2019 Experience the Dinosaur Trails

Dawson (center) survey party in northern B.C., 1879.

So you wanna be a dinosaur hunter?

Even today, hunting for dinosaurs can take you to some very isolated, off-the-beaten-path locales. Deep in the badlands of S.E. Alberta, Iceland, or up in the Yukon. Places, potentially, without much for roads.

But let’s go back to 1875. Roads? What roads?

A trading post with food exists every few hundred miles – and to get there you are usually riding a horse, walking, or paddling up a river – tough, grueling work that needs stamina, strength, and self-reliance. Living off the land is not for sissies!

Now, imagine you stand less than five feet tall, with a back deformity from tuberculosis of the spine which constantly gives you pain, and you are tasked with exploring thousands of miles across the prairies and the Rocky Mountains of Western Canada. Would you be up for it?

His physical issues didn’t stop George M. Dawson, one of the heroes of the European ‘age of exploration’ in the Canadian west. The tiny dynamo was renowned both for his mental prowess and his physical endurance, often staying in the field during winter months when other, lesser, men went home to huddle by the fire. Among his many discoveries were the first dinosaur bones in the west in what is now the province of Saskatchewan, followed by more in Alberta’s Milk River region. His finds were eventually identified as duck-billed Hadrosaurs. The many specimens collected by Dawson were to form the core of the department of vertebrate palaeontology of the present National Museum of Natural Sciences.

A compatriot of George Dawson, Joseph Tyrrell, around the same time was mapping the Red Deer River valley further north near Drumheller, and there found the first complete dinosaur skull – the Albertosaurus. The Royal Tyrrell museum bears Joseph’s name, while Dawson Creek, B.C., and Dawson City, Yukon, are both named in George’s honour.

Of course, Mr. Dawson was only the first EUROPEAN man to ‘discover’ dinosaurs within the Canadian prairies. The First Nations of the region had been finding bones for centuries. The Blackfoot called them “the grandfather of the buffalo.”

A job he loved

George M. Dawson was the appointed geologist and botanist to the British North American Boundary Commission, mapping out the 49th parallel border with the United States, and tasked to report on ‘the lay of the land.’ His “Report on the geology and resources of the region in the vicinity of the forty-ninth parallel,” was published in 1875, sold out almost immediately. It was used in planning settlement, railway routes, mining, and oil exploration for decades.

Next, Dawson began a series of explorations in the north. His survey of BC strongly influenced the government in its planned route of the Canadian Pacific Railway. And his work in the early 1880’s mapped much of northern British Columbia and today’s Yukon Territory for the very first time. Fifteen years later, the discovery of gold near Dawson City turned it in to the biggest city west of Winnipeg. George had correctly predicted that gold was likely there based on the geology he saw.

Dinosaurs and Darwin

Dawson was an exceptional student, despite, or perhaps because of, his physical difficulties. In 1872, George graduated with distinction and various awards from the prestigious Royal School of Mines in England. There, he was taught by one of Charles Darwin’s ardent supporters. He learned about the correlation between geology and the records of evolution and animal species distribution that the earth holds. At the time, the ideas of ancient dinosaurs, and of evolution itself, were very contentious, but they were ones Dawson supported.

Dawson’s belief in evolution strengthened when he became captivated by the society of the Haida of the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii). Seeing all the deserted villages and the rapidly decreasing population of the Haida due to European diseases that had decimated the region, Dawson made richly textured additions to his geographical report on the islands. His careful recording of the Haida language, and the photos he took there in 1878, are considered priceless records, and can still be found in university book catalogues.

“As an artist and poet, he was captivated by the beauty of the Haida totem-poles and by the intelligence and skills reflected in the construction of their villages. As a Darwinian scientist, George perceived a highly evolved culture... and he warned politicians of the Haida’s fully developed concepts of property ownership, which would demand consideration during the negotiations over railway lands.” 1.

By: Allen Gibson

Like most scientists, Dawson was, after all, a realist.

Dawson was an excellent artist and map-maker.

Sources: 1. www.biographi.ca/en/bio/dawson_george_mercer_13E.html

With thanks to Tim Tokaryk, Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, and huge Dawson fan.