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Dinosaur Hunting
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Dinosaur hunting in western Canada
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2011 with funding trom
University of Toronto
http://www.archive.org/details/dinosaurhuntingi0Oruss
DORIS S. RUSSELL
Contribution No. 70
LIFE SCIENCES
ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
Dinosaur hunting
in western Canada
LORIS S. RUSSELL is Chief Biologist of the Royal Ontario Museum and
Professor of Geology, University of Toronto.
PRICE: $1.00
© The Governors of the University of Toronto, 1966
PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Contents
Introduction, /
Geological History of the Canadian Prairies
Since Mid-Cretaceous Time, 3
Early Explorations, 1873 to 1901, 4
MieGoldemAge, 190 to 1917: 13
The Search Continues, 1917 to 1965, 2/
The Future, 35
References, 35
Introduction
The fossil fields of Alberta and Saskatchewan are justly famous for the
wealth of excellent specimens that they have yielded, particularly the relics
of those extraordinary reptiles collectively known as dinosaurs. Mounted
skeletons of dinosaurs from the Red Deer River badlands are outstanding
exhibits in some of the world’s great museums. Much has been written
about these ancient monsters, their anatomical peculiarities and their
probable appearance and life habits. But how their bones came to be
preserved and discovered in the rocks of western Canada, and who it was
who found and collected them, are subjects about which little has been
written. The book by C. H. Sternberg, Hunting Dinosaurs in the Badlands
of the Red Deer River, Alberta, Canada (1917), and a few popular articles
by Barnum Brown (1919) and C. M. Sternberg (1946), are about all that
has been published on this aspect of dinosaur study. The rest is buried in
scientific and administrative reports, and in the field notes of the collectors,
many of whom are no longer with us. It seems important that a summary
account, at least, of these explorations be published, especially while some
of those with first-hand knowledge of the events are still available for
consultation.
Information on which this account is based has been derived from a
variety of sources in addition to those already mentioned. Most useful,
perhaps, have been the annual reports of the Geological Survey of Canada
and the National Museum of Canada. The American Museum of Natural
History provided brief statements of palaeontological field work in the
annual reports and in the annual compilations of research in vertebrate
palaeontology. Data on sites and dates of discovery were obtained from the
scientific descriptions of the various specimens, and from the “‘Steveville
Sheet” (Geological Survey of Canada, Map 969A). Old newspaper and
magazine articles have been consulted. The few biographies or autobio-
graphies that have been written on persons concerned in these events have
been primary sources, but other biographical information has been found
in the obituaries published by the Royal Society of Canada and the Geologi-
cal Society of America. Data from these various sources have been supple-
mented and expanded from the writer’s own knowledge of events and
areas, and from conversations with some of the participants. Parts of the
resultant narrative have been read critically by Dr. C. M. Sternberg and
Mr. L. Sternberg. Their suggestions and corrections have been incorporated,
but any errors that remain are the responsibility of the writer.
The illustrations are mostly from photographs in the files of the Geo-
logical Survey of Canada and the National Museum of Canada, and the
permission to use them which has been granted by those institutions is
gratefully acknowledged. An effort has been made to show not only the
conditions under which the discoveries were made, but also how the pro-
tagonists appeared in the field. For more formal portraits the reader is
referred to the biographies and obituaries listed among the references.
Geological History of the Canadian Prairies
Since Mid-Cretaceous Time
The dinosaur hunter is accustomed to many questions regarding his voca-
tion, but perhaps the commonest one is “How do you know where to dig?”
A variant of this is “Why are dinosaurs found in Alberta and nowhere
else?” Of course dinosaurs are found elsewhere, even in Canada, but the
hunting in the prairie provinces has been particularly good. To understand
the reasons for this we have to know something of the geological history of
the region.
The story begins about 90 million years ago. At that time the region
that is now the Canadian prairies was beneath the water of a great interior
sea (the Colorado sea), which stretched from the Arctic to the Gulf of
Mexico, and lapped on the west over much of the area now occupied by
the Rocky Mountains. To find uplands in those days one would have had
to go to what are now the Selkirk Mountains and other interior ranges of
British Columbia. This sea was muddy, and in it a great thickness of sedi-
ments accumulated, which today constitutes the widespread Alberta shale
and related formations. These carry the fossils of sea shells and the occa-
sional bone of a marine reptile or fish, but dinosaur remains are absent as
these animals were of a terrestrial or aquatic habitat, but never, as far as
we know, marine.
Eventually this interior sea was broken in the region that is now central
and northern Alberta, probably by gently unwarping or tilting of the land.
The same movement drove back the western margin, so as to establish a
broad coastal plain, with deltas, lakes, and lagoons. This kind of country,
probably something like parts of Florida or the Mississippi Delta area
today, was a favourite with the dinosaurs, and they moved in with both
quantity and variety. The carcasses of those that died here may have been
devoured by flesh-easters, or destroyed by decomposition, but some were
buried in the sands and clays that were accumulating in the flood plains
and estuaries. Here, along with the remains of other life of the time, they
were reduced to skeletons which gradually became mineralized. The sea
margin advanced and retreated, producing alternations of marine and fresh-
water deposits, but the coastal plain persisted, sometimes restricted to what
is now the foothills belt of Alberta, sometimes spreading far into the future
area of southern Saskatchewan. The final withdrawal of the sea from the
Canadian plains region dates from late in the Cretaceous period, just before
the extinction of the dinosaurs. But conditions on the land did not change
much at first; the subtropical, well-watered lowlands persisted for millions
of years into the Tertiary period, or Age of Mammals. Towards the end of
the Eocene epoch, about 45 million years ago, the land began to rise, and
as a result of compressive forces, great blocks of the earth’s crust buckled
and overrode each other. In this way the Rocky Mountains, as we know
them today, were formed. Swift rivers from the new mountains carried
2
coarse gravel eastward, to be deposited as thick accumulations over the
Cretaceous and early Tertiary sediments. New levels of land surface were
established, to be eroded in turn as the result of further elevation, and
renewed gravel accumulation.
The final great geological event was the Ice Age. Massive sheets of ice
advanced from the northwest to lap against the edge of the foothills. Valley
glaciers came down from the mountains. The plains were deeply eroded in
places, while elsewhere thick deposits of glacial debris were deposited on
the older sediments. Finally the ice withdrew for the last time, and streams
re-established themselves, sometimes in their preglacial channels, sometimes
in valleys newly cut. The climate became drier, and the vegetation more
sparse in places. The lack of protection permitted erosion to cut down
through the glacial deposits and expose the Cretaceous rocks, and those
that were soft and clayey were readily weathered into the intricate form of
landscape that we call badlands. Patches of badlands occur in Saskat-
chewan, in Big Muddy and Willowbunch valleys, along Frenchman River,
and in an area south of Wood Mountain. In Alberta almost all of the major
streams in the south, from Battle River to Milk River, have stretches of
valley where the sides have been eroded into badlands. It is along the Red
Deer River, however, that such areas are most extensive and spectacular.
Northeast of Brooks is the famous Steveville-Deadlodge Canyon area, now
incorporated in the Dinosaur Provincial Park. The rocks exposed here
belong to the Oldman formation, or as they are known in the older publi-
cations, the Belly River series. Above these Oldman sandstones and clays,
and forming the valley walls from Steveville to Rosebud, are the dark
marine shales of the Bearpaw formation. These contain fossil sea shells
and the occasional bones of sea reptiles. Above the Bearpaw shales, and
appearing in the northern area of badlands from Rosebud to beyond Big
Valley, is the Edmonton formation. The rocks of this formation resemble
those of the Oldman formation, but contain numerous coal seams, which
are mined at various centres, especially Drumheller. Dinosaur fossils occur
in the Edmonton rocks, but are not as numerous nor as varied as in the
Oldman formation.
Early Explorations, 1873 to 1901
These were the events that shaped the region in which the early geological
explorers of the Canadian plains made their pioneer discoveries. The first
geologist here was Dr. James Hector, of the Palliser Expedition of 1857-60.
He collected the fossil shells of mollusks, but did not report fossil bones.
The honour of being the first to discover dinosaur remains in Canada
belongs to Dr. George Mercer Dawson, along with many other “firsts” in
the scientific exploration of our west. Dawson (Harrington and Ami, 1902)
was the second son of Sir William Dawson, also a great Canadian geologist
and first Principal of McGill University. George Dawson was born in
Pictou, Nova Scotia, in 1875, and was educated at McGill and at the Royal
School of Mines in London where his teachers included Murchison and
Huxley. In 1873 he was appointed geologist and naturalist to Her Majesty’s
North American Boundary Commission, which was set up to collaborate
with a similar body from the United States to survey and mark the 49th
parallel of latitude from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains.
Dawson’s task was to survey and map the geology of a belt of unspecified
width, but extending from east to west over 800 miles, most of it in
uninhabited and largely unexplored country.
To appreciate what George Dawson did as geologist of the Boundary
Commission, and later in his many explorations of the Canadian west, one
should realize something that is glossed over in his biographies. Dawson
Dr. G. M. Dawson (third from left) and field party, Fort McLeod, British Columbia,
1879. Geological Survey of Canada, No. 311-C2.
was, in common parlance, a hunchback. In group photographs in which he
appears standing with others, he seems to have been not much more than
four feet six inches in height. Along with this deformity went a delicate
constitution, and he suffered much illness as a boy. In spite of this great
handicap he did not hesitate to undertake most arduous explorations, of
which the first was his survey of the international boundary. Although he is
said to have made copious records in the field, his publications on this
exploration give little information on the manner of working. Recently a
very interesting account (Parsons, 1963) has been published on the work
of the 49th parallel survey, and from this it appears that Dawson had his
own assistant and light wagon, but that he camped with Captain Anderson,
the Chief Astronomer of the British party. In addition to making geological
observations and collecting pertinent specimens, he also made large collec-
tions of modern animals and plants.
