Pipeline Fences

Submitted by: Jay Sherwin

Hike reference: 12.8 km Lockhart, Noonan Rd.

On this hike, at the point where First Line Road intersects with Lockhart Road, you will note some particularly sturdy fences constructed from steel pipes and posts.

Lockhart Road is named after the Lockhart family, who farmed in the area. One of the members of the Lockhart clan, Thelma, married Richard (Dick) Surerus in the mid-1940s, and the couple took over a portion of the farm. They had a large family, six boys and two girls, and all the kids helped with the farm chores. Some of the boys became skilled mechanics and machinery operators. In 1967, when he was 20, the third oldest boy, Brian, wanted to see more of the world. He left the farm in his much-prized Ford pick-up and headed west to the oil fields at Fort St. John, B.C., where he found work repairing oil pipelines. Shortly thereafter, he saw an opportunity to be more than just a labourer, so he traded his pick-up for an old dump truck and became a contractor, supplying pipeline maintenance services to clients. In 1969, he took the next step up the ladder by forming Surerus Pipeline Construction, an installation company.  

Surerus Pipeline Construction, at the time of writing this in 2026, remains in business. Brian is the CEO and the company has become the largest privately owned oil pipeline installation company in Canada. In 57 years in business, Surerus Pipeline has installed more than 8,000 km of pipeline through some of the most challenging terrain in Canada.  

The fences along Lockhart Road are constructed with used oil pipelines salvaged from pipeline maintenance operations. The pipes were shipped east by the truckload from the Canadian oil fields back to the Surerus brothers that remained on the farm. As one of the brothers told me, “They make good fences. You only have to build them once. Cows can’t knock them down.”