TRILACINOCERAS NORVEGICUM

A lovely example of Trilacinoceras norvegicum (Sweet, 1958), a nektonic carnivorous cephalopod from Ordovician outcrops on Helgö Island, Hovindsholm, Helgøya, Lake Mjosa, Norway.

This has been a site of human habitation for more than 5,000 years. Vikings, kings, traders, farmers —  and geologists have walked these fields.

To give that timeframe a bit of context, that's about the age of Skara Brae, the Neolithic settlement in Orkney, Scotland — and older than Stonehenge which clocks in at 3000 BC to 2000 BC and the Great Pyramids — built around 2560 BC.

For my friend, Gale Bishop, that's about 469 km west or a good 7-hour drive from your ancestral home in Ask, just north of Bergen and just south of Knarvik where many of my relatives live — Hei du!

The fossils found here are part of the Engervik Member, Elnes Formation, Aseri, and date back to the Middle Ordovician, 463.5 - 460.9 million years ago. W. C. Sweet did fossil fieldwork here in the 1950s and published a paper on the Middle Ordovician of the Oslo Region, Norway 10. Nautiloid Cephalopods. Norsk Geologisk Tidsskrift 38:1-178.

Deservedly, Sweetoceras boreale is named for him and is one of the most delightful species names of all time. In the 1960s, Yochelson picked up where Sweet left off, continuing the survey of the Middle Ordovician of the Oslo region. I chose this Trilacinoceras for a holiday post because their curly tops remind me of a wee Norwegian gnome, or Nisse from the Norse niðsi, a dear little relative. My Swedish relatives call them Tomte, a throwback to Saint Birgitta of Sweden in the 1300s.

Helgøya is an island in Mjøsa located in the Ringsaker municipality of Hedmark county, Norway. It was formerly a part of the Nes municipality. And long before that, it was the ruling centre for the Kings in Hedmark, where bold men and women held great blót celebrations to Odin and planned raids and expansion into Europe and Russia — roughly A.D. 793 — the beginning of the Viking Age.

Today, it is lush and green and easy to explore — or fish. Mjøsa is Norway's largest lake, as well as one of the deepest lakes in Norway and in Europe. Battles have been fought on its waters and its depths hold interesting archaeological and paleontological secrets. They also hold a goodly amount of large and tasty trout, pike, perch, burbot and graylings.

Helgøya is the largest freshwater island in Norway at 18.3 km². The island is delightful to explore and home to 32 farms. One of the most beautiful of these is the Hovinsholm manor. You can visit the farm in both summer and winter (both equally beautiful) and enjoy a café, workshop or their Christmas market. They have lush gardens and some very friendly horses you can pet — or spoil with apples, as you do. The property is massive at 2012 acres, divided into grain, potatoes and forest. It has been home to kings and court. It was a monastery in the Middle Ages from the 5th to the 15th century. Today, Tolle Hoel Slotnæs, and his wife, Charlotte Holberg Sveinsen own and run the manor with their three daughters.

Hovinsholm, Helgøya, Lake Mjosa, Norway

Helgøya means, "Holy Island," in Norwegian. There is a lovely double meaning here and such layered history. The manor, in its various iterations, has been on this site since the 1500s. They had their own Christian manor church until 1612.

On the southern tip of the island, there is an old pagan temple to the Norse Gods, Thor, Frigg, Loki, Hod, Heimdall, Tyr, and Baldur.

Here, farmers of the area would gather at four blót sacrifices a year that followed the seasons, one for each of the winter solstice, spring equinox, summer solstice and autumn equinox. Animals would be sacrificed, their blood splattered on altars, walls and folk around them. Toasts were made. The first was in honour of Thor or Odin, “to the king and victory.” Odin, although nominally chief of the gods, was more the god of aristocrats. If a king were toasting, particularly a Danish King, it would be for Odin. If you look at place names in Scandinavia, you'll see him conspicuously absent in favour of Thor, the god of the common man.

When the farmers at Helgøya were shouting "Skål," it was likely for Thor. The toasting and drinking continued with cups emptied for Njörd and Freyr and Freyja in the hope of securing a prosperous future. Finally, personal pledges (and beer-soaked boasts) would be made to undertake great exploits, Valknut — to die well in battle — and finally to kinsmen laid to rest now drinking with the gods in Valhalla. Weapons, jewellery and tools were thrown into the lake as offerings.

If they were gathering for Jol (Old Norse), Jul (Norwegian) or the Yule blót, they'd also make a large sun wheel (picture a circle with a cross in the middle), carve it up with runes, set it on fire and roll it down a hill. It was quite a celebration with the festivities going on for three days and nights. With the formalities over, people did as people do  — drink, sing, boast, play games and find someone to bed down with — Gods be good.

Thor and Odin are still going strong nearly 1,000 years after the end of the Viking Age. You'd think that the old Nordic religion — the belief in the Norse gods — disappeared with the introduction of Christianity. That is not the case. There are still folk in Denmark (Odin-lovers) and Norway (Thor's their guy) who follow the old Norse religion and worship its ancient gods — right down to the splatter.

If you visit Norway at Christmas, Jul (Yule), you'll find much more of the pagan than the Christian in the festivities. King Haakon, old Haakon the Good, Hákon Góði or Håkon den Gode,  moved the Winter Solstice or Yule, Jul, Jol blót over to match up with the Christian holiday (December 25th) in his attempts to introduce Christianity in the 10th century but both traditions are still celebrated but without an overtly religious tone.

Old traditions run deep, animals are still sacrificed (but without all the splatter), bread is baked, houses cleaned, beer is abundant and fires warmth the hearth.

After all the drinking, toasting and feasting at the Jul blót, leftover food was not cleaned up but left overnight for the little relatives. Though shy, Nisse like a good feast and failing to offer them their tithe brings ill-fortune.

But we started this journey together admiring a lovely (and oddly festive) Ordovician cephalopod. Go on, picture him in red and white with a little beard. If you fancy a visit to the Ordovician outcrops, you can find them at Nes-Hamar, Norway. 60.0° N, 11.2° E: paleo-coordinates 33.7° S, 10.3° W. Look for gastropods (five known species) and cephalopods (at least 15 species).

If you'd like to visit the burial mound of Haakon the Good, you'll want to head to Seim, Hordaland, about 10 km north of Knarvik. Good 'ol Haakon may have tried to bring Christianity to Norway but he died full Viking — taking an arrow at the Battle of Fitjar. Many of my rellies live in Knarvik. We've spent many a sunny afternoon feasting at the Håkonarspelet summer festivals and exploring Haakon's burial mound at Håkonhaugen in Seim.

