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Brad Murray got a taste early on in life of the difficulties involved in being a freehold landowner.

Murray's grandfather, a freehold landowner himself, was one of a number of Albertans who either purchased or inherited land as an original settler, or from the province's original settlers.

As a result, the Ponoka-area farmer owned the subsurface oil and gas on his property.

Unfortunately, the elder Murray was unprepared for a visit from an energy company land man while he was out working in the field one day.

"A land agent drove up to my grandfather's farm and pulled him off his tractor and sat him down with a lease and a wad of cash and said 'sign here'. He didn't know what he was signing, " said Murray.

"There was a five year term on the lease and they said if they don't do anything in five years the lease goes back to the owner, well on the very last day they drilled a well."

Because of a shut-in well clause, which according to Murray, allows the energy company to pay $1/ acre every year, the lessee was allowed to sit on the well in perpetuity. After a few years the company sold the well to a competitor. It was then sold to another company, and another one, and another one.

Over a twenty year period, Murray estimates the well changed hands seven times before his family was able to break the lease, long after Murray's grandfather has passed away.

Far from being alone, Murray's grandfather was one of many freehold owners who had signed a lease with details that ended up surprising the landowner.

Without anywhere else to turn, a group of Alberta freehold landowners got together in October 1999 to form the Freehold Owners Association (FHOA), in order to "level the playing field" between the landowners and the energy companies that lease the mineral rights from the landowners.

"The association was started as an information source. So basically when land agents come to lease mineral rights from freehold owners, they now have a place to go to get information so that they can negotiate on an informed basis," said Murray.

Using their website, the FHOA offers advice to freehold owners on what terms they should have the lease, allowing them to make an informed decision when dealing with energy companies.

The organization has also been successful in dealing with things such as shut-in well clauses, and bringing about innovations such as offset obligations, which prevent an energy company draining all the gas on a section from a well-site situated along the fence line on an adjacent section.

"There's an obligation in the new leases ... so if someone tries to do that, they're obligated to drill a well on your section as well ... it allows you the right to protect yourself by drilling your own well," said Murray.

With the area between Calgary and Edmonton being among the areas first settled in the province, Murray says the majority of the freehold landowners in Alberta are found here, specificlally in the Ponoka-Red Deer area.

Unlike the rest of the prairie provinces, which were settled before the potential value of subsurface minerals was truly known, a very small portion of the province's overall land mass is owned by freehold landowners, a mere four per cent.

For these landowners, many of the difficulties they experience today are as a result of the nature in which the province was settled over a century ago.

Part Two of "Holding Their Own" will appear in the June 18 edition of the Mountain View Gazette.