Every great Canadian road trip has an unforgettable moment. For Chih-yu Hsiao, his came during a recent visit to Tumbler Ridge.
A tourist from Taiwan, Hsiao was driving through the Rockies with his girlfriend when they stopped near the community to see one of northern B.C.’s tallest waterfalls. They had just been to Prince George, about a 400-kilometre drive southwest of Tumbler Ridge, and heard the area was great for hiking.
“I like exploring the world and I like nature,” Hsiao said. “I didn’t expect much, just wander around and could be lucky to see some cool things.”
Along the trail, Hsiao spotted an unusual impression in the rock and snapped a quick picture.
At first he wondered if it was a bear track — “so be aware,” he thought. Looking closer, though, he questioned if it could be something else.
“This looks like a dinosaur … could be.”
Prehistoric playground
Looking for answers at a new interpretive geocentre in town, Hsiao learned he was right.
The fossilized footprint was likely from a small iguanodon or hadrosaur, plant-eating dinosaurs common 100 million years ago when this part of the continent was the shore of an inland sea.
Today, the alpine mountains and canyons surrounding Tumbler Ridge are dotted with their tracks and the bones of tyrannosaurs, armoured ankylosaurs and swimming reptiles like the ichthyosaur.
The public has found thousands of these fossils since 2000, when two young boys stumbled upon what was, at the time, the longest dinosaur trackway in B.C.
That discovery, and determined community organizing, led the United Nations to designate nearly 8,500 square kilometres of wilderness around Tumbler Ridge as a UNESCO Global Geopark in 2015, recognizing its geological and ecological significance.
As one of five geoparks in Canada, Tumbler Ridge has been evolving from its industrial beginnings in the 1980s as a publicly-planned coal mining town, into a growing hub of paleontology research and tourism.
“It’s done a lot for getting us onto the world stage,” said Manda Maggs, executive director for the non-profit society responsible for managing the park’s conservation, development and programming.
Maggs says the area has drawn the attention of visitors, particularly from Asia and Europe, who value the UNESCO status, and those looking to get away from the crowds.
“That’s something I think a lot of tourists are starting to gravitate towards. They want to go to those places that are maybe a little less travelled.”
Since a major dinosaur discovery transformed the steel coal mining town into a UNESCO Global Geopark, the northeast B.C. community has grown into a world-class tourism destination, drawing visitors from around the world.
Educating the public
The new geocentre is a place where Hsiao and others can learn about the age of dinosaurs and bring their unexpected trail finds to experts.
“We speak about not just science in this building, but we also link it to people and culture,” Maggs said.
“This is a great place to come and understand some of those geological processes so that when you get out there you can appreciate it just with a little bit more detail.”
Roy Rule, the Geopark’s resident geoscientist, says people regularly bring him their photos and samples.
“They want the history or story behind it,” says Rule. “That’s one of the fun things about this place, constantly finding new stuff.”
Advancing scientific knowledge
Some public discoveries are small, like a rock containing 500-million-year-old fossilized bacteria.
Others are large, like the skull of a Gorgosaurus, a tyrannosaur that roamed 76 million years ago. Campers from Vancouver Island found it in 2017.
Both are on display at the Tumbler Ridge Museum, home to nearly 4,000 fossils.
“We are in a unique position where we see a lot of change in our fossil record that isn’t necessarily available in other parts of Canada,” says curator and paleontologist Eamon Drysdale.
“We have a really interesting perspective on the history of life in the last 500 million years.”
That continues to bring researchers to Tumbler Ridge. This summer, students from the University of Victoria are working near the community to uncover more tracks.
“We wouldn’t be able to do the things we do without people being aware that we exist, bringing us fossils, collaborating with the Geopark constantly,” Drysdale said. “They all raise our reputation.”
Fossil finding ethics
Under provincial heritage policy, anyone who finds a fossil in B.C. is its caretaker, not the owner. As such, Rule says people who come across a potential fossil should leave it untouched.
Instead, they should document the find by taking photos, recording GPS co-ordinates, and reporting it to B.C.’s heritage branch. If they’re in Tumbler Ridge, they can bring it to the local geocentre or museum, he said.
“The amount that is yet to be discovered is immense,” said Rule.
“We’ve had dedicated scientists walking around these areas for the last six to seven years and we’ve barely touched the surface. That doesn’t include anything you might find that’s fallen into the streams or been washed downriver or come off the cliffs.”
Hsiao says finding his own piece of prehistoric past, and going home with a picture to prove it, was the highlight of his trip to Canada.
And a good reason to return to Tumbler Ridge one day.
“It’s lovely. Small town, quiet, that’s what I like,” Hsiao said. “The waterfall, the hike was amazing. I feel like during the summer I can spend so much time there.”
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