If you're more of the manor type, you can stop by Hovinsholm gård, Helgøyvegen 850, 2350 Nes på Hedmarken, Norway. If you're curious and want to see the farmstead, head on over to: https://www.skafferiet.no/about. If you need to square things up with Odin, you're on your own.

E. L. Yochelson. 1963. The Middle Ordovician of the Oslo Region, Norway. 15. Monoplacophora and Gastropoda. Norsk Geologisk Tidsskrift 43 (2):133-213.

GRAY WHALES: ESCHRICHTIUS ROBUSTUS

Young Gray Whale, Eschrichtius robustus

The lovely fellow you see here is a young Gray Whale, Eschrichtius robustus, with a wee dusting of barnacles and his mouth ajar just enough to show his baleen.

Two Pacific Ocean populations are known to exist: one of about 200 individuals whose migratory route is presumed to be between the Sea of Okhotsk off Russia's south coast and southern Korea, and a larger one with a population of about 27,000 individuals in the eastern Pacific.

This second group are the ones we see off the shores of British Columbia as they travel the waters from northernmost Alaska down to Baja California. Gray whale mothers make this journey accompanied by their calves, hugging the shore in shallow kelp beds and providing rare but welcome glimpses of this beauty.

The gray whale is traditionally placed as the only living species in its genus and family, Eschrichtius and Eschrichtiidae, but an extinct species was discovered and placed in the genus in 2017 — the Akishima whale, E. akishimaensis. Some recent DNA analyses suggest that certain rorquals of the family Balaenopteridae, such as the humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae, and fin whale, Balaenoptera physalus, are more closely related to the gray whale than they are to some other rorquals, such as minke. Still, others place gray whales as outside the rorqual clade, a kissing cousin if you will.

John Edward Gray placed it in its own genus in 1865, naming it in honour of physician and zoologist Daniel Frederik Eschricht. The common name of the whale comes from its colouration. The subfossil remains of now-extinct gray whales from the Atlantic coasts of England and Sweden were used by Gray to make the first scientific description of a species then surviving only in Pacific waters. The living Pacific species was described by American palaeontologist, Edward Drinker Cope as Rhachianectes glaucus in 1869.

Fin Whale, Balaenoptera physalus

Skeletal comparisons showed the Pacific species to be identical to the Atlantic remains in the 1930s, and Gray's naming has been generally accepted since. Although identity between the Atlantic and Pacific populations cannot be proven by anatomical data, its skeleton is distinctive and easy to distinguish from that of all other living whales.

In 1993, a twenty-seven million-year-old specimen was discovered in deposits in Washington state that represents a new species of early baleen whale. It is especially interesting as it is from a stage in the group’s evolutionary history when baleen whales transitioned from having teeth to filtering food with baleen bristles.

Visiting researcher Carlos Mauricio Peredo studied the fossil whale remains, publishing his research to solidify Sitsqwayk cornishorum (pronounced sits-quake) in the annals of history. The earliest baleen whales clearly had teeth, and clearly still used them. Modern baleen whales have no teeth and have instead evolved baleen plates for filter feeding. Look to the rather good close-up of this young Gray Whale here to see his baleen where once there was a toothy grin.

The baleen is the comb-like strainer that sits on the upper jaw of baleen whales and is used to filter food. We have to ponder when this evolutionary change —moving from teeth to baleen — occurred and what factors might have caused it. Traditionally, we have sought answers about the evolution of baleen whales by turning to two extinct groups: the aetiocetids and the eomysticetids.

The aetiocetids are small baleen whales that still have teeth, but they are very small, and it remains uncertain whether or not they used their teeth. In contrast, the eomysticetids are about the size of an adult Minke Whale and seem to have been much more akin to modern baleen whales; though it’s not certain if they had baleen. Baleen typically does not preserve in the fossil record being soft tissue; generally, only hard tissue, bones and teeth are fossilized.

NUMMULITES FORAMINIFERA OF THE PYRAMIDS

Built to endure the tests of time, the pyramids of Giza were built of limestone, granite, basalt, gypsum (mortar), and baked mud bricks quarried at Giza and sites further up the river Nile at Aswan.

Together they form some of the oldest (and last remaining) wonders of the ancient world. 

The great pyramids of Giza, with their smooth exteriors carved from fine grain white limestone quarried at Tura on the Giza-plateau, are built from stone that speaks of Egypt's much older geologic history.

The limestone from Tura was the finest and whitest of all the Egyptian quarries and chosen for the facing stones for the richest tombs. It is interesting in that it is made up almost entirely of Nummulites, a lovely single-celled organism. Nummulites (Lamarck, 1801) are the calcareous chambered shells (tests) of extinct forms of marine, amoeba-like organisms  — protozoans or protists — called foraminifera that accumulated in huge quantities during the early Cenozoic. They look very much like little white, round crackers or cross-sections of plants with their concentric rings.

Imagine millions of them with their wee calcium carbonate skeletons living, dying and sinking to the seafloor. Over time, these little lovelies gathered in layers, pressure and time doing the rest. They became cemented together and helped form some of the most beautiful limestones we have today. It is remarkable to think that Khufu or Cheops, the Great Pyramid of Egypt, the oldest and largest of the pyramids at Giza built back in the 4th dynasty golden age and the only remaining wonder of the ancient world, is made up of teeny, tiny single-celled fossils — mindblowing!

They are commonly found as fossils in Eocene to Miocene marine rocks, particularly around southwest Asia and the Mediterranean — including the Eocene limestones of Egypt that lived in the Tethys sea.

Fossil Nummulites / Urbasa, Navarre

Foraminifera are still alive in our oceans, though none quite as large as Nummulites. Nummulites vary in diameter from very small, just 1.3 cm (0.5 inches) to 5 cm (2 inches) but grew much larger, up to six inches wide back in the Middle Eocene.

The small size of most cells has to do with how they move the nutrients they need across their cell membrane — a process called diffusion. 

Nummulites grew much larger, six inches is mighty big for a single-celled organism, because of their overall design. They evolved to increase their surface area and create a greater opportunity for diffusion. Clever.