At the close of the field season of 1873 a reconnaissance by British
surveyors had reached the vicinity of Wood (“Woody”) Mountain. It was
from here that the exploration was resumed in May, 1874, and it must have
been soon afterwards that Dawson found his first dinosaur bone. He gives
the locality as 20 miles south of Wood Mountain settlement, in badlands
associated with valleys draining from the south side of Wood Mountain
plateau (Dawson, 1878, p. 103). The main area is adajcent to what was
long known as Rocky Creek but which appears on modern topographical
maps as Morgan Creek. Today the village of Killdeer, on the Canadian
Pacific Railway, and Saskatchewan Highway No. 2 are about 6 miles to
the east. Dawson’s detailed description of the succession here can be
equated readily with the stratigraphy as we now understand it. Starting at
the top, his Division @ and the upper part of his Division 6 belong to what
is now called the Ravenscrag formation, of Paleocene age. The lower part
of Division 8, below the lowest lignite bed, is the Frenchman formation,
and was recognized by Dawson as the source of the dinosaur fossils. Below
this are the yellowish sands of his Division y, which are the local equivalent
of the Eastend formation, transitional to the marine shales of Division 6,
the Bearpaw formation. The fossil bones found by Dawson were subse-
quently referred to E. D. Cope, who recognized four species of turtle, the
gar-pike, and a hadrosaurian dinosaur.
By July of 1874 the boundary survey had reached what is now south-
western Saskatchewan, and Captain Anderson had reconnoitred the gorge
of the Milk River, south of the present Comrey district of Alberta. We
may presume that Dawson was nearby, and that it was at this time that he
made his second discovery of dinosaurs. The section here exposes parts of
the Foremost and Oldman formations, which are of Cretaceous age, but
older than the Frenchman formation in which Dawson found bones near
Morgan Creek. On Milk River Dawson (1875, pp: 148.0119) noted. the
conspicuous sandstone, later called the Comrey sandstone, and recorded
that his vertebrate fossils occurred below this, in fact well down in what is
now mapped as Foremost formation. The bones were large, but dissociated;
Cope later identified them as “portions of the sacrum and long-bones of a
Dinosaurian”’.
G. M. Dawson's field party in southern Alberta, 1881. The tall figure in the centre is
presumably McConnell. G.S.C., No: 398-Cs.
In 1875, after completion of the boundary survey, Dawson joined the
Geological Survey of Canada, and carried out explorations in British
Columbia. In 1881 he returned to southern Alberta to begin his geological
survey of the “Bow and Belly River Region”. By this time the North-West
Mounted Police had established some order in the area, the Canadian
Pacific Railway was building westward from Winnipeg, and freight was
coming in to Fort MacLeod and Coalbanks (Lethbridge) by wagon from
Montana. Dawson was now one of the distinguished officers of the Survey,
and he rated a well-qualified assistant. The assignment went to Richard
George McConnell (Hanson, 1942), who was born at Chatham, Quebec,
in 1857, and graduated from McGill University in 1879. McConnell rose
to succeed Dawson as Director of the Geological Survey of Canada, but in
1881 he had just been appointed. Physically he was a contrast to his chief,
for he was tall and thin, and in later years, at least, wore an imperial beard.
Strenuous exertion did not bother him, which was a good thing, because
Dawson spared neither himself nor his assistants.
During the summer of 1881 Dawson and McConnell explored the
valleys of the St. Mary, Oldman, and Bow Rivers by canvas canoe and
visited many other localities in what is now southern Alberta by wagon or
saddle horse. Fragments of dinosaur bones were found along Belly (Old-
man) River in the “Sub-Pierre rocks” (Dawson, 1883, p. 8). At the end
of the field season Dawson returned to Ottawa, while McConnell settled in
Calgary for the winter, to be on hand for an early beginning in 1882.
Dawson did not come west that year, and McConnell filled in the observa-
tions and extended them into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The
discovery of fossil bones during this season is definitely recorded (Selwyn,
1883, p. 13). This was at a low escarpment known as Scabby Butte, north-
east of Fort MacLeod, and about three miles east of the present village of
Nobleford. In a small area of badlands here, in the lower part of the
St. Mary River formation, McConnell obtained “a large and interesting
collection . . . of reptilian bones, probably of Dinosaurs, some of which
are now exhibited in the museum” (loc. cit.). This was the third discovery
of dinosaurs in western Canada and the second in what is now Alberta.
6
One of the specimens was the thighbone of a duck-billed dinosaur, which
was collected in pieces, and mended together back in Ottawa. At the end
of the season McConnell stored the equipment at Fort MacLeod, and it is
interesting to note that the transport consisted of one wagon, two carts,
one buckboard, and a canvas canoe, with seven horses of which at least
three were used for riding.
When Dawson returned to the west in 1883, McConnell was assigned
to his own survey of the Cypress Hills region, in what is now southeastern
Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan. It was during this exploration
that he discovered the Oligocene mammalian fossils of the Cypress Hills
formation (McConnell, 1885). Meanwhile, Dawson’s new assistant was
J. B. Tyrrell, of whom more later. However, the responsibility for collecting
fossils was assigned to another member of the Geological Survey, Thomas
Chesmer Weston. His interesting autobiography (Weston, 1899) tells us
much about the staff and the work of the Geological Survey of Canada
during the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Weston was born in Birmingham, England,
in 1832, and grew up as an assistant in his father’s jewellery and lapidary
shop. This experience qualified him for the position of lapidary for the
Geological Survey of Canada, which he joined in 1858, under the first
Director, Sir William Logan. Weston not only prepared polished specimens
and thin sections of rocks and minerals, but he developed into an enthusias-
tic field collector, and travelled extensively in eastern Canada, adding to
the mineral and fossil collections of the Survey. In 1883 he was assigned
R. G. McConnell
in the field, 1902.
5.6%
No. 9485-B6.
to Dawson’s party, with his own assistants and equipment to enable him
to operate independently. The combined parties travelled by train to Maple
Creek, and from there set out by wagon across the Cypress Hills and west-
ward to Fort MacLeod. There they separated and Weston spent some time
in the foothills near Pincher Creek and Waterton Lakes. It was not until he
returned to the plains in late July that he began finding dinosaur fossils.
Two brief visits to Scabby Butte were cut short by lack of water, but did
permit the collection of large specimens of fossil wood. The remainder of
the season was spent along Oldman (“Belly”) and South Saskatchewan
Rivers, and here many fragments of dinosaur bones were found, which
Weston thought represented the flesh-eating kind (Carnosauria). In modern
stratigraphical terms, Weston was collecting in the Oldman and Foremost
formations, the northern extension of the rocks in which Dawson found
dinosaur bones on Milk River in 1874.
In 1884 Weston was in the Cypress Hills, collecting mammalian remains
from the Oligocene conglomerate, discovered the previous year by McCon-
nel. At the close of the season Weston took a quick trip by train, accom-
panied by the botanist McCoun, to Irvine, just east of Medicine Hat. In the
small area of badlands in adjacent Ross Coulee he found dinosaur bones,
but was not particularly successful in collecting them, in spite of a hike by
McCoun to Medicine Hat to get some hardening material. The rocks here,
in modern terms, are the upper part of the Oldman formation, and have
yielded important specimens in more recent years.
This same year Tyrrell began an independent survey of the country
north of Dawson’s Bow and Belly River area. Joseph Burr Tyrrell (Loudon,
1930) was born in Weston, a suburb of Toronto, in 1858. He graduated
from the University of Toronto in 1880 in expectation of a legal career.
The threat of ill health, however, diverted him into outdoor work, and he
joined the Geological Survey of Canada in 1881. In 1883, as we have
noted, he served as Dawson’s assistant in southern Alberta. Tyrrell was
tall and of rugged build, a physique that was later to see him through
rigorous explorations of the Arctic tundra, seven years as a mining geolo-
gist in the Yukon gold rush, and a life expanse of 99 years. In 1884, at
the age of 26, he was leading a field party of three assistants in the geologi-
cal exploration of what is now central Alberta. About a month after leaving
for the field, Tyrrell was in the valley of the Red Deer River, near where
the city of Drumheller now stands. Here he found the rich coal deposits
that have made this area so important. Soon he began to find fossil bones;
the date of this, the first discovery of dinosaur fossils on the Red Deer
River, was June 9, 1884. A few weeks later he came upon what was
probably a large bone bed, on Kneehills Creek. Among the specimens that
he discovered was the incomplete skull of a flesh-eating dinosaur. With
crude tools the specimen was removed more or less intact from the rock.
It was a struggle for Tyrrell and his assistants to get this heavy and fragile
fossil to the top of the valley. In a drizzling rain it was all three horses
could do to get the empty wagon to prairie level. So the skull and a few
other bones went up on the backs of the horses. Then came the 100-mile
drive to Calgary, over the roadless prairie, travelling slowly to try to save
8
J.B. Tyrrell (extreme left) and field party at Fort Edmonton, 1886. G.S.C., No. 809-C4.
the precious load from damaging jolts. Tyrrell’s prize finally reached the
Survey museum in Ottawa, and subsequently it was studied by E. D. Cope,
who identified it as Laelaps incrassatus, a flesh-eating dinosaur previously
known from New Jersey. In later years good skulls and partial skeletons
of this dinosaur were found in the Red Deer River valley, and we now
know it as Albertosaurus sarcophagus, the carcass-eating dinosaur of
Alberta.
Tyrrell’s discovery of the Albertosaurus skull aroused much interest at
the Geological Survey headquarters, and in 1888 Weston was sent to the
western plains for the purpose, among others, of exploring the valley of
the Red Deer River. It had been suggested to him by the Rev. Leo Gaetz
of the town of Red Deer that the proper way to see the valley was to float
down the river in a boat. So Weston arranged to have a boat made at Red
Deer, and he arrived there early in August to make the trip. But the boat
was poorly made, and Weston’s two pick-up assistants were inexperienced
in river navigation, and about eight miles downstream the craft was
wrecked. Weston reached the farm of a Mr. McKenzie, who advised the
collector to abandon his plans for this year and to come back the next,
when he, McKenzie, would take Weston down the river in a properly made
boat. Weston was greatly impressed by McKenzie and agreed to his pro-
posal. So in June of 1889 the collector and his new friend met in Calgary
and drove to the McKenzie farm near the mouth of Blindman River. On
June 17 Weston, McKenzie, and McKenzie’s son Joe launched two boats
and started downstream, the first of a succession of fossil collectors to
navigate the Red Deer River. After an exciting run through the canyon,
9
4 i Hi
T. C. Weston’s expedition on the Red Deer River, 1889. The two boats may be seen
to the left of centre, with a member of the party fishing. G3SiC., No: 1090-€3-
they passed from the part of the valley occupied by the Tertiary Paskapoo
formation to that of the Cretaceous Edmonton formation. Here they found
thick coal seams, and were soon exploring the badlands, in which they
obtained another incomplete Albertosaurus skull. So far Weston had been
duplicating the discoveries of Tyrrell.
