July 30, 2000 didn’t start out feeling like an auspicious day. Indeed, for Mark Turner, then 11 and Daniel Helm, then 8, it was just going to be another fun summer’s day spent tubing down Flatbed Creek.
But as they were navigating a particularly interesting set of rapids, they hit a rock and Mark fell off. “He managed to swim to shore and pull Daniel to safety,” remembers Daniel’s father, Charles. “Keen to try tubing the rapids again, they were walking back up the bedrock when they saw a series of six depressions in the rock. In words that have subsequently become immortalized, Mark wondered aloud: ‘Could those be…?’ ‘Dinosaur tracks?’ suggested Daniel, almost unable to believe what he was seeing.”
They lifted a loose rock at one end of the series of depressions, and found two more depressions. Charles was, he admits, not completely sold on the idea. But the two boys were convinced, and so Charles encouraged them to document the find and contact Dr. Phil Currie, at the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller.
Currie suggested they contact Richard McCrea, a doctoral candidate at the University of Alberta who was fast becoming an expert in the study of dinosaur trackways. This discovery, says Charles, ultimately helped to change the course of Tumbler Ridge and the Peace Region. The area was best known to the few tourists who made the trip as home to Kinuseo Falls, but at the time, the town was “the gateway to Kinuseo.” A place for people to pass through on their way to other outdoor destinations.
The dinosaur tracks changed that. Along with the Wolverine Nordic’s push to develop trails, the town was beginning to shift from merely a coal mining town—where one of the two mines had already closed—to a tourist destination.
Without the dinosaur tracks, there would be no museum. Without the museum, there would be no Geopark. Without the geopark, there would be no international spotlight on Tumbler Ridge.
While 25 years of wind and water and rain and snow have worn away the original tracksite, knowing that there were indeed tracks in the area sharpened the eyes of many, and what was once little more than a strange depression in the rocks has become another reminder that dinosaurs once roamed this area.
Mark Turner is now 35 and lives in Lethbridge. “I feel privileged to have been part of something where friendship, curiosity, and hope changed the course of Tumbler Ridge from such humble beginnings,” he says. “I have a feeling that this is still just the beginning.”
For Turner, the discovery sparked a curiousity that has stuck with him to this day. These days, he runs a store specializing in “ethically sourced” fossils and crystals.
Daniel Helm has also moved on from Tumbler Ridge to Smithers, BC. He says “looking back, it seems improbable that an innocent childhood day would eventually lead to what is happening today. The accomplishments of the museum would not be possible without the tireless efforts of the amazing volunteers that saw the potential of Tumbler Ridge’s rich palaeontological heritage and decided to preserve and share it. It has been an amazing journey and I feel very fortunate to have played even a small role.”
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
