Fossil Hunting by Boat in Canada.
By Barnum Brown.
"How do you know where to look for fossils?" is a common question. In general it may be answered that the surface of North America has been pretty well explored by government surveys and scientific expeditions and the geologic age of the larger areas determined. Most important in determining the geologic sequence of the earth's strata are the fossil remains of animal and plant life. A grouping of distinct species of fossils correlated with stratigraphic characters in the rocks determines these subdivisions. When a collection of fossils is desired to represent a certain period, exploring parties are sent to these known areas. Sometimes however, chance information leads up to most important discoveries, such as resulted from the work of the past two seasons in Alberta, Canada.
A visitor to the Museum, Mr. J.L. Wagner, while examining our mineral collections saw the large bones in the Reptile Hall and remarked to the Curator of Mineralogy that he had seen many similar bones near his ranch in the Red Deer Cañon of Alberta. After talking some time an invitation was extended to the writer to visit his home and prospect the cañon. Accordingly in the fall of 1909 a preliminary trip was made to the locality.
From Didsbury, a little town north of Calgary, the writer drove eastward ninety miles to the Red Deer River through a portion of the newly opened grain belt of Alberta, destined in the near future to produce a large part of the world's bread. Near the railroad the land is mostly under cultivation and comfortable homes and bountiful grain fields testify to the rich nature of the soil. A few miles eastward the brushland gives way to a level expanse of grass-covered prairie dotted here and there by large and small lakes probably of glacial origin. Mile after mile the road follows section lines and one is rarely out of sight of the house of some "homesteader." It is through this level farm land that the Red Deer River wends its way flowing through a cañon far below the surface. Near Wagner's ranch the cañon was prospected and so many bones found that it appeared most desirable to do extended searching along the river.
Usually fossils are found in "bad lands," where extensive areas are denuded of grass and the surface eroded into hills and ravines. A camp is located near some spring or stream and collectors ride or walk over miles of these exposures in each direction till the region is thoroughly explored. Quite different are conditions on the Red Deer River. Cutting through the prairie land the river had formed a cañon two to five hundred feet deep and rarely more than a mile wide at the top. In places the walls are nearly perpendicular and the river winds in its narrow valley, touching one side then crossing to the other so that it is impossible to follow up or down its course any great distance even on horseback.
It was evident that the most feasible way to work these banks was from a boat; consequently in the summer of 1910 our party proceeded to the town of Red Deer, where the Calgary-Edmonton railroad crosses the river. There a flatboat, twelve by thirty feet in dimension, was constructed on lines similar to a western ferry boat, having a carrying capacity of eight tons with a twenty-two foot oar at each end to direct its course. The rapid current averaging about four miles per hour precluded any thought of going up stream in a large boat, so it was constructed on lines sufficiently generous to form a living boat as well as to carry the season's collection of fossils.
Supplied with a season's provisions, lumber for boxes, and plaster for encasing bones, we began our fossil cruise down a cañon which once echoed songs of the Bois brulé, for this was at one time the fur territory of the great Hudson Bay Company.
Fig. 47.—American Museum Expedition on the Red Deer River. Fossils secured along the banks were packed and loaded aboard the large scow and floated down the river to the railway station.
No more interesting or instructive journey has ever been taken by the writer. High up on the plateau, buildings and haystacks proclaim a well-settled country, but habitations are rarely seen from the river and for miles we floated through picturesque solitude unbroken save by the roar of the rapids.
Especially characteristic of this cañon are the slides where the current setting against the bank has undermined it until a mountain of earth slips into the river, in some cases almost choking its course. A continual sorting thus goes on, the finer material being carried away while the boulders are left as barriers forming slow moving reaches of calm water and stretches of rapids difficult to navigate during low water. In one of these slides we found several small mammal jaws and teeth not known before from Canada, associated with fossil clam shells of Eocene age.
The long midsummer days in latitude 52° gave many working hours, but with frequent stops to prospect the banks we rarely floated more than twenty miles per day. An occasional flock of ducks and geese were disturbed as our boat approached and bank beaver houses were frequently passed, but few of the animals were seen during the daytime. Tying the boat to a tree at night we would go ashore to camp among the trees where after dinner pipes were smoked in the glow of a great camp fire. Only a fossil hunter or a desert traveler can fully appreciate the luxury of abundant wood and running water. In the stillness of the night the underworld was alive and many little feet rustled the leaves where daylight disclosed no sound. Then the beaver and muskrat swam up to investigate this new intruder, while from the tree-tops came the constant query, "Who! Who!"
For seventy miles the country is thickly wooded with pine and poplar, the stately spruce trees silhouetted against the sky adding a charm to the ever changing scene. Nature has also been kind to the treeless regions beyond, for underneath the fertile prairie, veins of good lignite coal of varying thickness are successively cut by the river. In many places these are worked in the river banks during winter. One vein of excellent quality is eighteen feet thick, although usually they are much thinner. The government right has been taken to mine most of this coal outcropping along the river.
Fig. 48.—Locality of Ankylosaurus skull in Edmonton formation in Red Deer River. The skull is in the rock just above the pick, about the center of the photograph.
Along the upper portion of the stream are banks of Eocene age, from which shells and mammal jaws were secured, but near the town of Content where the river bends southward, a new series of rocks appeared and in these our search was rewarded by finding dinosaur bones similar to those seen at Wagner's ranch. Specimens were found in increasing numbers as we continued our journey, and progress down the river was necessarily much slower. Frequently the boat would be tied up a week or more at one camp while we searched the banks, examining the cliffs layer by layer that no fossil might escape observation. With the little dingey the opposite side of the river was reached so that both sides were covered at the same time from one camp. As soon as a mile or more had been prospected or a new specimen secured, the boat was dropped down to a new convenient anchorage. Box after box was added to the collection till scarcely a cubit's space remained unoccupied on board our fossil ark.
Where prairie badlands are eroded in innumerable buttes and ravines it is always doubtful if one has seen all exposures, so there was peculiar satisfaction in making a thorough search of these river banks knowing that few if any fossils had escaped observation. On account of the heavy rainfall and frequent sliding of banks new fossils are exposed every season so that in a few years these same banks can again be explored profitably. This river will become as classic hunting ground for reptile remains as the Badlands of South Dakota are for mammals.
Although the summer days are long in this latitude the season is short and thousands of geese flying southward foretell the early winter. Where the temperature is not infrequently forty to sixty degrees below zero in winter, it is difficult to think of a time when a warm climate could have prevailed, yet such condition is indicated by the fossil plants.
When the weather became too cold to work with plaster, the fossils were shipped from a branch railroad forty-five miles distant, the camp material was stored for the winter and with block and tackle the big boat was hauled up on shore above the reach of high water.
In the summer of 1911 the boat was recalked and again launched when we continued our search from the point at which work closed the previous year. During the summer we were visited by the Museum's President, Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn, and one of the Trustees, Mr. Madison Grant. A canoeing trip, one of great interest and pleasure, was taken with our visitors covering two hundred and fifty miles down the river from the town of Red Deer, during which valuable material was added to the collection and important geological data secured.
As a result of the Canadian work the Museum is enriched by a magnificent collection of Cretaceous fossils some of which are new to science.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Transactions Kansas Academy of Science, p. 43.
[20] From Fossil Wonders of the West. Century Magazine 1904, vol. lxviii, pp. 680-694. Reprinted by permission.
[21] At this time the Union Pacific Railroad directly passed the bluffs; in the recent improvement of the grade the main line has been moved to the south.—H.F.O.
[22] A different interpretation of this contraction is given upon p. 68.