Canada's fastest-growing town this week is the Saskatchewan farm hamlet of Smiley, 300 miles northwest of Regina. Smiley's meager population has more than tripled, from 105 to 350, in the past four months. Roomers are bedded down on cots in the corridors of the town's only hotel. New streets have been laid out, lined with tar-paper shacks and auto trailers. A third classroom will be opened this week for the winter term in the Smiley schoolhouse.
Smiley's sudden surge is the result of an oil strike last September some 2,300 ft. below the surface of the surrounding wheatfields. In...