He was an acknowledged legal authority on oil and gas and winner of the Petroleum Law Foundation Prize in 1973.
[2] Ballem's most important and well known work is the internationally recognized authoritative text The Oil and Gas Lease in Canada, a standard legal reference that went to four editions, the final being 2008.
After the war was over he returned to Nova Scotia to attend Dalhousie University and completed the following degrees: B.A., 1946; M.A.
Following his career in the oil industry, Ballem moved to Calgary in 1962 and entered energy law practice.
The novel was praised by former Calgary Herald books editor Kenneth McGoogan as "an invaluable picture of the Alberta oil industry from the halcyon 1950s through the tumultuous 1980s."