IT'S HARD TO FORGET THE 2008 FINANCIAL CRISIS, when the economies of North America and Europe went into free-fall. The world seemed to be teetering on the brink of a collapse like the one that followed Black Tuesday—the day in 1929 when a stock market crash triggered what became the Great Depression. By contrast, the Great Recession that followed the 2008 event was a period in which, in Alberta, imaginative companies were able to find opportunity. Take the case of a partnership of four small private companies. Starting in October 2008, during periods when the petroleum industry as a whole was nervous about the future, the companies were among the few bidders on parcels at many Crown land sales—the biweekly auctions at which Alberta sells mineral rights to the highest bidders. (The informal consortium reached an agreement by handshake.)
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