was not just any contractor; they were the world leader in seismic technology (founded by the same men who started Texas Instruments). Their job was to "see" into the earth to find the edges of the oil reservoir.

• Seismic Surveys: Your father's crew was performing Reflection Seismology. They were essentially taking an "X-ray" of the earth's crust by sending shockwaves (dynamite) down and measuring how they bounced back.
• The "Flag" System: The red and blue flags your father remembered were Survey Stations.
• Red Flags (Inland): These marked lines over the permafrost (tundra). Drilling here was tricky because if the auger generated too much heat, it would melt the permafrost and get stuck—exactly what happened when your father was accidentally drilling inland instead of on the shore.
• Blue Flags (Shoreline/Offshore): These marked the "transition zone." Drilling on the frozen sea ice or the shoreline required different pressures because you were dealing with salt-ice and shallow water rather than frozen soil.

3. The Drilling Job: Danger and Hierarchy

Your father's progression from "Juggie" (placing geophones) to Driller was a significant step up in responsibility.

• The Hazards: The gas pocket fire he experienced was a known and feared danger. USGS records from that era specifically warn about "shallow gas pockets" trapped under the permafrost. When a drill bit hits one of these pockets at high speed, the friction can ignite the gas instantly.
• The "Shooter" and the "Doghouse": The man who offered to train your father was the Shooter (or Observer). They worked inside a "special van" called the Doghouse. It was filled with cutting-edge (for 1974) magnetic tape recorders and computers. While it was warmer, it was also tedious, high-pressure work—validating why a man of your father's "outdoor" temperament preferred the rig.
• The Auger Rigs: In 1974, these were often mounted on Rolligons (massive, low-pressure tires) or sleds to avoid damaging the fragile tundra, which was a major legal requirement of the new Pipeline Act.

4. Life at Deadhorse and the Weather Station

In 1973, Deadhorse wasn't a town; it was a collection of modular "camps" made of shipping containers and trailers.

• The Civilian Weather Station: The "man" your father met was likely an observer for the National Weather Service (NWS) or the FAA, which operated a station at the Deadhorse Airport (established in the late 60s). Because there were no satellites or cell phones, these weather observers were the only lifeline for pilots flying the "Hercs" (Hercules cargo planes) your father saw.
• The Northern Lights: The winter of 1974 was during a period of high solar activity. For a man who had just come from the orange groves and suburbs of Santa Ana, seeing the Aurora over the North Slope—undisturbed by any city lights for hundreds of miles—would have been a life-altering sight.

5. The Surrounding Years: Before and After

• Before (1969–1972): This was the "Great Freeze." Oil had been discovered in 1968, but the project was tied up in courts. Alaska was in a recession. People were leaving. Your father arrived just as the "boom" finally broke the ice.
• After (April 1974–1977): Just months after your father left (early 1974), the Dalton Highway (Haul Road) was built in just 154 days. Tens of thousands of workers flooded the North Slope. If your father had stayed even six months longer, he would have seen the transformation of Prudhoe Bay from a quiet scientific survey site into the largest construction project in American history.

 

During the 1973–1974 seismic surveys in Prudhoe Bay, the Auger Rig was the workhorse of the North Slope. Because the goal of Geophysical Service Inc. (GSI) was to map the subsurface using shockwaves, these rigs had to be fast, mobile, and capable of drilling through some of the hardest frozen material on Earth.

Here is the technical breakdown of how your father’s rig operated and how the "shot holes" were prepared.

1. The Rig: A Mobile Drill Platform

On the North Slope, the rigs were typically mounted on Rolligons (trucks with massive, ultra-low-pressure tires) or tracked vehicles to prevent the heavy equipment from breaking through the delicate tundra.

• The Kelly Bar & Auger: The "drill bit" was a continuous flight auger—essentially a giant screw. This was attached to a Kelly Bar, a long square or hexagonal steel rod that the rig’s motor would rotate.
• The Power: These were high-torque hydraulic systems. Unlike a water well drill that uses fluid to flush out dirt, an auger works like a corkscrew, physically lifting the "cuttings" (frozen dirt or ice) up the spirals of the screw to the surface.

2. The Drilling Process: Inland vs. Shoreline

Your father’s story about the wrong flags highlights the two very different environments they worked in:

• Inland (Red Flags): You were drilling into Permafrost. This is soil and gravel frozen harder than concrete. If the driller ran the auger too fast, the friction would create heat. This heat would melt the permafrost, turning it into a "slurry" or "gumbo" that would instantly refreeze the moment the drill stopped, "pinning" the auger in the hole.
• Shoreline (Blue Flags): Here, you were often drilling through sea ice or "bottom-fast ice" (ice frozen all the way to the sea floor). This required different rotational speeds and downward pressure because ice behaves differently under a drill bit than frozen gravel does.

3. Placing the Charge (The "Load")

Once your father reached the target depth (usually 50 to 100 feet), the auger was pulled out, leaving a clean "shot hole."

• The "Sausage" Charges: The dynamite used was not the sticks you see in movies. It was often specialized seismic explosives, like Nitramon, which came in threaded metal or plastic canisters that could be screwed together into long "sausages."
• The Cap & Lead: A Blasting Cap was attached to the top charge. From this cap, two insulated wires (the "leads") ran all the way up the hole to the surface.
• The "Juggie" Connection: While your father drilled and loaded, the "Juggies" (his previous job) were laying out miles of Geophones—sensitive microphones spiked into the ground—connected by cables to the "Doghouse" van.

4. The "Blow" and the Reading

Once the hole was loaded and the rig moved a safe distance away, the Shooter in the van took over.

1. They would send an electrical pulse down the wires to the blasting cap.
2. The dynamite would detonate, sending a massive "thump" of energy into the ground.
3. That energy would travel down, hit different rock layers, and bounce back up.
4. The geophones would "hear" the bounce-back, and the computers in the van would record it.

The Gas Pocket Risk

The "gas pocket" your father hit occurs because as the auger grinds through the permafrost, it can pierce a small, pressurized pocket of biogenic methane (gas formed by ancient decaying plants trapped in the ice).