The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, Drumheller, AB

These are some of the pictures I took while we spent the day in the museum. Double click on a picture to get more detail. They had a very well done special exhibit about Charles Darwin and the importance of his interpretations of his observations. Evolution is very important to paleotolongists. This is the head of a bison that roamed North America over 7,500 years ago. The ancestors of the First Nation (Native Americans) used to hunt these animals that were much bigger than the bisons hunted in the past several thousand years. Using a four foot spear thrown with the aid of an atlatl was quite a challenge. Hunting in well organized groups was the key.

The mammoth stood ten feet tall at the shoulder and some stood as high as thirteen feet. Anthropologist now suggest that First Nation people of the Paleo Era probably rarely hunted these animals, but used the meat of those animals who recently died by accident or old age. Obviously, there was massive risk in hunting these animals and since these people traveled in small bands, the whole group would be endangered by the loss of an important hunter.

These salamanders are survivors from some 165 million years ago. They now live in Mexico. Well, these, of course, live in Alberta, Canada.

http://www.tyrrellmuseum.com/

If you will click on the picture of the prehistoric turtle, you can see him about to make lunch of a fingerling trout. Fellow fisherman. Haha.

This is a diorama that greets the visitors inside the museum.. The albertosauras is depicted in all its real life glory. The museum is located in the Canadian Badlands where coal has been mined and fantastic fossils are now found, collected, studied and presented to the public.

Calgary, AB sits on the Plains of North America. To get to Drumheller one must cross the Plains. That is pretty flat terrain. It has been several years since J and I have traveled the Plains. Pretty flat. As I once read some plain dweller commenting about the forests and mountains, "There are too many things getting in the way of the view. I feel all hemmed in."





We came home to find that the garden had been well killed by a frost while we were gone. I have harvested the squash and melons. Not a lot, but enough squash for the winter and a few to give away to the kids. We have had rainy and cold weather the past two days.

J has spent the day puttering with sales tax preparation for the State of ID and fighting a cold. I have been working on Indianhead Fly Fisher agendas for the upcoming meetings. We have the Grand Opening of the Weiser Community Pond this month so there is a lot to do concerning the pond which is continuing to fill. Fish and Game will plant 1000 catchable rainbows in the pond this week sometime. Now the wonder is how high will the water rise. We hope that we don't have an oooops in the making. Haha

Papa Coyote loves you all,

Yeeeeeoooowwwww!!!!!