Continuing their downstream journey, Weston and the McKenzies soon
passed out of the northern area of badlands (Edmonton formation) and
into a stretch of gentle slopes and grassy river flats. This is the part of the
valley formed in the marine Bearpaw shale. Eventually they came to
another and more extensive area of badlands, which Weston recognized as
belonging to the older Belly River series, which he had explored on the
South Saskatchewan. This area would be in the vicinity of the future village
of Steveville. Almost immediately dinosaur vertebrae and limb bones were
discovered, the first finds to be made in what has proved to be one of the
world’s richest fields. Weston does not record the date, but it must have
been during the last week of June, for a few days later he was celebrating
Dominion day (July 1) in the midst of the badlands. Next he came to the
fantastic Deadlodge Canyon area, which was to yield many fine skeletons
to Weston’s successors. By July 7 the explorers had drifted out of the bad-
lands, and a week later had reached the confluence of the Red Deer River
with the South Saskatchewan. They continued down the main stream to
the crossing of the Battleford-Swift Current trail, and from here they
travelled south by wagon to the railway. McKenzie and his son returned by
train to Calgary, while Weston set off for another visit to the fossil beds of
10
the Cypress Hills. Weston’s expedition of 1889 is especially important
because it was the first to use the river as a means of travel, and it resulted
in the discovery of the extremely rich fossil field of the Steveville-Dead-
lodge Canyon area. What is more, Weston himself recognized the impor-
tance of his discovery.
Lawrence Morris Lambe (McInnes, 1920) was the next to explore the
Red Deer River badlands for fossils. Unlike his predecessors, who were
geologists or collectors, Lambe was a palaeontologist, but he had come into
the profession by an unorthodox way. He was born in Montreal in 1863
and graduated in 1883 from the Royal Military College in Kingston with
the career of an Army officer in mind. While waiting for an appointment
he worked as assistant construction engineer on the Canadian Pacific Rail-
way in the Rocky Mountains, and contracted typhoid fever. This impaired
his health so that he had to give up the hope of a military career and turn
to something else. He was an artist of some merit, and he secured a position
as scientific artist with the Geological Survey of Canada in 1885. His chief,
J. F. Whiteaves, encouraged him to study as well as to draw fossils, and for
a time Lambe was active in research on fossil corals. But fossil vertebrates
were more to his liking.
In 1897 the Canadian Government were financing the drilling of a test
boring in northern Alberta, and Lambe was sent out to observe the progress
of this project. This, no doubt, was the excuse for the trip, but the real
reason was the boat trip that he was permitted to make down the Red Deer
River, following the example of Weston. He started from Red Deer town
on July 31, with two assistants hired locally; by August 31 he had reached
the juncture with the South Saskatchewan, and by September 3 had
completed his trip at Saskatchewan Landing, north of Swift Current. Such
a quick trip was little more than a reconnaissance, but it gave Lambe an
idea of the location of the richer fossil fields. Next year, 1898, he was back
to concentrate on the “Belly River” field. Hiring a wagon and assistants at
Medicine Hat, he drove to the Red Deer River and on July 24 camped
opposite the mouth of Berry Creek. This would be across from what was
to be the site of Steveville Village. Lambe found it more difficult to get
into the badlands by wagon than by boat, and he confined his fossil hunting
to the vicinity of Berry Creek, working for about a month on both sides
of the river. His combined collections for the two seasons included repre-
sentatives of the flesh-eating, duck-billed, and horned dinosaurs, as well
as turtles and crocodiles. But the collecting of fossil vertebrates in Canada
was still based on crude techniques, and Lambe was less informed on the
art than some of his contemporaries. So his specimens were fragmentary,
and not very valuable in the light of later discoveries. His knowledge of
the fauna was also still imperfect, and he referred his specimens to genera
which we now know do not occur at this stage.
By 1900 we find Lambe busily working on his collections and visiting
the American Museum of Natural History to learn more about dinosaurs
and the methods of preserving vertebrate fossils. Professor H. F. Osborn
took an interest in his work, and for a time became Honorary Vertebrate
Palaeontologist for the Geological Survey of Canada. Lambe’s last expedi-
Il
tion to the Red Deer River was in 1901. Again he drove north from
Medicine Hat, but this time he explored the badlands downstream from
Berry Creek, as far as Deadlodge Canyon. He remained in the field from
early July until well into September, and his collection of this year was the
best so far made from the Cretaceous of Western Canada.
Lambe’s studies culminated in his monograph, On Vertebrata of the
Mid-Cretaceous of the North West Territory (Osborn and Lambe, 1902).
Professor Osborn wrote the introduction, and clearly pointed out that this
“Belly River” fauna was distinctly older than that of the “Laramie” or
Lance, the best known Cretaceous vertebrate fauna up to that time. Lambe’s
descriptions were meticulous, and many of his illustrations exquisite. His
work marks a very important advance in the study of vertebrate palaeonto-
logy. Unfortunately, due to the nature of his collection, some of his genera
and species were established on inadequate material, and these have plagued
succeeding workers in their efforts to identify the better preserved specimens
collected later.
Lawrence Lambe’s camp on Red Deer River, 1901. G.S.C., No. 31832-B44.
12
The Golden Age, 1910 to 1917
While the Canadian collectors and palaeontologists were painfully gathering
the fragments of dinosaur skeletons from which they endeavoured to piece
together a picture of these ancient faunas, a revolution in collecting methods
was taking place in the United States. The use of liquid cements, such as
gum arabic and shellac, and particularly the technique of bandaging the
fossils in their rocky matrix with plaster and burlap, had made it possible
to bring back to the laboratory many skulls and skeletons that would
otherwise have crumbled at the first attempt to remove them. Such col-
lectors as John B. Hatcher, Walter Granger, and Charles H. Sternberg had
brought these techniques to a high level of effectiveness. Another very
successful user of these methods was Dr. Barnum Brown of the American
Museum of Natural History in New York.
Barnum Brown (Lewis, 1964) was born in Osage County, Kansas, in
1873, the son of pioneer settlers. After graduation from the University of
Kansas, where he studied under S. W. Williston, he joined the staff of the
American Museum of Natural History, beginning an association, active
and honorary, that was to last for 66 years. After taking part in an expedi-
tion to Patagonia, Brown began in 1902 to explore the Hell Creek formation
of eastern Montana, the northern equivalent of the famous Lance formation
of Wyoming. This work continued with minor interruptions until 1909 and
the magnificent collection that resulted included the skeleton of the giant
flesh-eating dinosaur (Tyrannosaurus rex) and those of the two duck-billed
dinosaurs (Anatosaurus) that dominate the exhibits of Cretaceous dino-
saurs in the American Museum of Natural History. By 1908 the end of
the work in Montana was in sight, and Brown was looking for new fossil
fields. He was, of course, aware of the discoveries on Red Deer River
through the writings of Lambe, but these did not suggest an unusually rich
occurrence.
In 1909 a rancher from the Red Deer River valley, visiting the Ameri-
can Museum of Natural History, reported that fossil bones similar to those
on display were common on his Alberta ranch. The story was so convincing
that Brown, after further work in Montana, travelled to Calgary and north
to Didsbury; from here he was driven 90 miles to the Red Deer River
valley. Sure enough, the bones were there, so next summer he went to the
town of Red Deer with his experienced Montana assistants, prepared to
follow the watery road of Weston and Lambe. But it was not a simple boat
that Brown had built but a large, flat-bottomed scow, big enough to carry
not only the men and their equipment, but also the specimens that they
might obtain. With this they set off down the river; as usual the run through
the canyon was exciting, and at the lower end they swept through a deep
narrow channel where a big landslide from the north side had almost
dammed the river. The party landed on this slide and examined sandstone
blocks containing fossil shells. In one of these they found the jaws and
teeth of fossil mammals, the first discovery of Paleocene mammals in
Alberta.
[3
Expedition from the American Museum of Natural History under Dr. Barnum Brown,
in the Edmonton badlands of the Red Deer River, 1912. The fossil hunters wear nets
for protection against mosquitoes. A.M.N.H., No. 18547.
Soon the scow was floating between badland exposures of the Edmonton
formation. Brown, used to the extensive badlands of South Dakota and
Montana, thought of the valley as a canyon. Before the short season
ended the scow was piled with specimens wrapped in the plaster and burlap
casings, the first from Canada to be collected in this manner. In 1911
Brown continued his prospecting of the upper or Edmonton part of the
Red Deer section with an equally successful field season. The first part of
the summer of 1912 was also spent here, before moving south to the
Steveville area. Among the finds made during these two and a half field
seasons were the skeleton of a new duck-billed dinosaur (Saurolophus
osborni), the skull of a new horned dinosaur (Anchiceratops ornatus),
the incomplete skeleton of another new, and unusually small, “horned”
dinosaur (Leptoceratops gracilis), partial skeletons of armoured dinosaurs
(Ankylosaurus), skulls of the flesh-eating dinosaur (Albertosaurus sarco-
phagus), and an incomplete skeleton of a plesiosaur (Leurospondylus
ultimus), geologically the youngest member of the group discovered up to
that time.
Later in the summer of 1912 Brown transferred his operations to the
lower or Steveville-Deadlodge Canyon area. Here he must have found the
much wider badlands more to his liking. He continued working here each
summer until 1915, and gathered an even more impressive collection than
that obtained in 1910 and 1911. Highlights of this included two skeletons
of the hooded duck-billed dinosaur (Corythosaurus casuarius), skeletons
of a small duck-billed dinosaur (“Procheneosaurus”’), the incomplete skull of
14
ee
Dr. Barnum Brown and the skeleton of a duck-billed dinosaur (type of Corythosaurus
casuarius), Oldman formation, Red Deer River, 1912. A.M.N.H., No. 18552.
another new duck-billed dinosaur (Prosaurolophus maximus), the skull of a
new horned dinosaur (“Monoclonius” flexus) and the complete skeleton
of another (“Monoclonius” nasicornus), the skull and portion of the
skeleton of a small armoured dinosaur, two skeletons of the large flesh-
eating dinosaur (Gorgosaurus libratus), and a fine skeleton of the bird-
mimic dinosaur (Struthiomimus altus). Some of the dinosaurs obtained
from these “Belly River” beds were obviously closely related, and probably
ancestral, to those previously found in the younger Edmonton formation,
the first convincing demonstration of dinosaurian evolution. The collections
obtained by Brown along the Red Deer River from 1910 to 1915, together
with those made previously from the Hell Creek beds of Montana, made
it possible for the American Museum of Natural History to set up the
finest display of Cretaceous dinosaurs in the world.
