Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
Editor’s note: The Saskatchewan Oil and Gas Show is coming soon – and each event sees several people honoured for their contributions to the oilpatch. This year six people have been named as “Southeast Saskatchewan Legends,” including two posthumously. Pipeline Online will be running biographies on each in the coming weeks. Next up is Don Spearing. The oil show takes place June 3-4, with the Legends being honoured at the noon luncheon on June 3. You can register for the show and purchase tickets for meals at Oilshow.ca.
Don Spearing was literally born into the oilfield. His father, Ken, started hauling fluids from some of the first wells drilled in Saskatchewan, near Frobisher, in 1956. That company was Bowman & Spearing Service Ltd, operating out of Frobisher.
Don was born in 1961 in Oxbow, second of four children. He and his brother, Trevor, started working for Ken’s company at a young age, sweeping floors and fixing tires. After graduation in 1978 he worked in the shop full-time. It was a very slow time in the oilpatch due to the NDP’s Bill 42, so he got a job on a service rig. That didn’t last long, and he ended up spending a winter hitch on a service rig at Fort St. John, B.C., before returning to Oxbow.
By the early 80s, the company, now Spearing Service after Bowman was bought out in 1978, was running 10 full-time trucks and was operating from Oxbow. Don got his 1A license and drove for the family business until 1987, when he moved into the office and started to do dispatch and management, working alongside his brother. At that point, Ken decided to start spending ever-longer winters down south, leaving the company to his sons to operate. In 1989, Ken sold the majority of the company to his two sons, and reverted to a minority position. Don recalls his father saying, “Okay smartasses – you’ve been telling me how to run the company for the last 10 years. I’m going south. You guys run it!”
At this point they were running around 15 to 18 trucks, specializing in hauling fluid in the oilfield. This grew to include vac trucks, frac heaters, hot oilers, steamers and more.
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It was during this time period Don met and married Charlene Allen of Sturgis, an EMT and later nurse. They married in 1992 and had four children – Brianna, Jasmin, Courtney and Ryley, all of whom worked in the company at one time or another. Charlene left nursing to raise the children.
Spearing Service bought out Koch Trucking in 1996 with about a dozen trucks, and Trans-X’s oilfield division in 2003, adding another 10 trucks.
In 1999, Don started another trucking company, Great Northern Trucking USA, in North Dakota.
The 2000s proved fruitful for Spearing Service, growing to over 60 trucks and bases in Oxbow, Carlyle, Pipestone and Waskada.
Mullen’s Spearing Service shop in Carlyle when it was first opened several years ago. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
In 2005 Don talked to Murray Mullen about selling the company to Mullen Group. Don needed a break, and Mullen said, “Why don’t I own the equipment and you run it?
That deal was sealed in 2006, and took away a lot of the financial stress for Don.
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While Trevor soon left to start his own hydrovac company, Extreme Hydrovac, Don stayed on for close to eight years, long past his contracted date. As the Bakken Boom took hold, Spearing grew quite a bit while Don was still onboard. Soon they had over 60 trucks, 100 crude oil trailers and 150 frac tanks, just as fracking was taking off. Don left in 2014, just before things went sour in the oilpatch, he explained.
When his non-compete expired, he added a new company, Great Northern Trucking Canada.
The two Great Northern Trucking companies specialized in hauling oil for delivery across the border. Ironically, the USA version hauled oil to Canada for delivery, and the Canadian version delivered oil to the USA. Daughter Brianna and her husband, Joey, were heavily involved in their operations until 2022. Then Courtney took over until the USA version was sold in 2024, and the Canadian version has been wound down in recent years.
His brother and long-time business partner Trevor passed away in 2023.
These days Don and Charlene live in Lakeside, Montana, moving there before Yellowstone made it cool.
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