In our modern Nummulites, we see a symbiotic relationship with algae that allowed them to grow much larger. Each of these little fellows has a community of them living with him. Lorraine Casazza, a University of California at Berkeley paleontologist did some great work on the nummulites from Egypt.

For the central chamber, with the sarcophagus of the pharaoh, lovely reddish-pink granite from Aswan was used. The granite helped to take the weight of this massive construction. The ancient Egyptians also used nummulite shells as coins. It is not surprising then that the name "Nummulites" is a diminutive form of the Latin nummulus meaning "little coin," a direct reference to their shape and usage.

A Nummulite Protozoan Foraminiferan

Back in 2013, archaeologists made an unlikely find in a cave seven hundred kilometres from Giza. 

Their find, a 4,600-year-old papyrus scroll, details an ancient shipload of rock, likely destined for  Khufu's pyramid, the pyramid that would later be known as the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The papyrus is addressed to Ankh-haf, Khufu’s half-brother, and describes the undertaking of an expedition by a 200-man crew to the limestone quarries near Tura, on the eastern shore of the Nile. After loading the blocks onto their ship, the expedition indented to float down the river Nile for a successful delivery. They were then joined by another 100,000 slaves who had the unenviable task of unloading the 2-3 ton blocks of limestone built from nummulites, then pulling them across ramps to be dragged to the construction site.

It is amazing to have documentation from the 4th dynasty and poetic that this shipping order should be for materials, immortalized first as nummulites in the Eocene, excavated, carved and immortalized at Giza.

Herodotus' Histories, Book VIII

The Greek historian Herodotus visited Egypt during the construction of Khufu's pyramid by more than 100,000 slaves. Herodotus wasn't a fan of Khufu, describing him as a cruel tyrant.

In his literary work Historiae, Book II, chapter 124–126, Herodotus writes: "As long as Rhámpsinîtos was king, as they told me, there was nothing but orderly rule in Egypt, and the land prospered greatly. 

But after him Khéops became king over them and brought them to every kind of suffering: He closed all the temples; after this he kept the priests from sacrificing there and then he forced all the Egyptians to work for him.

So some were ordered to draw stones from the stone quarries in the Arabian mountains to the Nile, and others he forced to receive the stones after they had been carried over the river in boats, and to draw them to those called the Libyan mountains. 

And they worked by 100,000 men at a time, for each three months continually. Of this oppression there passed ten years while the causeway was made by which they drew the stones, which causeway they built, and it is a work not much less, as it appears to me, than the pyramid.

For the length of it is 5 furlongs and the breadth 10 fathoms and the height, where it is highest, 8 fathoms, and it is made of polished stone and with figures carved upon it. For this, they said, 10 years were spent, and for the underground chambers on the hill upon which the pyramids stand, which he caused to be made as sepulchral chambers for himself in an island, having conducted thither a channel from the Nile."

It is estimated that 5.5 million tonnes of nummulites limestone, 8,000 tonnes of granite (imported from Aswan), and 500,000 tonnes of mortar were used in the construction of the Great Pyramid. Built by an evil genius, yes, but stunning none-the-less. Unintentionally, it may have been one of the largest — and arguably cruellest — paleontological excavations ever attempted.

Photo of Fossil nummulites in Urbasa, Navarre by Theklan - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1125411

Photo: Nummulites from above and horizontally bisected by R A Lydekker - Life and Rocks, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3048471

Photo: Fragment from Herodotus' Histories, Book VIII on Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 2099, Early 2nd Century AD. Papyrology Rooms, Sackler Library, Oxford

References: Nummulite', Tiscali Dictionary of Animals, retrieved 17 August 2004
Hottinger, Lukas (2006-09-08). "Illustrated Glossary of terms used in foraminiferal research". Paleopolis. Retrieved 2018-11-11.

Reference: Lorraine Casazza, UCMP: https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/science/fieldnotes/casazza_0711.php

Fancy a visit to Cheops? Visit: 29°58′45″N 31°08′03″E

EGYPT: SINAI PENINSULA

Much of Egypt's history is carved in her rock. We think of Egypt as old, with remarkable human history, but the land that formed this part of the world tells us of a much older time in the Earth's past.

Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country in the northeast corner of Africa, whose territory in the Sinai Peninsula extends beyond the continental boundary with Asia.

Egypt is bordered by the Gaza Strip (Palestinian territories) and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south, Libya to the west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, across the Red Sea lies Saudi Arabia, and across the Mediterranean Sea lie Greece, Cyprus and Turkey, although none of these share a land border with Egypt.

Five hundred kilometres southwest of Cairo, the flat sabkha plain stretches in all directions covered by a small layer of dark, round pebbles. There are spectacular limestone pillars dotting the landscape of the wonderful karst topography. This land, once the breadbasket of Egypt and the stomping ground of the Pharaohs, is now ruled by pipelines and rusted-out trucks abandoned as wrecks marking the passage of time. Beneath the sand, rust and human history lie some very interesting geology. This rock has been sculpted both through erosion and at the hands of her craftsmen.

The rock here was formed when the Earth's crust was just beginning to cool, 4 to 2.5 billion years ago, during the Archaean. Other rock dates back to the Proterozoic when the Earth's atmosphere was just beginning to form. The oldest of these are found as inliers in Egypt’s Western Desert. The rocks making up the Eastern Desert are largely late Proterozoic in age, the time when bacteria and marine algae were the principal forms of life.

Throughout the country, this older basement is overlain by Palaeozoic sedimentary rocks. Cretaceous outcrops are common. We also find sediments that tell a story of repeated marine transgression and regressions, sea levels rising and falling, characteristic of the Cenozoic. It is from Egypt's Cenozoic geology that we get the limestones used for the great pyramids.

WESTERN EUROPEAN HEDGEHOG

This little cutie is a Western European hedgehog, Erinaceus europaus, in the subfamily Erinaceinae (Fischer, 1814). They are native to western Europe, Asia, Africa and have been introduced (oops!) to New Zealand.

There are seventeen species of hedgehog in five genera. They share a distant ancestry with the family Soricidae (shrews) and the gymnures.

Hedgehogs are considered "Living Fossils" as they have changed very little over the past 15 million years. These small mammals are loners with their own kind, but live in close proximity to our human population. They dwell in inhabited areas, farmland, deciduous forests and desert. You'll know them by their distinctive spiny look (which may remind you of a very tasty chocolate from Purdy's in Canada) and their adorable piglike snorts and grunts as they make their way through the underbrush looking for tasty snacks.