Brown worked in Alberta with the complete knowledge and approval
of the Geological Survey of Canada, but long before his series of expedi-
tions had ended, there was grumbling about the foreigners who were robbing
Canada of her prehistoric treasures. This was carping criticism from
citizens of a country that had known of these treasures for 26 years before
Barnum Brown appeared on the Red Deer River. But the complaints had
at least one good result. The Director of the Geological Survey of Canada,
Dr. R. W. Brock, rightly decided that the proper course was to compete
with, rather than prohibit, the American expeditions. However, there was
no one in Canada with the technical skill and experience to equal that of
Brown and his colleagues. So the Survey sought the help of C. H. Sternberg
be)
and his three sons, who had achieved fame as the discoverers and collectors
of many outstanding fossil vertebrates from the western United States.
Charles Hazelius Sternberg has left us two most valuable accounts of
his experiences as a fossil hunter (Sternberg, C. H., 1909, 1917). The first
of these deals with his early years and his work before coming to Canada,
the second mainly with his expeditions to the Red Deer River in Alberta.
He was born in Otsego County, New York, in 1850, the son of a Lutheran
clergyman and teacher. When he was 15 years old his family moved to
Iowa and later to Ellsworth County, Kansas. Here the future fossil hunter
grew up in the exciting environment of the frontier, with herds of wild
buffalo not far away, and emigrant wagon trains moving west daily. His
first fossil collection was of plants from the Dakota sandstone but in 1876
he became field assistant to Professor E. D. Cope of Philadelphia, then
well launched into his brilliant career as a vertebrate palaeontologist and
arch-rival of Professor O. C. Marsh of Yale University. After a productive
but strenuous period in the Niobrara chalk of Kansas, Sternberg and his
assistant, J. C. Isaacs, joined Professor Cope in an expedition to the Judith
River badlands of the Missouri River valley of north-central Montana. It
was here in 1855 that F. V. Hayden had made one of the first discoveries
of dinosaur fossils in North America. A good account of the extraordinary
expedition of 1876 has been given by Cushman (1962). Among other
incidents, the party just missed being caught by the Sioux and their allies
in their retreat from the Little Big Horn battlefield to the sanctuary of
Canadian territory. The important thing about this expedition for present
purposes is that it introduced Sternberg to dinosaur fossils in a formation
and a type of country similar to those in which he was to operate many
years later in Alberta.
During the next 35 years Sternberg worked almost exclusively as a col-
lector of fossil vertebrates and his finds became the prized possessions of
many museums in the United States and Europe. From about 1900 on he
was assisted in the field by one or more of his three sons, of whom we shall
hear more later. In the spring of 1912 Sternberg spent some weeks in
Ottawa with his son George, mounting specimens that he had sold to the
Geological Survey. Subsequently he was appointed to the staff as Chief
Collector and Preparator under Lawrence Lambe. In July he began his
first field season on the Red Deer River, assisted by his second and third
sons, Charles and Levi. Sternberg wisely decided to use both land and
water transportation, bringing with him from Kansas his field wagon, and
having a row boat built in Calgary. The first camp was set up near Drum-
heller, and soon his party found their first dinosaur bones.
Later work has shown that the Drumheller vicinity is just outside the
richest area for vertebrate fossils in the Edmonton formation. A number
of incomplete skeletons were found by the Sternberg expedition of 1912,
but the prize was a nearly complete skeleton of a duck-billed dinosaur
(subsequently named Anatosaurus edmontoni), which was discovered
about five miles up Michichi Creek, a stream that comes into the Red Deer
at Drumheller from the northeast. Farther up the river, opposite the mouth
of Threehills Creek, the skull and part of skeleton of another large duck-
billed dinosaur was found (type of Edmontosaurus regalis ).
16
In the summer of 1913, Sternberg, accompanied by his sons Charles
and Levi and another assistant, Jack McGee, went to Drumheller, where
he acquired a motor boat and had a scow built, big enough for two tents.
With the scow in tow and son Charles at the tiller of the boat, they set off
for the Steveville area, which they reached after two days of rather exciting
travel. At the Steveville ferry they tied up the scow and had barely started
to unload when a preliminary reconnaissance disclosed the skeleton of a
large flesh-eating dinosaur (type of Gorgosaurus libratus). This discovery,
actually made by C. M. Sternberg, was an amazing and promising start.
A few days later Levi Sternberg arrived with the wagon and equipment,
and in July George joined the field party.
Contacts between the Sternberg and Brown field parties were friendly,
but Brown soon moved his camp downstream to the Little Sandhill Creek
area. Sternberg would have liked to follow but already he had enough
finds near Steveville to keep his party busy for the summer. In addition to
the flesh-eater’s skeleton, the discoveries of the year included two fine skulls
of duck-billed dinosaurs (one of them the type of Gryposaurus notabilis),
the skull of a fantastic new horned dinosaur with a frill of spikes (Styraco-
saurus albertensis), a skeleton of a horned dinosaur with skin impressions
(Chasmosaurus belli), the skull of another new horned dinosaur (Centro-
saurus apertus), and the shell of a new species of turtle (Boremys pulchra).
Lambe visited the field camp in September and was greatly impressed with
the wealth of material that had been found.
At the beginning of the field season of 1914, Sternberg and his son
Charles accompanied a Survey geologist, Dr. D. B. Dowling, to the Judith
River badlands of Montana, which he had explored with Cope 38 years
before. Oil had been discovered in Alberta, and the pioneer geological
work of Dawson was being revised by Dowling and his associates, hence
the visit to the classical Cretaceous section along the Missouri. Sternberg
enjoyed seeing the changes that had occurred in the region since his previous
Lawrence Lambe and C. H.
Sternberg collecting a fossil.
turtle, Oldman formation, Red C. H. Sternberg and skull of a horned dinosaur
Deer River, 1912. National (Chasmosaurus belli), Oldman formation, Red
Museum of Canada, No. 25436. Deer River, 1913. iN.M.C., No. 25421.
es
i
Mi yyy
C. H. Sternberg and G. F. Sternberg setting out on a reconnaissance of Dead Lodge
Canyon, 1913. It was on this trip that the elder Sternberg found the skull of the
spike-crested dinosaur (Styracosaurus albertensis). N.M.C., No. 25441.
visit, but found no vertebrate fossils worth collecting. However, he did
observe bones that proved the presence of hooded duck-billed dinosaurs
in the Judith River formation. This led him to some sound comments on
the true nature of Leidy’s Trachodon mirabilis (Sternberg, C. H., 1917,
p. 112), which might have been noted with profit by some of the con-
temporary palaeontologists. After about two weeks he joined his other two
sons, who were already at work in the Red Deer River badlands. The first
task was to recaulk the seams of the scow. After that, camp was moved to
a location below the mouth of “Sand” (Little Sandhill) Creek, in the heart
of that part of the badlands known as Deadlodge Canyon. Here George
L. Sternberg collecting a dinosaur skull (Prosaurolophus) in the heart of the Little
Sandhill Creek badlands, Red Deer River, 1914. The excavation can be seen just to
the right of centre. NMC. No. 29056.
found another, even finer skeleton of the same horned dinosaur (Chasmo-
saurus belli) as had been discovered the previous year near Steveville.
Years later these two skeletons were mounted side by side in the National
Museum of Canada. Other outstanding finds of the 1914 season were the
well-preserved skull of a duck-billed dinosaur (Prosaurolophus maximus ),
the skull of another horned dinosaur (Centrosaurus apertus), the skeleton
of a duck-billed dinosaur lacking the skull but showing excellent skin
impressions, the incomplete skeleton of an armoured dinosaur (Euoplo-
cephalus tutus), and the tail club of another armoured dinosaur.
June of 1915 was spent by Sternberg and his two sons Charles and Levi
along Milk River in southern Alberta. Also with the party was Gustav
C. M. Stemberg and L. Sternberg starting to uncover the skeleton of a horned
dinosaur (Chasmosaurus belli), Oldman formation, Red Deer River, 1914.
NIMES, No. 29055.
Lindblad, of whom more later. The first World War was on, and C. M.
Sternberg had the amusing experience of being mistaken for a law officer
searching for deserters along the International Boundary. The first dis-
appointment of the trip was the discovery that the richly fossiliferous patch
of badlands exposing rocks of the Two Medicine formation was actually
on the Montana side of the Boundary. From Coutts the party moved east-
ward to the Milk River valley in what is now the Comrey district. It was
here that Dawson had found dinosaur remains in 1874. Sternberg’s descrip-
tion (Sternberg, 1917, pp. 123-125) of the rocks exposed here, which we
now assign to the Foremost and Oldman formations, is excellent, but he
found no specimens worth collecting. Years later some good dinosaur
material was obtained northeast of here, but the area searched by Sternberg
has so far yielded nothing but dissociated bones.
By the end of June Sternberg was back on the Red Deer River. High
water delayed the start of operations, but eventually camp was set up.
Prospecting was carried out along almost the whole length of Deadlodge
19
Canyon, from One Tree Creek to Jenner Ferry. The most important dis-
coveries were the skeleton of a duck-billed dinosaur (Corythosaurus
casuarius ), another fine duck-billed dinosaur, but without the skull (“‘head-
less wonder”), and some excellent armoured dinosaur material.
On May 31, 1916, before the start of the field season, Sternberg
resigned from the Geological Survey of Canada. He may have been getting
restless, but the immediate cause of his leaving was a disagreement with
Lambe over the plans for field work. His youngest son Levi came with him
but George and Charles remained with the Survey. That summer the elder
Sternberg, with Levi, worked the badlands immediately southeast of Steve-
ville on behalf of the British Museum (Natural History). Two remarkably
well preserved skeletons of duck-billed dinosaurs were found, and with
much labour removed and packed. Sternberg’s justifiable pride in these fine
specimens was turned to sorrow and anger when they were lost in the war-
time sinking of the S.S. Mount Temple. Some material of minor importance
did reach the British Museum in another shipment, a sorry remnant of a
rich collection.
