To find dinosaur tracks near Tumbler Ridge, the process is straightforward: Examine a geological map to see where rocks of the right age occur Ensure that these are terrestrial, not marine rocks (dinosaurs lived on land, not in the ocean) Work out where these rocks might be exposed on the surface, typically in canyons and…
In the 1980s a prehistoric bison skull was unearthed in the gravel pit beside what is now the 9th hole of the golf course. Harry Prosser and Ed Parnell were part of the work crew, and took the lead in securing, preserving and reporting the find, until a team from Simon Fraser came to retrieve…
The ability of the Tumbler Ridge area to keep on delivering new discoveries each year is remarkable. If there were any doubts on this score the Golden Summer of 2014 dispels them. Some of these exciting events have already been reported: the discovery of a new dinosaur tracksite deep into the mountains (probably the…
Tumbler Ridge was built in the 1980s, when memories of World War II were already forty years old. Therefore it is perhaps counter-intuitive to learn that our community’s connections with the two World Wars are profound. WORLD WAR I: In 1914 Samuel Prescott Fay led a party of five men and twenty horses…
A recent article in Tumbler Ridge News celebrated the recent repatriation of a prehistoric bison skull to Tumbler Ridge almost thirty years after its discovery in the gravel pit beside the 9th hole of the golf course. A 1993 M.Sc. thesis that included research on the skull indicated that some of the surrounding bones had…
In 1914 Samuel Prescott Fay led a party of five men and twenty horses on a scientific expedition from Jasper to Hudson’s Hope. Part of his journey took him down what would become known as the Murray River. On October 5th he passed below what is now Tumbler Ridge. His diary entry provides the first…
On September 22nd our Tumbler Ridge Global Geopark was officially designated by the Global Geoparks Network, supported by UNESCO, at the 6th International UNESCO Conference on Global Geoparks in Saint John, New Brunswick. We are one of 111 worldwide, the second in Canada and North America, and the first in the West. Elsewhere in…
In 1914 Samuel Prescott Fay led a party of five men and twenty horses on a scientific expedition from Jasper to Hudson’s Hope. On October 5th he passed below what is now Tumbler Ridge. Camped out the next night, near what is now known as Bullmoose Marshes, his party heard the blows of an axe.…
At the gala dinner at the conclusion of the sixth UNESCO International Conference for Global Geoparks on the evening of September 22nd, the Global Geoparks Network announced the designation of eleven new Global Geoparks. The conference was organized by the Stonehammer Global Geopark in Saint John, New Brunswick, and was attended by just under 500…
In the mid-nineties I climbed Roman Mountain for the first time. No inkling then of the dozens of future ascents related to the Emperor’s Challenge, nor of the mountain’s destiny as a coal mine. My hiking partner was my colleague Dr Nigel Myers. We stopped on the way up for a sandwich, and somehow the…