Look for them in the evening in hedgerows and undergrowth as they hunt for frogs, toads, snails, bird eggs, grass roots, berries, insects, worms and snakes. They fatten themselves up in preparation for hibernation. They'll find a nice burrow or built a nest in leaves or compost heaps. In Europe, they generally hibernate by October or November and become active again in March to mid-April once temperatures reach over 15 degrees.

SKØKKENMØDDINGER

Many First Nations sites were inhabited continually for centuries. These sites were both home, providing continuity and community and also formed a spiritual connection to the landscape.

The day to day activities of each of these communities would much like our own. Babies were born, meals were served and life followed a natural cycle.

As coastal societies lived their lives they also left their mark. Sometimes through totems and carvings but almost always through discarded shells and scraps of bone from their food. These refuse heaps contain a wealth of information about how that community lived, what they ate and what environmental conditions looked like over time. This physical history provides a wonderful resource for archaeologists in search of botanical material, artifacts, broken cooking implements and my personal favourite, mollusc shells.

These wonderfully informative heaps of the local gastronomic record provide a wealth of information. Especially those formed from enormous mounds of bivalves and clams. We call these middens. Left over time, these unwanted dinner scraps transform through a process of preservation.

The Danish term køkkenmøddinger (plural) was first used by Japetus Steenstrup, a Danish zoologist and biologist, to describe shell heaps and continues to be used by some researchers. I still prefer middens, but to each his own. Time and pressure leach the calcium carbonate, CaCO3, from the surrounding marine shells and help “embalm” bone and antler artifacts that would otherwise decay. Useful this, as antler makes for a fine sewing tool when worked into a needle. A bone that has had some time to harden through this natural embalming process makes for a fine needle indeed. Much of what we know around the modification of natural objects into tools comes from this preservation.

Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound that shares the typical properties of other carbonates. In prepping fossil specimens embedded in limestone, it is useful to know that limestone, itself a carbonate sedimentary rock, reacts with stronger acids, releasing carbon dioxide: CaCO3(s) + 2HCl(aq) → CaCl2(aq) + CO2(g) + H2O(l).

Calcium carbonate reacts with water saturated with carbon dioxide to form the soluble calcium bicarbonate. Bone already contains calcium carbonate, as well as calcium phosphate, Ca2, but it is also made of protein, cells and living tissue.

Decaying bone acts as a sort of natural sponge that wicks in the calcium carbonate displaced from the shells. As protein decays inside the bone, it is replaced by the incoming calcium carbonate, making the bone harder and more durable.

The shells, beautiful in their own right, make the surrounding soil more alkaline, helping to preserve the bone and turning the dinner scraps into exquisite scientific specimens for future generations.

OYSTER: TLOXTLOX

One of the now rare species of oysters in the Pacific Northwest is the Olympia oyster, Ostrea lurida, (Carpenter, 1864).  

While rare today, these are British Columbia’s only native oyster. Had you been dining on their brethren in the 1800s or earlier, it would have been this species you were consuming. Middens from Port Hardy to California are built from Ostrea lurida.

These wonderful invertebrates bare their souls with every bite. Have they lived in cold water, deep beneath the sea away from the suns rays and heat? Are they the rough and tumbled beach denizens whose thick shells have formed to withstand the pounding of the sea? 

Is the oyster in your mouth thin and slimy having just done the nasty spurred by the warming waters of Spring? Is this oyster a local or was it shipped to your current local and if asked would greet you with "Kon'nichiwa?" Not if the beauty on your plate is indeed Ostrea lurida. 

We have been cultivating, indeed maximizing the influx of invasive species to the cold waters of the Salish Sea. But in the wild waters off the coast of British Columbia is the last natural abundant habitat of the tasty Ostrea lurida in the pristine waters of  Nootka Sound. The area is home to the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations who have consumed this species boiled or steamed for thousands of years. Here these ancient oysters not only survive but thrive — building reefs and providing habitat for crab, anemones and small marine animals. 

Oysters are in the family Ostreidae — the true oysters. Their lineage evolved in the Early Triassic — 251 - 247 million years ago. 

In the Kwak̓wala language of the Kwakiutl or Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala, of the Pacific Northwest, an oyster is known as t̕łox̱t̕łox̱. I am curious to learn if any of the Nuu-chah-nulth have a different word for an oyster. If you happen to know, I would be grateful to learn.

EVERY CHILD MATTERS: THE SIXTIES SCOOP

For First Nation, Métis & Inuit families, stories of government involvement in family life goes back generations.  

The legacy of removing children from their families and communities, first through the residential schools, and then through the child protection system, continues to impact the lives of these families, their children and their grandchildren.

The term Sixties Scoop was coined by Patrick Johnston, author of the 1983 report Native Children and the Child Welfare System. It refers to the mass removal of First Nation, Métis and Inuit children from their families into the child welfare system — in most cases without the consent of their families, bands or communities. 

Professor Raven Sinclair recounts that Johnston told her about a social worker from British Columbia who shared the phrase when she told him …with tears in her eyes — that it was common practice in B.C. in the mid-sixties to scoop children from mothers on reserves — almost all newly born children were taken. She was crying because she realized — 20 years later — what a mistake that had been. 

The Sixties Scoop refers to a particular phase of a larger Canadian history, and not to an explicit government policy.  

Although the practice of removing Indigenous children from their families and into state care existed before the 1960s (with the Canadian federally funded Indian Residential Schools), the drastic overrepresentation of these children in the child welfare system accelerated in the 1960s. 

This is because a robust new resurgence of the practice saw large numbers of children seized and taken from their homes — and placed, in most cases, into middle-class Euro-Canadian families. 

Every Child Matters — An Epidemic of Aboriginal Child Apprehension

The government began phasing out compulsory residential school education in the 1950s and 1960s as the public began to understand its devastating impacts on families. It was the general belief of government authorities at the time that Aboriginal children could receive a better education if they were transitioned into the public school system. 

Residential schools, however, persisted as a sort of boarding school for children whose families were deemed "unsuitable" to care for them.  

This transition to provincial services led to a 1951 amendment that enabled the Province to provide services to Aboriginal people where none existed federally. Child protection was one of these areas. 

In 1951, twenty-nine Aboriginal children were in provincial care in British Columbia; by 1964, that number was 1,466. Aboriginal children, who had comprised only 1 per cent of all children in care, came to make up just over 34 per cent.

