Tyaughton, north of Gold Bridge beneath the rugged skyline of Castle Peak, is one of those places for me.
It is wild, breathtaking country where glaciers cling to the mountains, marmots whistle from rocky slopes, golden eagles drift effortlessly overhead, and every winding trail feels like it leads into another chapter of Earth's history.
It is also one of British Columbia's most remarkable places to hunt Triassic and Jurassic fossils.
Standing among these peaks, it is almost impossible to picture that some 200 to 220 million years ago this entire landscape lay beneath a warm tropical sea. Instead of alpine meadows and mountain goats, graceful ammonites cruised the water column while crinoids swayed gently on the seafloor.
Brachiopods, bivalves, gastropods and countless other marine creatures flourished in an ocean that has long since disappeared.
Those ancient seabeds would one day be lifted thousands of metres skyward as the Coast Mountains rose around them, preserving their story within layers of limestone and shale.
 |
| Badouxia ammonites |
One careful tap with the rock hammer and suddenly you are sharing a moment with an animal that last saw daylight before the first dinosaurs truly came into their own.
Those discoveries never lose their magic.
The nearby Taseko Lakes region has yielded one of the finest collections of Late Hettangian ammonites ever discovered in British Columbia.
Over many remarkable field seasons, we documented thirty-five ammonite taxa and described three entirely new species, greatly expanding our understanding of Early Jurassic life along the ancient western margin of North America.
That work holds a particularly special place in my heart.
I had the enormous honour of having one of those new species named after me by Dr. Louise Longridge of the University of British Columbia. Fergusonites hendersonae is a beautiful little nektonic carnivorous ammonite that now carries my family name through the scientific literature. It remains one of the greatest honours of my life.
I first met Louise as an undergraduate, and later had the privilege of joining expeditions into the Taseko backcountry alongside wonderful friends from the Vancouver Island Paleontological Society, the Vancouver Paleontological Society, and researchers from UBC.
We followed in the footsteps of the legendary Dr. Howard Tipper, whose meticulous geological mapping and extraordinary knowledge of Jurassic ammonites transformed our understanding of this part of British Columbia. His maps remain the foundation for much of the work we continue today.
Those expeditions were unforgettable.
Over several field seasons we endured altitude sickness, rain, snow, grizzly bears, and more than a few freezing nights camped beside glaciers. Helicopters spared us days of hiking into some of the most inaccessible fossil localities in the province, where every outcrop held the possibility of something extraordinary.
Along with the three new ammonite species, we recovered beautifully preserved gastropods, crustaceans, and countless specimens that continue to help us piece together the history of these ancient seas.
What makes these fossils so important is not simply their beauty.
Ammonites evolved rapidly, making them some of our finest index fossils. By comparing species found here with those from Nevada, Alaska, South America, New Zealand, and Europe, we can correlate rock layers across continents and refine the geological timescale for the Early Jurassic.
These tiny coiled shells have become some of our most powerful tools for understanding how life recovered following the greatest mass extinction our planet has ever known.
Collecting in this country also comes with responsibility. Many of these fossil localities lie within sensitive alpine environments or protected areas where collecting requires permits or is prohibited altogether. We tread lightly, respect the land, follow regulations, and remember that we are visitors in landscapes that have preserved these stories for hundreds of millions of years.
That is perhaps what I love most. You stand surrounded by towering peaks, yet beneath your boots lies the floor of an ancient tropical ocean. The mountains themselves are built from forgotten seas, and every fossil reminds us that Earth is never still.
Continents wander. Oceans open and close. Mountains rise. Species flourish, disappear, and give way to those yet to come.