Sternberg returned to the Red Deer badlands for the last time in 1917,
this time on his own resources and with the assistance of his son Levi.
This time they worked the area along Little Sandhill Creek, and again they
were fortunate. The collection included the skeleton of a medium-sized flesh-
eating dinosaur (type of Gorgosaurus sternbergi), the skeleton of a hooded
duck-billed dinosaur, and a skull and part of skeleton of a small armoured
dinosaur (“Palaeoscincus’). Sternberg offered to sell the collection to the
British Museum to replace that lost at sea, but the Trustees were dis-
couraged with the results of the previous year and declined the offer. So
the flesh-eater and the armoured dinosaur were sold to the American
Museum of Natural History, and the duck-billed dinosaur went to the
San Diego Museum of Natural History in California, where it was mounted
under Sternberg’s direction.
With the departure of C. H. Sternberg from the Red Deer badlands,
and with Barnum Brown having completed his work there in 1915, the
most exciting period for dinosaur hunting in Canada came to a close. From
now on the collectors had to search much harder to find things that their
predecessors had missed. With one or two exceptions nothing remained to
be found that was as spectacular as the specimens discovered between
1910 and 1917. For some years after leaving Canada Sternberg made his
home in California, from which base he continued to make expeditions to
the fossil fields. His most notable were several trips to the Upper Cretaceous
of the San Juan Basin, New Mexico. In later years he came back to Canada
and lived with his son Levi in Toronto, where he died in 1943, at the
age of 93.
20
The Search Continues, 1917 to 1965
The two elder sons of Charles H. Sternberg, i.e., George F. Sternberg
and Charles M. Sternberg, remained with the Geological Survey of Canada
after the departure of their father and younger brother. It will be more
convenient to describe separately the explorations of these two brilliant
fossil finders, even though this will mean some chronological repetition.
George Friar Sternberg had already begun independent field work in
1915, working in the Edmonton formation, but north of the area visited
by his father and brothers in 1912. He began west of Rowley, and con-
tinued in the field for four months. At the end of the season he examined
the miniature badlands along Battle River, southeast of Camrose, but
found nothing important. The large collection obtained this year from the
Red Deer River valley included the fine skull of a hooded duck-billed
dinosaur (Hypacrosaurus altispinus), previously known from the skeleton
without skull found by Barnum Brown. Also obtained were two skulls of
a small duck-billed dinosaur, which Lambe made the types of a new genus
and species (Cheneosaurus tolmanensis ) .
In 1916 George Sternberg returned to the Edmonton beds, extending
his search farther south. He obtained the skeleton of a large, flat-headed,
duck-billed dinosaur; this and the skull collected in 1912 were made the
types of another new genus and species (Edmontosaurus regalis). Also
found this year was the skeleton of a bird-mimic dinosaur (type of Ornitho-
mimus edmontonicus ) and some armoured dinosaur material.
George remained in Ottawa in 1917, preparing specimens collected
during the previous years. With no prospect of field work in 1918 he
resigned about the middle of the year. In 1920 he returned to the Red Deer
River on his own resources, working in the Oldman formation near Little
Sandhill Creek. His finds this year included the skull of a hooded duck-
billed dinosaur (Corythosaurus excavatus), the skull of a horned dinosaur
(Chasmosaurus kaiseni), and a beautifully preserved skeleton of a soft-
shelled turtle (Aspideretes allani). At the close of the season Professor
John A. Allan of the University of Alberta arranged to purchase the
collection for the Department of Geology of that institution, and to engage
George’s services for the year to prepare the specimens for exhibition.. He
remained at Edmonton during the academic year 1920-21, and the follow-
ing summer he returned to the Red Deer River valley and the badlands
around Little Sandhill Creek. This year he collected a nearly complete
skeleton of a hooded duck-billed dinosaur (Corythosaurus) and the skull
and incomplete skeleton of a flesh-eating dinosaur (Gorgosaurus libratus),
but the most important specimen was the beautifully preserved skull and
incomplete skeleton of a small dinosaur with enormously thickened cranial
bones. This thickened mass had been turning up as an isolated fossil for
years and had been described by Lambe (Stegoceras validus), but now for
the first time the appearance and relationships were revealed of this
astonishing little dinosaur.
ra
This season of 1921 George Sternberg became the first dinosaur col-
lector on the Red Deer River to have his work recorded in motion pictures.
This happened by a curious error. The Dominion Motion Picture Bureau,
predecessor of the National Film Board of Canada, had decided to make
a short motion picture based on the work being done by the Geological
Survey of Canada in the collecting and displaying of Canadian dinosaurs.
The camera party sent to Alberta was naturally supposed to visit the
Geological Survey party under Charles M. Sternberg, but local directions
sent them to the camp of George Sternberg. So this excellent little film
records field work by the University of Alberta party and preparation being
done at the National Museum of Canada in Ottawa.
That winter George Sternberg continued the preparation of the speci-
mens obtained during the two preceding field seasons, but in the spring he
resigned to accept a position with the Field Museum of Natural History of
Chicago, under Elmer S. Riggs. The summer of 1922 was the last time that
the eldest of the Sternberg sons worked on the Red Deer River, his collec-
tion going to Chicago. However, he returned to Edmonton for several
months in 1935, to complete the preparation of the collection that he
brought together in 1920 and 1921.
When George Sternberg left the Geological Survey of Canada in 1918,
the only one of the four Sternbergs remaining at Ottawa was Charles
Mortram Sternberg, the second son of C. H. Sternberg. Actually, Charles
had his first independent expedition to the Red Deer badlands in 1917,
C. M. Sternberg and G. E. Lindblad working on the skull of a horned dinosaur
(Centrasaurus sp.), Oldman formation, Red Deer River, 1917. N.M.C., No. 39994.
opstcsmergmeccon rate
Ze
when he worked in the Little Sandhill Creek area. Principal finds of that
year were the skull of a hooded duck-billed dinosaur (type of Lambeo-
saurus lambei) and of a horned dinosaur (type of Centrosaurus longirostris ) ,
and the incomplete skeleton of an armoured dinosaur (type of Panoplo-
saurus mirus). He was back in the Little Sandhill Creek area in 1919.
Most of the finds of that year were of duck-billed dinosaurs (Corythosaurus
excavatus, C. intermedius, type of Lambeosaurus magnicristatus ) .
Lawrence Lambe, in charge of vertebrate palaeontology for the Geo-
logical Survey of Canada, died on March 12, 1919. The administration of
his programme was taken over by Dr. E. M. Kindle as Chief of the
Palaeontology Section. But more and more C. M. Sternberg began to
assume the role of scientist as well as of collector and preparator. His first
scientific paper appeared in 1921, a supplement to Lambe’s unfinished
description of an armoured dinosaur (Panoplosaurus mirus).
Sternberg resumed field work in 1921 with a visit to the Morgan
(“Rocky”) Creek badlands south of Wood Mountain, Saskatchewan,
where he relocated the fossiliferous ““Lance” beds (Frenchman formation )
discovered by Dawson in 1874, and obtained remains of the characteristic
horned dinosaur (Triceratops), as well as the fine skull of a new duck-
billed dinosaur (type of Anatosaurus saskatchewanensis). After shipping
the collection he moved back to the Little Sandhill Creek area of the Red
Personnel of four expeditions gathered at the camp of C. M. Sternberg, Little Sandhill
Creek, Red Deer River, 1917. STANDING, LEFT TO RIGHT: R. L. Rutherford, assistant
to Allan, P. A. Taverner, ornithologist, C. M. Sternberg, C. H. Young, assistant to
Taverner, C. H. Sternberg, Dr. J. A. Allan, geologist. SEATED LEFT TO RIGHT: cook
(C.H.S.), assistant (C.H.S.), Bruce McKee, assistant to C. H. Sternberg. L. Sternberg,
senior assistant to C. H. Sternberg, took the picture. N.M.C., No. 40000.
2
Deer badlands. Discoveries listed for this part of the field season are the
skull and incomplete skeleton of a flesh-eating dinosaur (Gorgosaurus
libratus), the skeleton without skull of a small duck-billed dinosaur, the
skull of a hooded duck-billed dinosaur (Corythosaurus) and the skull of
a horned dinosaur (Centrosaurus). By the end of this season he had
prospected most of the badlands from Little Sandhill Creek to the lower
end of Dead Lodge Canyon. This year Sternberg used an automobile as
well as a team and wagon, the beginning of the progressive replacement
of the dinosaur hunter’s traditional means of transportation.
After a year that included a reconnaissance of fossil localities in the
Maritime Provinces, C. M. Sternberg returned to the Red Deer River in
1923, this time to the Edmonton formation as exposed north of Drumheller.
An area northward from the Munson ferry was explored, and among the
discoveries was a fine skeleton with skin impressions of the duck-biled
dinosaur (Edmontosaurus regalis), unfortunately lacking the skull. Next
summer (1924) he was back in the area, extending his prospecting to the
vicinity of Morrin ferry and northward. Two more duck-billed dinosaurs
(Edmontosaurus, Anatosaurus) were represented among the finds, as well
as two horned dinosaur skulls (including type of Anchiceratops longirostris),
an armoured dinosaur (type of Edmontonia longiceps) and a skeleton of
the bird-mimic dinosaur (Ornithomimus ).
By 1925 his exploration of the Edmonton formation had reached the
vicinity of Tolman ferry, west of Rowley. In this area he was beginning to
get into the upper Edmonton beds, which he later showed to carry a distinct
(Lancian) dinosaur fauna, the last dinosaurian assemblage. From these
beds he obtained the skeleton of a small dinosaur (Thescelosaurus edmon-
tonensis) related to the ancestors of the duck-billed dinosaurs. The last
season of this four-year programme, that of 1926, was spent in the Red
Deer valley west of Big Valley, where the skulls of two duck-billed dino-
saurs (Saurolophus, Hypacrosaurus) were found, as well as two incomplete
skeletons of the bird-mimic dinosaur (Ornithomimus), and the incomplete
skeleton of a flesh-eating dinosaur (Albertosaurus ).