In the 1960s, the child welfare system did not require, nor did it expect, social workers, to have specific training in dealing with children in Aboriginal communities. Many of these social workers were completely unfamiliar with the culture or history of the First Nation, Métis & Inuit communities they entered. 

What they believed constituted proper care was generally based on middle-class Euro-Canadian values. For example, when social workers entered the homes of families subsisting on a traditional Aboriginal diet of dried game, fish, and berries, and didn’t see fridges or cupboards stocked in typical Euro-Canadian fashion, they assumed that the adults in the home were not providing for their children. 

Additionally, upon seeing the social problems reserve communities faced, such as poverty, unemployment, and addiction, some social workers felt a duty to protect the local children. So, instead of aiding the communities and providing support, they added to that emotional burden.  

In many cases, Indigenous parents who were living in poverty but otherwise providing caring homes had their children taken from them with little or no warning and absolutely no consent.  

It was not until 1980 that the Child, Family and Community Services Act required social workers to notify the band council if a child were removed from the community.

An alarmingly disproportionate number of Métis, Inuit and First Nation children were apprehended from the 1960s onward. By the 1970s, they would number one-third of all children in care. 

Approximately 70% of the children apprehended were placed into non-Aboriginal homes, many of them into homes in which their heritage was denied. In some cases, the foster or adoptive parents told their children that they were now French or Italian instead.

Government policy at the time did not allow birth records to be opened unless both the child and parent consented. This meant that many children suspected their heritage but were unable to have it confirmed.

Many children floated from foster home to foster home or lived in institutionalized care. Physical and sexual abuse was not uncommon, but it was usually covered up, rendered invisible by the lack of social services and support for the families and children, a result of the general social reluctance to publicly acknowledge such abuse at the time. 

The Aboriginal Committee of the Family and Children’s Services Legislation Review Panel’s report Liberating Our Children describes the negative consequences for Aboriginal children:

The homes in which children were placed ranged from those of caring, well-intentioned individuals, to places of slave labour and physical, emotional and sexual abuse. The violent effects of the most negative of these homes are tragic for its victims. 

Even the best of these homes are not healthy places for these children. Anglo-Canadian foster parents are not culturally equipped to create an environment in which a positive self-image can develop. In many cases, our children were taught to demean those things about themselves that are part of their heritage. 

Impacts of the Sixties Scoop

Nunatsiarmiut Mother and Child, Baffin Island, Nunavut

Children growing up in conditions of suppressed identity and abuse tend to experience psychological and emotional problems. 

For many apprehended children, the roots of these problems did not emerge until later in life when they learned about their birth family or their heritage. 

Social work professor Raven Sinclair describes these experiences as creating “tremendous obstacles to the development of a strong and healthy sense of identity for the transracial adoptee.” 

Feelings of not belonging in either mainstream Euro-Canadian society or in Aboriginal society can also create barriers to reaching socio-economic equity.

And yet, we still act surprised.

Several factors came together to instigate a change in the state of Aboriginal child welfare in Canada.  The influential National Indian Brotherhood’s 1972 report Indian Control over Indian Education inspired Aboriginal leaders to take control of other social services as well. 

Some Aboriginal leaders, including Secwepemc leader Wayne Christian, helped draw attention to the disproportionately high number of Aboriginal children apprehended by child welfare services and to the need to act.  

In 1983, the Canadian Council on Social Development commissioned Patrick Johnston to undertake what became the first comprehensive statistical overview of Aboriginal child welfare. The results showed that Aboriginal children were consistently overrepresented in child welfare services.

In 1985, Justice Edwin Kimelman released a highly critical review of this child apprehension entitled No Quiet Place: Review Committee on Indian and Métis Adoptions and Placements. 

In this report, popularly known as The Kimelman Report, Kimelman and his committee, after holding hearings and listening to oral testimony, made 109 recommendations for policy change.  Kimelman concluded that “cultural genocide has taken place in a systematic, routine manner.” 

He was particularly appalled at the tendency to have First Nation, Métis & Inuit children from Canada adopted out to American families, calling it a policy of “wholesale exportation.” Kimelman finished his report by expressing his thoughts on his findings:

An abysmal lack of sensitivity to children and families was revealed. Families approached agencies for help and found that what was described as being in the child’s “best interest” resulted in their families being torn asunder and siblings separated. Social workers grappled with cultural patterns far different from their own with no preparation and no opportunity to gain understanding.

Child apprehension became viewed as the successor to the residential school system and as a new form of “cultural genocide.” 

Under article 2(e) of the U.N. Convention on Genocide (1948), “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” constitutes genocide when the intent is to destroy a culture. 

Many individuals may have acted with the best of intentions but as a Canadian cultural practice, it was genocide.

During the 1980s, the accumulation of the Kimelman report, the Johnston report, and resolutions by First Nations bands led provinces to amend their adoption laws to prioritize prospective adoption placements as follows: first, within the extended family of the child; second, by another Aboriginal family; third, by a non-Aboriginal family.

In 1990, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) created the First Nations Child and Family Services program (FNCFS), which transferred the administration of child and family services from the province or territory to the local band. Under the program, bands administer these services according to provincial or territorial legislation and child welfare standards, and INAC helps fund the bands’ child and family welfare agencies.  

Bands have increasingly taken control over their own child protection services. These services have also undergone some reform, such as expanding resources for single parents and establishing juvenile probation services. 

A Métis Child-Family Services program based in Edmonton is another example of an organization that incorporates traditional values into its adoptive family assessments. In many provinces and territories across Canada, a child is now entitled to know its background, and cultural appropriateness is considered in the assessment and screening of potential caregivers.

What is the Situation Today?

Sadly, the involvement of the child welfare system is no less prolific in the current era…the “Sixties Scoop” has merely evolved into the “Millennium Scoop.” – Sinclair, “Identity lost and found: Lessons from the sixties scoop.”

This overrepresentation continues today. We are now in 2021, looking big-eyed and surprised. Who knew? We knew. We have known for a very long time — and we continue the practice today. 

We know it is wrong and we know we need to act. We know the solution is not separating and destroying families but rather supporting them, supporting communities. 

The time for Truth and Reconciliation is now. It is not something we need to work towards in future. The time for wholesale support of children, families and communities is now. Right now. The time to heal is now. Canada has a chance to show leadership and compassion, a chance to develop systems that work.

Look at the children in your life. Imagine this for them. What would you do? What wouldn't you do? For each of them, let us come together and do better — for everyone.

