sentences:  The first recorded mention of Canada's bitumen deposits goes back to June 12, 1719.According to an entry in the York Factory journal, on that day Cree Indian Wa-Pa-Sun brought a sample of oil sand to Henry Kelsey of the Hudson's Bay Company.When fur trader Peter Pond travelled down the Clearwater River to Athabasca in 1778, he saw the deposits and wrote of "springs of bitumen that flow along the ground."