After an absence of one year, C.-M. Sternberg returned to the west in
1928. First he went to southwestern Saskatchewan, where F. H. McLearn
was mapping and measuring the late Cretaceous and early Tertiary forma-
tions. Following up a find by H. S. Jones of Eastend, an enthusiastic
amateur fossil hunter, Sternberg obtained remains of the characteristic
horned dinosaur (Triceratops) of the latest Cretaceous (Lancian) stage
from the beds then known as Lower Ravenscrag (later renamed the
Frenchman formation). From here he returned to the Red Deer valley,
this time in the vicinity of Steveville ferry, where he had begun his long
run of discoveries in 1913. Many other excellent collectors had also been
over this area of badlands, but by very careful and systematic coverage
Sternberg and his assistants were able to find a number of important
specimens, including the skeleton of a hooded duck-billed dinosaur (type
of Lambeosaurus clavinatalis), the skull of a small hooded duck-billed
dinosaur (type of Tetragonosaurus cranibrevis), and the skull and part of
skeleton of a horned dinosaur (paratype of Chasmosaurus russelli). Also,
24
re ~
in a small area south of the Steveville ferry he obtained the hind feet of
two small flesh-eating dinosaurs (types of Macrophalangia canadensis and
Stenonychosaurus inequalis ) .
In 1929 Sternberg was again in southern Saskatchewan, helping
McLearn to date the late Cretaceous and early Tertiary formations. In
1930 he had a memorable trip to the canyon of the Peace River in north-
eastern British Columbia, where a large number of dinosaur tracks had
been found in the Lower Cretaceous rocks (Gething member of the Bull-
head Mountain formation). It was not possible to quarry out many of the
original footprints, but Sternberg made a number of plaster moulds in the
field, from which replicas in plaster or concrete were subsequently cast.
From 1931 to 1935 the “Great Depression” was at its worst in Canada.
Scientific projects were supported by governments only if they seemed to
have direct economic importance, and hunting dinosaurs was not one of
these. In 1935 it was decided that the occurrences of the many important
specimens in the Steveville-Deadlodge Canyon area ought to be more
accurately recorded, and the Geological Survey of Canada undertook a
detailed topographical survey of the area. The mapping was carried out
with great skill by F. P. DuVernet, and Sternberg collaborated by finding
and identifying sites of fossil discoveries. This work he continued in 1936.
Each site was not only located by instrumental survey, but was permanently
marked by a brass plate set in an iron pipe and concrete base. This project
culminated in the publication of the Steveville sheet (Map 969A, Geologi-
cal Survey of Canada), which not only shows the location of the sites on
the map but also gives an annotated list of the finds themselves, compiled
by Sternberg. The field season of 1936 was not entirely devoted to locating
sites. A number of fossils were collected, including the skull of a new duck-
billed dinosaur (type of Brachylophosaurus canadensis ).
The summer of 1937 was spent by Sternberg in the Manyberries and
Comrey districts of southeastern Alberta, where, as noted below, L. S.
Russell had found good vertebrate fossils in the upper part of the Oldman
formation. Besides the skeleton of a large duck-billed dinosaur from east
of Manyberries, Sternberg found two skulls of a horned dinosaur (Mono-
clonius lowei) of a type previously known only from the Judith River
formation of Montana.
During the years of World War IH, field work in vertebrate palaeonto-
logy was again suspended. But in 1946 Sternberg was able to return to the
Red Deer River, this time to resume his explorations of the Upper Edmon-
ton beds west of Big Valley. Here he definitely established the very late
Cretaceous (Lancian) age of these beds by the discovery of a skull of the
characteristic horned dinosaur (type of Triceratops albertensis). During
this summer he also visited southwestern Alberta, and in beds correspond-
ing to the lower part of the Edmonton formation, on Little Bow River east
of Carmangay, he found the skull of an extraordinary dinosaur (type of
Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis), related to the horned dinosaurs but having
instead of horns a large oval platform on the top of the face. The summer
of 1947 was spent in the Upper Edmonton beds. At a site 13 miles north-
east of Elnora, just about the extreme northern end of the Red Deer
25
badlands, Sternberg and his assistant T. P. Chamney found three beautifully
preserved skeletons of a small dinosaur (Leptoceratops gracilis) previously
known from fragmentary material found by Barnum Brown. This little
dinosaur was related to the horned dinosaurs but had no horns. It was a
survivor of the generalized stock from which the horned dinosaurs were
derived, and it is curious that there were several of these relics of earlier
stages in dinosaur evolution still existing at the very close of the Age of
Dinosaurs.
This was C. M. Sternberg’s last expedition for the Geological Survey
of Canada. In 1948 the responsibility for research and display in vertebrate
palaeontology was transferred from the Geological Survey to the National
Museum of Canada. At the beginning of 1950 there was a complete
administrative separation of the two institutions that had been together in
one form or another since 1842. Sternberg retired officially on October 16,
1950, but continued to prepare descriptions of dinosaur fossils in the
Museum’s collection.
About 1956 the Government of Alberta adopted the idea of creating
a park out of the Steveville-Deadlodge Canyon badlands. Sternberg was
engaged as a consultant, and by 1957 had seen most of his ideas accepted.
Roy L. Fowler, an Alberta farmer and amateur palaeontologist, was
appointed Park Warden, and in 1958 work on the installations was begun.
That summer Sternberg located two incomplete skeletons near the mouth
of Little Sandhill Creek, and these were prepared for display in place.
Small houses were built over them, with windows to permit inspection by
visitors. In 1965 Sternberg returned to the Park to supervise the collecting
and setting up for display of a good skeleton of a hooded duck-billed dino-
saur (Lambeosaurus magnicristatus), which had been discovered by
Fowler.
Sternberg was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1949
and was awarded the degree of LL.D. in 1960 by the University of Alberta,
Calgary. These honours were in recognition not only of his many remark-
able discoveries in the fossil fields of Alberta and his scientific descriptions
of the finds, but also of the fact that he had clearly recognized the biological
and geological significance of his discoveries.
Before concluding this account of the work of C. M. Sternberg, men-
tion should be made of three outstanding assistants who worked with him.
Joseph Skillen was a permanent member of his staff and accompanied him
in the field on several expeditions. However, his forte was laboratory work,
and he skillfully prepared and mounted a number of dinosaur specimens
in the National Museum of Canada. James E. J. Thurston of Calgary
worked with Sternberg from 1923 to 1926. He was a keen student of
vertebrate fossils and would have become a distinguished collector and
museum worker but he died in 1932 after joining the palaeontological staff
of the California Institute of Technology. Harold Lowe of Drumheller was
a member of many of Sternberg’s field parties from 1924 to 1937. Although
not specially interested in palaeontology, he was a good fossil finder and
a skillful field worker.
The youngest of the three Sternberg sons, Levi Sternberg, made many
26
important discoveries as a member of his father’s expeditions up to 1917,
but he is best known for his long and fruitful association with the Royal
Ontario Museum, University of Toronto. This institution was late in getting
into the field, but thanks to the dedication and skill of the persons concerned
it has today the finest display of dinosaurs in Canada and one of the six or
seven most important collections of Cretaceous dinosaurs in the world.
Palaeontological collections in the early days at the University of
Toronto were assembled by both the Department of Biology and the Depart-
ment of Geology (Fritz, 1939). In 1908 Professor B. A. Bensley, a dis-
tinguished zoologist, visited the Red Deer River badlands near Berry Creek
and obtained what was for those days a fairly good collection, including
the incomplete skull of a duck-billed dinosaur. Meanwhile Professor W. A.
Parks, of the Department of Geology, was building up an impressive collec-
tion of invertebrate fossils, housed in the Mining Building. To this was
added in 1910 the skeleton of a mosasaur (Platycarpus coryphaeus) from
the Cretaceous of Kansas, purchased from C. H. Sternberg.
The Royal Ontario Museum was established in 1912 by the Provincial
Government as an adjunct of the University of Toronto. For many years
it consisted, in theory at least, of five separate museums housed in the
one building, but each with its own Director. William Arthur Parks (Moore,
1937), the first Director of the Royal Ontario Museum of Palaeontology,
was born in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1868, and graduated from the University
of Toronto in 1892. In 1893 he joined the staff of the Department of
Geology of that institution, beginning an association that was to last until
his retirement in 1936. He did field work in Precambrian and Palaeozoic
rocks, and wrote a monumental work on the building and ornamental
stones of Canada. He was a fine teacher, and trained a number of graduate
students who became distinguished geologists. As a palaeontologist he is
best known for his research on that mysterious group of Palaeozoic fossils
known as stromatoporoids, but his later work on Cretaceous dinosaurs
contributed much to his reputation.
For some years the vertebrate fossils in the University of Toronto col-
lection consisted almost entirely of fossil fishes, to which was added the
mosasaur skeleton mentioned above. With the opening of the Royal Ontario
Museum building in 1914 it became possible to plan for additional large
specimens. Already in 1912 Dr. Parks had sent out one of his staff, Pro-
fessor Alexander McLean, to collect in the Edmonton formation near
Munson ferry. But Professor McLean was inexperienced in this kind of
collecting and obtained only isolated bones or fragments, in spite of the
large number of fine specimens that came out of this area subsequently.
In 1918, with the help of his friend, Sir Edmund Walker, Dr. Parks
obtained a grant to permit him to conduct a modest expedition to the Red
Deer River valley. Accompanied by an assistant, Robert Wilson, he
prospected the area around Little Sandhill Creek, and discovered a short
distance to the southeast the nearly complete skeleton of a duck-billed
dinosaur (type of Kritosaurus incurvimanus). In spite of inexperience,
Parks and Wilson took up the specimen without any serious damage. That
winter the preparation of the specimen was begun, but it was soon evident
2M,
that someone with more experience would be needed to complete the work
properly and in a reasonable period of time. So Levi Sternberg was
engaged as head collector and preparator, working directly under Dr. Parks.
Sternberg joined the R.O.M. staff too late in 1919 to do much more
than prepare for the new field season. Dr. Parks and he, with several
assistants, set up camp five miles below Little Sandhill Creek. Although
Parks was in charge, he and Sternberg each had his own assistant and
prospected independently. Parks found an incomplete skeleton which turned
out to be the skull with fore limb and part of the vertebral column of a
horned dinosaur (Centrosaurus apertus). He was very pleased to have this
representative of a second group of dinosaurs, and he and his assistant spent
most of their time on the specimen. Meanwhile Sternberg’s prospecting had
located the skeleton of a duck-billed dinosaur (Corythosaurus intermedius)
subsequently displayed as an open mount, the incomplete skeleton of
another duck-billed dinosaur (Lambeosaurus), and the tail club of an
armoured dinosaur. Parks returned to Toronto after collecting his horned
dinosaur, and Sternberg operated on his own for the rest of the season.