If you fancy a read, here are some links below for you to explore that provide various lenses on the issue.

https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/sixties_scoop/

Canada. Report on the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Volume 3, Gathering Strength. Chapter 2, “Families.” Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1996. 9-106.

Bennett, Marilyn. “First Nations Fact Sheet: A General Profile on First Nations Child Welfare in Canada.” First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. Available online at: https://fncaringsociety.com/.../docs/FirstNationsFS1.pdf

Blackstock, Cindy, et al. “Keeping the Promise: The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Lived Experiences of First Nations Children and Youth.”  First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, 2004. Available online at: https://fncaringsociety.com/.../docs/KeepingThePromise.pdf

Fournier, Suzanne and Ernie Crey. Stolen from Our Embrace. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 1997.

Mandell, Deena, et al. “Chapter Three: Aboriginal Child Welfare.” In Cameron, Gary, Nick Coady, and Gerald R. Adams, eds. Moving Toward Positive Systems of Child and Family Welfare: Current Issues and Future Directions.  Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007.

Sinclair, Raven. 2007. “Identity lost and found: Lessons from the sixties scoop.” First Peoples Child and Family Review. 3.1 (2007): 65-82. Available online at: https://fncaringsociety.com/.../vol3num1/Sinclair_pp65.pdf

Swidrovich, Cheryl Marlene. “Positive Experiences of First Nations Children in non-Aboriginal Foster or Adoptive Care: De-Constructing the “Sixties Scoop.”  MA Thesis, University of Saskatchewan. 2004. Available online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10388/etd-07082008-141746

Walmsley, Christopher. Protecting Aboriginal Children.  Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005.

Photo: A gloriously happy Nunatsiarmiut Mother & Child, Solo Child, Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada & Every Child Matters Illustration by the Fossil Huntress

THE BREADBASKET OF EGYPT

Much of Egypt's history is carved in her rock. We think of Egypt as old, with remarkable human history, but the land that formed this part of the world tells us of a much older time in Earth's past.

Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country in the northeast corner of Africa, whose territory in the Sinai Peninsula extends beyond the continental boundary with Asia.

Egypt is bordered by the Gaza Strip (Palestinian territories) and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south, Libya to the west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, across the Red Sea lies Saudi Arabia, and across the Mediterranean Sea lie Greece, Cyprus and Turkey, although none of these share a land border with Egypt.

Five hundred kilometres southwest of Cairo, the flat sabkha plain stretches in all directions covered by a small layer of dark, round pebbles. There are spectacular limestone pillars dotting the landscape of the wonderful karst topography. 

This land, once the breadbasket of Egypt and the stomping ground of the Pharaohs, is now ruled by pipelines and rusted-out trucks abandoned as wrecks marking the passage of time. Beneath the sand, rust and human history lie some very interesting geology. This rock has been sculpted both through erosion and at the hands of her craftsmen.

The rock here was formed when the Earth's crust was just beginning to cool, 4 to 2.5 billion years ago, during the Archaean. Other rock dates back to the Proterozoic when the Earth's atmosphere was just beginning to form. The oldest of these are found as inliers in Egypt’s Western Desert. The rocks making up the Eastern Desert are largely late Proterozoic in age, the time when bacteria and marine algae were the principal forms of life.

Throughout the country, this older basement is overlain by Palaeozoic sedimentary rocks. Cretaceous outcrops are common. We also find sediments that tell a story of repeated marine transgression and regressions, sea levels rising and falling, characteristic of the Cenozoic. It is from Egypt's Cenozoic geology that we get the limestones used for the great pyramids.

Limestone and Light: Egypt

The pyramids were built of limestone, granite, basalt, gypsum (mortar), and baked mud bricks. Together they form some of the oldest (and last remaining) wonders of the ancient world. 

The great pyramids of Giza, with their smooth exteriors carved from fine grain white limestone quarried at Tura on the Giza-plateau, are built from Egypt's much older geologic history.

The limestone from Tura was the finest and whitest of all the Egyptian quarries and chosen for the facing stones for the richest tombs. It is interesting in that it is made up almost entirely of Nummulites. 

Nummulites are the calcareous chambered shells (tests) of extinct forms of marine, amoeba-like organisms (protozoans) called foraminifera that accumulated in huge quantities during the early Cenozoic. Foraminifera are still alive in the sea today, though none quite as large as Nummulites. 

For the central chamber, with the sarcophagus of the pharaoh, lovely reddish-pink granite from Aswan was used. The granite helped to take the weight of this massive construction.

Back in 2013, archaeologists made an unlikely find in a cave seven hundred kilometres from Giza. Their find, a 4,600-year-old papyrus scroll, details an ancient shipload of rock, likely destined for  Khufu's pyramid. 

The papyrus is addressed to Ankh-haf, Khufu’s half-brother, and describes the undertaking of an expedition by a 200-man crew to the limestone quarries near Tura, on the eastern shore of the Nile. After loading the blocks onto their ship, the expedition indented to float down the river Nile for a successful delivery.

The Greek historian Herodotus visited Egypt in the 5th century BC, he described the building of Khufu's pyramid by more than 100,000 slaves. Those slaves then had the unenviable task of unloading the 2-3 ton blocks, then pulling them across ramps to be dragged to the construction site.  It is estimated that 5.5 million tonnes of limestone, 8,000 tonnes of granite (imported from Aswan), and 500,000 tonnes of mortar were used in the construction of the Great Pyramid.

THE GREAT FINGER FIASCO: HERMANN AND CUVIER

Johann Hermann's Pterodactylus, 1800

In the grand annals of science, few discoveries have flapped into history with quite as much confusion as the poor Pterodactylus. 

It began, as many great scientific mix-ups do, with an enthusiastic man, a misplaced fossil, and a few patriotic misunderstandings.

Back in March of 1800, Johann Hermann — a German-slash-French scientist (depending on which invading army was in town that week) — became convinced that an odd fossil described by Collini held the key to something extraordinary. 

Without actually seeing the specimen, Hermann took a bold scientific leap: he announced that the animal used its absurdly long fourth finger to support a wing membrane.

This, in hindsight, was rather brilliant — and also rather lucky. Hermann mailed off a letter (and a sketch) to the great French naturalist Georges Cuvier, suggesting that the fossil might even have been war booty, plundered by Napoleon’s scientifically curious troops and whisked off to Paris. After all, France’s armies were busily collecting everything from priceless art to interesting bones at the time — science’s version of a clearance sale.

