Kurt Georg Naumann (1901–1978) was a German scientist, trapper and pioneer of the early local exploration and use of oil wells and natural gas deposits in the northern catchment area of Athabasca River in Canada.

In his free time he worked in the field of science and self-studied, taking advantage of the offers of the German group Kosmos Gesellschaft der Naturfreunde.

At the beginning of the 1920s he became unemployed as a result of the recession and depression in the economy and he wanted to join the many emigrants to the United States, Canada, Brazil or Australia.

A research assignment for a several years' expedition to the northwest of Canada had been given to Max Hinsche by the Staatlichen Museen für Tierkunde und Völkerkunde Dresden.

Once Max Hinsche was suffering from a dangerous gunshot wound when Naumann together with Indians of Plains Cree (Paskwa Wi Iniwak) was able to save his companion's life.

After the separation from the women he brought up five of his children as a single father in his log cabin in Pelican Portage: George, Hazel, Garry, Rose Mary and Jerry Naumann.

His area of responsibility as a postmaster of the post office "Pelican Portage – Settlement" included – aside from correspondence and accountancy – the delivery of the mail by motor boat to the trappers and native inhabitants.

For a long period he carried out his systematic analyses and structured tests from the catchment areas of the Athabasca River to the Fort McMurray decades before the boom in the oil business in Alberta in the 1970s.

The authors David Halsey and Diana Landau, who were his guests during a tour of Canada in 1977/78,[4] recorded that even potatoes and cabbage were even growing in late fall in Dick's unique garden, where they were protected against the cold by natural gas flames.

[4] Because of his discoveries he got a special name in Alberta: "Dick Naumann of Upper Wells", whose property in the wildness at the Athabasca River could be seen from far away because of the flames, and whose hospitality for exhausted travellers was widely known as exceptional.

His new technique of using the natural gas allowed him not only to provide himself and his family with potatoes and vegetables but also to produce them in large amounts for the canteen of the sawmill and logging camp professionally.

The scientists did geological and ecological fieldwork in that territory, which finally resulted in the extensive research and tapping of the many deposits of oil in Alberta.