During the winter of 1919-20 Sternberg, assisted by Wilson, completed
the preparation and mounting of the skeleton obtained by Parks in 1918.
This was placed on display with suitable ceremony, and such impressive
evidence of results made it easier to obtain support for subsequent collect-
ing expeditions. In the spring of 1920 Wilson left the Museum staff, and
Sternberg was able to bring in his brother-in-law, Gustav Lindblad, who
had worked with the Sternbergs on the Geological Survey of Canada since
1915, except for absence on war service. This year Sternberg was in charge
of the expedition, an arrangement that continued from then on, although
Parks visited the field camps when he could. It is interesting that the digni-
fied and rather aloof professor of the campus became in the field the most
congenial of campmates.
The expedition of 1920 worked the same general area as that of the
previous year, about five miles east of Little Sandhill Creek. The outstand-
ing find of this season was the nearly complete skeleton of a duck-billed
dinosaur in which the hood was drawn out as a great scimitar-like crest
extending back over the neck and shoulders (type of Parasaurolophus
walkeri). The only other known relics of this strange dinosaur are a few
skull fragments. This was a particularly good year for duck-billed dinosaurs,
the collection also including the skulls or incomplete skeletons of four other
individuals (Lambeosaurus, Corythosaurus, Tetragonosaurus). For varia-
tion, there was the incomplete skeleton with tail club of an armoured
dinosaur (type of Dyoplosaurus acutosquameus ).
In 1921 the technical staff was increased by the addition of Ralph R.
Hornell, who is now the chief collector and preparator in vertebrate
palaeontology at the R.O.M. Hornell was from Toronto, with little experi-
ence of camp life and none in palaeontology, but he quickly adapted himself
to both and became not only a good field worker, but also a successful
finder of fossils, not always the same thing. Once again the area east of
Little Sandhill Creek was explored. Several more or less complete duck-
billed dinosaur skeletons were collected, including one that was later placed
on exhibition (Prosaurolophus maximus ) .
28
Royal Ontario Museum expedition of 1921, Red Deer River near Little Sandhill Creek.
LEFT TO RIGHT: two assistants, Chinese cook, G. E. Lindblad, L. Sternberg, Dr. W. A.
Parks (visiting). N.M.C., No. 46586.
Collecting was shifted to the Edmonton formation in 1922. A fourth
man was added to the permanent staff, John Rickett of Toronto. The
northern Red Deer River badlands were explored from the vicinity of Big
Valley to the area around Morrin ferry. Specimens collected included the
skull of a hooded duck-billed dinosaur (Hypacrosaurus), the incomplete
skull of a horned dinosaur (Anchiceratops), and the almost complete
skeleton of a small dinosaur related to the duck-billed dinosaurs (Parkso-
saurus warreni). The last is remarkable in that much of the backbone of
the tail is reinforced by a lattice of ossified tendons, which must have made
this appendage more or less rigid, a curious condition in a small dinosaur.
Levi Sternberg was given a year’s leave of absence from the R.O.M.
in 1923. His father, although 71 years of age, had begun in 1921 a success-
ful programme of fossil collecting in the Upper Cretaceous of the San Juan
basin, New Mexico. With his son’s help he continued work here in 1923.
Meanwhile the palaeontological expeditions of the R.O.M. were continued
under the leadership of Lindblad. In 1923 and 1924 the area between
Morrin and Munson ferries was explored. The best find of 1923 was the
almost complete skeleton of a large duck-billed dinosaur (Edmontosaurus
regalis). The type of a new horned dinosaur (Arrhinoceratops brachyops)
was also found, and the skeleton of the hind limbs and pelvic region of a
flesh-eating dinosaur (type of Albertosaurus arctunguis). In 1924 another
duck-billed dinosaur skeleton was obtained (Anatosaurus edmontoni). Also
noteworthy in the collection of that year was the skeleton of the hind legs
and pelvis of a bird-mimic dinosaur (type of Struthiomimus brevitertius ).
Sternberg returned to the R.O.M. in 1924 and in 1925 led an expedition
to a Pleistocene locality in Saskatchewan. In 1926 he was back with his staff
in the Red Deer River badlands, working the area around Steveville. Here
he collected an incomplete skeleton of a bird-mimic dinosaur (type of
29
Struthiomimus samueli), the nearly complete skull of which revealed for
the first time the cranial structure of such dinosaurs. Also collected were
the skull of a duck-billed dinosaur (Lambeosaurus) and three more or
less complete skeletons of horned dinosaurs. One of these (Chasmosaurus
belli) was subsequently prepared as an open mount, and another was later
described as a new species (type of Chasmosaurus brevirostris ) .
In 1927 Sternberg and Rickett visited the Oligocene mammal-bearing
localities of the Cypress Hills, but bad weather and poor results caused
them to move back to Steveville. Here they collected a duck-billed dinosaur
skeleton (Lambeosaurus), which was sent in exchange to the Los Angeles
County Museum. Better success in adding to the Museum’s collection of
fossil mammals resulted from two field seasons in the Tertiary rocks of
Nebraska and Wyoming. But in 1930 the R.O.M. field party was back on
Little Sandhill Creek. This was a particularly successful season. The duck-
billed dinosaur specimens obtained included the skull and part of skeleton
of a new species (type of Tetragonosaurus praeceps ). Two other incomplete
skeletons were found, as well as skulls and parts of skeletons of two horned
dinosaurs (Centrasaurus, Chasmosaurus ).
A return to the Edmonton beds near Munson ferry in 1931 resulted in
the collecting of skulls of a duck-billed dinosaur (Edmontosaurus) and a
horned dinosaur (Anchiceratops), and a fine skeleton of a bird-mimic
dinosaur (type of Struthiomimus currellii). But in 1933 the hunting in this
area proved poor, so the R.O.M. party moved back to Steveville. Here they
obtained the skeleton of a flesh-eating dinosaur (Gorgosaurus libratus),
subsequently mounted for display, and the skull and part of a skeleton of
a hooded duck-billed dinosaur (type of Corythosaurus bicristatus ). Explora-
tion of the Little Sandhill Creek area was extended farther south in 1934.
Several skulls of duck-billed dinosaurs were obtained (Corythosaurus
casuarius, type of Corythosaurus frontalis, Kritosaurus). Other finds were
the skull of a horned dinosaur (Centrosaurus) and the disarticulated skull
of a flesh-eating dinosaur (Gorgosaurus ).
In 1935 the R.O.M. party worked the area several miles east of Little
Sandhill Creek. A well preserved skull and incomplete skeleton of an
armoured dinosaur (Edmontonia rugosidens) was one of the prizes, but
the most remarkable discovery was of a dinosaur that was not new at all.
In 1913, C. H. Sternberg, prospecting far afield from his main area of
work, found the skull of the spike-frilled horned dinosaur (Styracosaurus
albertensis), which became one of the most striking exhibits in the National
Museum of Canada. Nearly 22 years later, Levi Sternberg prospected the
same locality and found that in the interval the shifting of a small stream had
exposed additional bones. When these were more fully uncovered they were
found to represent the remainder of the skeleton of the same individual
whose skull had been collected by the Geological Survey party. Even the
missing lower jaw was with the new material. Some years later this speci-
men was exchanged with the National Museum of Canada for the skeleton
of an armoured dinosaur found by George Sternberg in 1914, and the
remains of this almost unique horned dinosaur are now together in the
same institution, although only the skull is on display.
30
The retirement and death of Dr. Parks in 1936 brought to a temporary
halt the programme of field work in vertebrate palaeontology. In 1937 the
present writer was appointed Assistant Director, in charge of vertebrate
palaeontology. Slowly a programme of field work was re-established, only
to be halted again by the Second World War. It was not until 1948 that
full-scale field work in vertebrate palaeontology in western Canada was
resumed and 1950 before this was directed toward the search for dinosaurs.
In that year Levi Sternberg, with Hornell and Allan Weare, reopened the
bone bed in the Upper Milk River beds in Deadhorse Coulee, in the Milk
River area. This site, as noted below, was discovered and worked by the
writer in 1934. The results were not very exciting, and the expedition went
on to examine the Oldman formation in the badlands near Lost River,
which had been explored by the writer and by C. M. Sternberg. Again the
finds were disappointing. Sternberg’s last expedition to the dinosaur fields
was in 1954. He was accompanied by Dr. A. G. Edmund, now Curator of
Vertebrate Palaeontology, and by Hornell. Camp was first established on
Little Sandhill Creek, and the area to the southeast was prospected. Later
the base was moved to the edge of the badlands three miles to the east.
Much wet weather interfered with prospecting and collecting, but four
skulls of duck-billed dinosaurs were obtained, representing three different
genera (Corythosaurus, Tetragonosaurus, Prosaurolophus ).
Levi Sternberg retired from the staff of the Royal Ontario Museum in
1962 with the rank of Associate Curator. Since then, he has retained an
interest in the display programme of the Museum and has participated in
special projects where his talents and experience have contributed to the
production of outstanding exhibits.
The work of William E. Cutler as a collector of dinosaurs belongs to
both the pre- and post-1917 periods. He was an Englishman of some
education who had a “homestead” near the Deadlodge Canyon area. In
1912 he began prospecting the adjacent badlands and discovered the
incomplete skeleton of a horned dinosaur with good skin impressions (type
of “Monoclonius” cutleri). When Barnum Brown arrived with his field
party to work this area, Cutler offered the uncollected specimen to him in
exchange for employment and an opportunity to learn the techniques of
fossil collecting. It is also said he stipulated that if the specimen proved
to represent a new species, it would be named “cutleri”. This was actually
done by Brown but without any dedication. It appears that Cutler, a some-
what eccentric person, did not get along well with Brown and his staff, and
was not re-engaged in subsequent field seasons.
In 1913 Cutler persuaded a group of business and professional men in
Calgary to organize the Calgary Syndicate of Prehistoric Research for the
purpose of supporting his fossil collecting in the Red Deer River badlands.