In his letter, Hermann proposed that this mysterious creature was a mammal. Yes, a furry, bat-like, possibly adorable flying thing. He imagined it with soft pelage, wings stretching elegantly from its fourth finger to its ankle, and a fashionable membrane connecting neck to wrist — the very portrait of prehistoric glamour.

Cuvier, intrigued and perhaps unwilling to admit he didn’t have the fossil in question, agreed with the wing idea but drew the line at “fuzzy mammal.” In December 1800, he published a short note, adopting Hermann’s winged interpretation but firmly declaring, “Non, monsieur — this thing is definitely a reptile.”

Meanwhile, the fossil — allegedly stolen, possibly missing, and definitely not in Paris — turned up safe and sound in Munich. It had been spared confiscation thanks to one Baron von Moll, who managed to secure an “exemption from French enthusiasm.”

By 1809, Cuvier revisited the mystery, producing a longer and more confident description. He called it Petro-Dactyle (a typo he later fixed to Ptéro-Dactyle), thereby cementing both his reputation and a new spelling headache for future generations of palaeontologists.

He also took the time to dunk on his colleague Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who had suggested the fossil might belong to a shore bird. Cuvier’s rebuttal was deliciously dry:

“It is not possible to doubt that the long finger served to support a membrane that, by lengthening the anterior extremity of this animal, formed a good wing.”

And with that, science had its first flying reptile — a creature born not only from stone but from a glorious mix of imagination, rivalry, and a few well-placed postal misunderstandings.

If you ever feel unqualified to make a bold scientific claim, remember Johann Hermann — who identified a whole new order of life without even seeing the fossil. Sometimes, a good guess (and a long finger) can take you far as history shows here in the The Great Finger Fiasco: How Johann Hermann and Georges Cuvier Accidentally Invented the Flying Reptile. 

PLAYFUL SEALS: MIGWAT

Seals—those sleek, playful creatures that glide through our oceans and lounge on rocky shores—are part of a remarkable evolutionary story stretching back millions of years. 

Though we often see them today basking on beaches or popping their heads above the waves, their journey through the fossil record reveals a dramatic tale of land-to-sea adaptation and ancient global wanderings.

Seals belong to a group of marine mammals called pinnipeds, which also includes sea lions and walruses. 

All pinnipeds share a common ancestry with terrestrial carnivores, and their closest living relatives today are bears and mustelids (like otters and weasels). 

While it may seem unlikely, their ancestors walked on land before evolving to thrive in marine environments. It takes many adaptations for life at sea and these lovelies have adapted well. 

The fossil record suggests that pinnipeds first emerged during the Oligocene, around 33 to 23 million years ago. 

These early proto-seals likely lived along coastal environments, where they gradually adapted to life in the water. Over time, their limbs transformed into flippers, their bodies streamlined, and their reliance on the sea for food and movement became complete.

In Kwak'wala, the language of the Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations of the Pacific Northwest, seals are known as migwat, and fur seals are referred to as xa'wa.

FOSSILS OF EGYPT: LIMESTONE AND LIFE

Spinosaurus, Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum

Egypt is often celebrated for its pyramids and pharaohs, but beneath those golden sands lies a much older and equally astonishing legacy — the fossil record of a land that has shifted from lush tropical forests to inland seas and back again.

From the Western Desert to the Fayum Depression and Wadi Al-Hitan (the Valley of the Whales), Egypt’s rocks preserve nearly 100 million years of life on Earth, from the Cretaceous dinosaurs that roamed its river plains to the Eocene whales that swam through the Tethys Ocean.

Over the past few posts, we've looked at the geological wonders of Egypt. Here is a deeper look at some of the many interesting fossil species to be found in this rich paleontological playground.

Petrified Wood — A Forest Turned to Stone

Across Egypt’s deserts, the ground often glitters with fossilized trees. The Petrified Wood Protectorate near New Cairo, along the Cairo–Suez road, and wide stretches of the Western Desert are carpeted in ancient trunks and branches turned to stone.

These fossil forests are vivid evidence that much of Egypt was once a humid, tropical landscape, rich with vegetation. The trees, buried in sediments and permineralized over millions of years, became exquisitely preserved in silica. Today, their polished cross-sections shimmer with bands of reds, browns, and golds — a striking reminder of the region’s deep ecological transformations.

Reptiles of the Fayum — Turtles, Crocodiles, and Giants — The Fayum Depression has yielded a wealth of Eocene reptile fossils that speak of a warm, watery world teeming with life. Land tortoises like Testudo ammon roamed the ancient floodplains, while river turtles such as Podocnemis blanckenhorni and Stereogenys pelomedusa swam through slow-moving channels. 

Even more dramatic are the remains of Gigantophis, one of the largest snakes ever discovered, and Tomistoma, a crocodile-like predator from the Qasr al-Sagha Formation. These reptiles hint at an ecosystem that blended mangroves, lagoons, and river deltas — a mosaic of habitats where both freshwater and marine species thrived.

Birds of an Ancient Delta — The Fayum’s fossil beds also record an impressive diversity of Eocene and Oligocene birdlife. The ancient wetlands once supported ospreys (Pandionidae), flamingos (Phoenicopteridae), herons, cranes (Gruidae), cormorants (Phalacrocoracidae), and even the massive shoebilled stork (Balaenicipitidae).

These avian fossils, comparable to species found today around Lake Victoria and the Upper Nile, suggest a vibrant, subtropical ecosystem rich in lakes and marshes — a far cry from the arid desert we see today.

Mammals of the Fayum — Whales, Elephants, and Early Primates

The mammalian fossils of Egypt are among the most extraordinary in the world. In the Fayum Depression and at Wadi Al-Hitan, paleontologists have uncovered a sweeping record of evolution from land to sea and from primitive mammals to the ancestors of modern species.

At Wadi Al-Hitan, skeletons of early whales — Basilosaurus isis, Dorudon atrox, and Phiomicetus — preserve a pivotal evolutionary moment when whales transitioned from walking on land to swimming in the sea. Their long, streamlined bodies and tiny hind limbs are beautiful testaments to nature’s adaptability.

Meanwhile, the terrestrial Fayum deposits reveal a menagerie of early mammals:

• Arsinoitherium, a massive, rhinoceros-like creature with twin horns;
• Moeritherium, a semi-aquatic ancestor of elephants and manatees;
• Palaeomastodon and Phioma, early proboscideans bridging the gap to modern elephants;
• and Megalohyrax, a giant relative of today’s small hyrax.

