Charles Helm
A summer-of-2020 fossil-prospecting trip in search of new dinosaur track exposures near Tumbler Ridge yielded very little until the turnaround point.
There, at the foot of a cliff beside a creek, among a bunch of fallen slabs, was a spectacular surface containing a number of tracks and traces. Estimated weight was around 100 pounds: too heavy and unwieldy to fit into a backpack and try to bushwhack back to the vehicles. Helicopter retrieval would be feasible, but very expensive, and funding is tight at the Museum. Doing nothing would lead to the track-bearing rock disappearing in the spring freshet.
And so a plan was hatched to try to spend a day trying to retrieve the specimen by lining a canoe up the creek and back again. A week later I was joined by the sprightly team of Tiffany Hetenyi, Lisa Mackenzie and Steve Tory. Getting the canoe to the creek was the first hurdle, but at least it was downhill. Once we were in the creek, the high water levels made negotiating the rapids challenging heading upstream, but as the canoe was empty, the worst that could happen would be falling into the creek (an event which happened a number of times).
After an hour or two the destination was reached. The track-bearing rock was picked up by three of us and gently manoeuvred into the canoe, an old Grumman which is virtually indestructible. For good measure we also brought out a few other specimens, featuring invertebrate trace fossils, which are a special interest of museum curator Dr Andrew Lawfield.
Heading back downstream, lining a canoe loaded with heavy rocks down rapids was a very different proposition. One false move, and the canoe would have overturned, and the chances of finding the rocks in the creek would be minimal. Luckily we had just a couple of near-misses, and after another hour we reached the point where we needed to exit the river, with the rocks thankfully still safe in the canoe.
At this point a young, strong, healthy-looking hiker miraculously appeared and kindly offered to help us lug canoe and rocks back through the bush to our vehicles. He did all this without even asking what on earth we were doing transporting heavy rocks by canoe. What a fine example of humanity!
Next day the specimen was with Dr Lawfield, being accessioned into the Museum’s burgeoning collections, where it can be studied by scientists. A research paper will probably follow on this and other specimens that were identified in the summer of 2020.
Our bonded team enjoyed the fulfilment of a job well done, having spent another unique Tumbler Ridge day in the wilderness on our doorstep. And we did kind of ponder: how many other examples have there ever been of a Cretaceous track rescue by canoe?
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