One of his finds that year was the skeleton of a small duck-billed dinosaur,
which was partly prepared, and exhibited for some years in the original
Calgary Museum. Not properly protected, it suffered much damage from
the public, but was eventually obtained for the National Museum of
Canada by an exchange for another skeleton more suitable for display
(Corythosaurus casuarius collected by C. H. Sternberg in 1915). In 1914
Su
Cutler found his most important specimen, the nearly complete skeleton of
an armoured dinosaur with most of the armour in place (type of Scolo-
saurus cutleri). This was collected near the eastern end of the Deadlodge
Canyon badlands and was sold to the British Museum (Natural History).
Its preparation was delayed due to the First World War, but it was finally
placed on exhibition in 1925 (Swinton, 1929). It is displayed so that one
sees the skeleton on one side as if from below, and on the other side the
dorsal armour as if seen from above. The arrangement of the armour in
transverse rows, like the scutes of an armadillo, is very strikingly
demonstrated.
Cutler was away on military service for several years, but he returned
to the Steveville badlands in 1919. This time he was on his own resources.
So when he found most of the skeleton of a horned dinosaur, he had to
uncover it and take it up alone. He made camp nearby and worked on
through autumn and winter. When he failed to appear at Steveville for
supplies, the local people found him seriously ill in his tent and had to
remove him to the village where he could recover. Eventually, however, he
removed and boxed the specimen. It was stored for years in Calgary, and
as far as I know was part of the residue of the Cutler collection acquired
by the Calgary Zoological Society.
Cutler left Calgary for Winnipeg in 1922, and obtained a position in
the Department of Geology, University of Manitoba. His rank was that of
assistant, but he was popularly known as Professor Cutler, because of the
lectures that he gave on dinosaurs. Early in 1924 he went to England,
where he took charge of an expedition from the British Museum (Natural
History) to collect dinosaur remains from the Lower Cretaceous deposits
of Tanganyika. His assistant was a young Englishman from Kenya, L. S. B.
Leakey. Cutler worked hard and scorned the recognized health precautions
of tropical Africa, so it was not surprising that after eight months he came
down with malaria and complications, from which he died in Lindi at the
age of 42. W. E. Cutler was an enthusiastic and successful fossil collector,
and it was unfortunate that his little eccentricities and pretensions pre-
vented him from getting the support that his ability and dedication deserved.
The work of Lindblad has been mentioned in several of the preceding
pages. Gustav Eric Lindblad was born in Norrbyskar, Sweden, in 1897 and
came to Canada with his family in 1906. He joined the staff of the Geo-
logical Survey of Canada in 1915 as assistant to C. H. Sternberg and was
in the field that year. He served in the Canadian Army during the First
World War and after returning to the Geological Survey he transferred in
1920 to the staff of the Royal Ontario Museum. Here he served for years
as senior assistant to Levi Sternberg, and accompanied him on most of his
expeditions. As mentioned previously, Lindblad was in charge of the
expeditions of 1923 and 1924, which successfully worked the Edmonton
beds near Munson ferry. He left the Royal Ontario Museum in 1951 to
become Chief Collector-Preparator in vertebrate palaeontology for the
National Museum of Canada. His first expedition for this institution was
to the Tertiary of Saskatchewan, but in 1953 he returned to the Red
Deer River badlands with H. L. Shearman and Michael Herniak and
a2
prospected the Little Sandhill Creek area. Principal finds were the skulls
of a duck-billed dinosaur and a horned dinosaur. He extended his search
in 1954 to the area southwest of Steveville. The following year (1955) he
was in the Munson ferry area, the scene of his expeditions of 1923 and
1924. But good specimens were no longer easy to find here and it was not
until near the end of the field season that the skeleton of a large duck-billed
dinosaur (Edmontosaurus) was discovered. It lay at the base of a steep
cliff, high above the valley floor, and time did not permit collecting of more
than the skull.
This was Lindblad’s last season in the field. Ill health forced him to
remain in the laboratory in 1956 and subsequent years, and to retire in
1962. He died in Toronto the same year. Although most of his discoveries
were made while serving as assistant to others, he did lead six expeditions,
and demonstrated an ability to organize and direct field parties as well as
to find and collect important specimens.
Wann Langston, Jr., joined the staff of the National Museum of
Canada as vertebrate palaeontologist in 1954. He had trained under J. W.
Stovall at the University of Oklahoma and under C. L. Camp and R. A.
Stirton at the University of California. During the summer of 1955 he
accompanied Russell on a reconnaissance of the fossil vertebrate localities
of western Canada. His first independent expedition in Canada was in
1956, to the Edmonton beds near Munson ferry, where he collected the
duck-billed dinosaur skeleton found the previous year by Lindblad. Because
of its position at the base of a cliff, and high above the valley floor, the
collection of this specimen presented unusual difficulties. Much of the
overburden had to be removed with the use of explosives, and the plastered
sections lowered down steep slopes. Next year (1957) Langston worked
the bone bed at Scabby Butte rediscovered by Russell in 1955. Much
interesting but dissociated material was obtained, including additional skulls
of the ram-headed dinosaur (Pachyrhinosaurus ).
Tantalizing occurrences of bone in the Foremost and lower Oldman
beds of southern Alberta led Langston in 1958 to explore these exposures
but without important results. However, Mr. Luke Lindoe of Medicine Hat
showed Langston a find in the upper Oldman beds near Irvine, the same
locality visited by Weston in 1884. This turned out to be the articulated
skeleton of a horned dinosaur (Chasmosaurus). The summer of 1959 was
spent on the marine Bearpaw shales in the valley of the South Saskatchewan
River, collecting incomplete plesiosaur and mosasaur remains. Next year
(1960) a few weeks were spent in Alberta, following up leads of previous
years. A trip the same year to the Permian of Prince Edward Island led to
a full season of work there in 1961. Langston’s last expedition for the
National Museum of Canada was in 1962, when he worked the Frenchman
formation (Lancian) of the Morgan Creek area of southern Saskatchewan.
This is the area discovered by Dawson in 1874 and collected from by C. M.
Sternberg in 1921. In spite of difficulties with weather, and vehicle break-
downs, Langston found and collected a good skeleton of the characteristic
horned dinosaur (Triceratops). The following year he left the National
Museum of Canada to join the staff of the Texas Memorial Museum in
TS |
Austin, but at this writing he is still working on the descriptions of some
of his Canadian finds.
The field work of L. S. Russell, the writer of this account, has been
concerned mainly with stratigraphy and mammalian palaeontology. In
1934, while working for the Geological Survey of Canada along Milk
River in southern Alberta he discovered two bone beds in the Upper Milk
River beds in Deadhorse Coulee. This stratigraphical subdivision lies well
below the Oldman formation, separated by the brackish-water Foremost
and the marine Pakowki formations. The specimens obtained gave a
tantalizing glimpse of a dinosaurian fauna that both resembles and differs
from that of the Oldman formation. The continuation of this geological
survey eastward in 1935 and 1936 permitted some exploration of the
Oldman exposures along Milk River and in the area adjacent to Lost
River valley. At a locality near the top of the formation the skull of a new
horned dinosaur (type of Chasmosaurus russelli) was found and collected
(1936). This discovery led to the exploration of the area in 1937 by C. M.
Sternberg, with results previously mentioned.
After joining the staff of the Royal Ontario Museum Russell led an
expedition in 1939 to the Tertiary and Cretaceous of southwestern Saskat-
chewan. He was assisted by Lindblad and by Brian Hall. From the French-
man formation southwest of Shaunavon the party collected the incomplete
skeleton of a horned dinosaur (Triceratops), previously discovered by the
farmer on whose land it occurred. Russell’s reconnaissance of 1955 with
Langston for the National Museum of Canada has been mentioned; during
a visit to Scabby Butte he relocated the bone bed and uncovered a skull of
the ram-headed dinosaur (Pachyrhinosaurus), which he and Langston
collected. This is the site worked by Langston in 1957. Russell’s current
project is the examination of the Paleocene and Upper Cretaceous of the
Swan Hills area of northern Alberta. Numerous occurrences of dissociated
dinosaur bones and teeth offer some promise of significant discoveries yet
to come.
34
The Future
The story of dinosaur hunting in western Canada is not finished. Specimens
are still waiting to be found. In 1965 a field party from the University of
Alberta, under C. R. Stelck, found duck-billed and horned dinosaur remains
near Tolman ferry. There must be hundreds of fine specimens lying just a
few feet beneath the exposed surfaces of Oldman and Edmonton rocks,
waiting for erosion to reveal them to the future fossil hunter. But dis-
coveries will be infrequent, and luck, the circumstance of being at the right
place at the right time, will play an important part in success.
Today we are at the beginning of a new pioneer period and perhaps a
new golden age in the collecting of fossil vertebrates. The scene will be the
western Canadian Arctic. The Upper Cretaceous rocks of the Mackenzie
region and the Lower Cretaceous and Upper Jurassic of the Arctic Islands
are known to contain good skeletal remains. The collector here will have
to learn his business all over again. The logistics are peculiar and require
much more careful planning. In transportation the airplane and the heli-
copter replace the team and wagon and the four-wheel-drive truck. The
techniques that have worked so well in the south are not suited to perma-
frost and Arctic gales. But ingenuity and experimentation will solve the
problems and in a few years there will be a whole new story to tell of
collectors and their discoveries in the fossil fields of northwestern Canada.
RERFERENCES
BROWN, BARNUM, 1919
Hunting big game of other days: A boating expedition in search of
fossils in Alberta, Canada. Natl. Geogr. Mag., vol. 35, no. 5, pp.
407-429, 25 figs.
CUSHMAN, DAN, 1962
Monsters of the Judith: Dinosaur diggings of the West provided
competitive arena for fossil discovery. Montana, the Magazine of
Western History, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 18-36, 15 figs.
DAWSON, G. M., 1875
Report on the geology and resources of the region in the vicinity
of the forty-ninth Parallel, from the Lake of the Woods to the
Rocky Mountains with lists of plants and animals collected and
notes on the fossils. Brit. North Amer. Boundary Comm. Montreal,
Dawson Brothers; 379 pp., 19 pls., 2 maps.
1883
Preliminary report on the geology of the Bow and Belly River
regions, North-West Territory, with special reference to the coal
deposits. Geol. and Nat. Hist. Surv. Canada, Rept. of Progress for
1880-31-82, part B, pp. 1-23, 3 pls., 1 map.
So.
FRITZ, M. A., 1939
Outline of the history and development of the Royal Ontario
Museum of Palaeontology. Contrib. Roy. Ontario Mus. Palaeont.,
Nort, 19 pp... 3 pls:
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