Carnivorous mammals also prowled these Eocene landscapes — species like Apterodon, Pterodon, and Hyaenodon, formidable predators of their time.

The Fayum Primates — Our Ancient Cousins — Among the Fayum’s most scientifically valuable discoveries are the fossils of early primates, bridging the gap between ancient prosimians and modern monkeys and apes.

From the lower sequence, we find forms like Oligopithecus savagei and Qatrania wingi, while the upper sequence preserves Catopithecus browni, Proteopithecus sylvia, and the well-known Apidium and Parapithecus species.

Perhaps most famous is Aegyptopithecus zeuxis, a small tree-dwelling primate with forward-facing eyes and a relatively large brain. It is often cited as one of the earliest known ancestors of modern Old World monkeys and apes — and, by extension, of humans.

These fossils from the Jebel Qatrani Formation provide an unparalleled window into primate evolution roughly 35 to 30 million years ago, when Africa’s tropical forests were home to our distant kin.

Dinosaurs of the Cretaceous Desert — Long before the whales and primates, Egypt’s landscape was dominated by Cretaceous dinosaurs. The Bahariya Formation and Nubian Sandstone have yielded fossils of immense sauropods and ferocious theropods, painting a vivid picture of life 95 million years ago.

Among the stars of this ancient cast are:

• The long-necked Aegyptosaurus and Paralititan, massive plant-eating sauropods;
• The sleek, predatory Bahariasaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, and Deltadromeus;
• The semi-aquatic Spinosaurus, with its iconic sail-backed spine — perhaps one of the most famous dinosaurs to ever emerge from African rock; and Mansourasaurus, a titanosaur discovered more recently, helping to link Africa’s late Cretaceous fauna with those of Europe and Asia.

These finds demonstrate that Egypt was once a fertile delta world of rivers and floodplains, where dinosaurs thrived long before the Sahara turned to sand.

Egypt’s Fossil Sites — Portals Through Time — Key fossil localities across the country continue to reveal Egypt’s ancient ecosystems:

• Wadi Al-Hitan — Eocene marine fossils, including whales and sea cows.
• Fayum Depression — rich terrestrial and freshwater deposits with early mammals and primates.
• Bahariya Formation — famous for Cretaceous dinosaurs and early vertebrates.
• Jebel Qatrani Formation — Oligocene primates and proboscideans.
• Qasr el Sagha Formation — reptiles, turtles, and early crocodilians.
• Upper Cretaceous Phosphates and Variegated Shale — marine invertebrates and early fish.
• Moghra Oasis — Miocene fossils bridging the gap between ancient and modern fauna.
• Queseir Formation — Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) deposit in the Kharga oasis of the Southwestern Desert where the first side-necked turtle Khargachelys caironensis can be found

Egypt’s fossils offer a spectacular narrative of evolution, climate, and change — from swampy Cretaceous river deltas to lush Eocene seas and forests, to the deserts we see today. 

Each discovery connects the story of Earth’s deep past with the land of the Pharaohs, revealing that Egypt’s most enduring monuments are not her pyramids, nor her simple blocks of stone, but the fossils buried them

Image Credit: Spinosaurus at the special exhibit of Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum by Palaeotaku CC BY 4.0

EARLY EXPLORERS ON HORNBY ISLAND

Villains, tyrants and heroes alike are immortalized in the scientific literature as researchers don each new species a unique scientific name — and rename geographic sites with a settlers' mindset. 

If you pick through the literature, it is a whose who of monied European explorers literally making a name for themselves, sometimes at great cost to their rivals. 

This truth plays out on British Columbia's West Coast and gulf islands and on Hornby Island, in particular. 

The beautiful island of Hornby is in the traditional territory of the Pentlatch or K’ómoks First Nation, who call it Ja-dai-aich, which means the outer island — a reference to Hornby being on the outside of Denman Island off the east coast of Vancouver Island. 

The island is a mix of beach and meadow, forest and stream. While I often walk the lower beachfront, this island boasts a lovely and very walkable mixed forest that covers its higher ground. 

If you explore here, off the beaten path, you will see a mix of large conifers — Western Hemlock, Grand Fir and Lodgepole Pine on the island. Of these, the Western Red Cedar, Thuja plicata, is the most prized by First Nations. It is the Tree of Life that provides bountiful raw materials for creating everything from art to homes to totems and canoes. 

If you explore these forests further, you will also see wonderful examples of the smaller Pacific yew, Taxus brevifolia, a wee evergreen that holds a special place in the hearts of First Nations whose carvers use this wood for bows and paddles for canoes.

Many spectacular specimens of arbutus, Arbutus menziesii, grow along the water's edge. These lovely evergreens have a rich orange-red bark that peels away in thin sheets, leaving a greenish, silvery smooth appearance and a satiny sheen. Arbutus, the broadleaf evergreen species is the tree I most strongly associate with Hornby. Hornby has its fair share of broadleaf deciduous trees. Bigleaf maple, red alder, black cottonwood, Pacific flowering dogwood, cascara and several species of willow thrive here.

There are populations of Garry oak, Quercus garryana, with their deeply lobed leaves, on the southern end of the island and at Helliwell Provincial Park on a rocky headland at the northeast end of Hornby. 

Local First Nations fire-managed these stands of Garry oak, burning away shrubs and other woody plants so that the thick-barked oaks and nutritious starch-rich plants like great camas, Camassia leichtlinii, could thrive without any nutrient competitors. 

Only about 260 acres (1.1 km2) of undisturbed stands of older forests have been identified on Hornby. They amount to roughly 3.5% of the island's surface area. There are roughly 1,330 acres (540 ha) of older second-growth stands on the island, roughly 19% of the island.

Most of the trees you see on the island are Douglas fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii, an evergreen conifer species in the pine family. My Uncle Doug recognized this tree species because of how much the bark looks like bacon — a food he loved. The common name is a nod to the Scottish botanist, David Douglas, who collected and first reported on this large evergreen.

Captain George Vancouver's Commission to Lieutenant

Sadly for Douglas, it is Archibald Menzies, a Scottish physician, botanist, naturalist — and David's arch-rival, whose name is commemorated for science. 

He is also credited with the scientific naming of our lovely arbutus trees. 

Menzies was part of the Vancouver Expedition (1791–1795) a four-and-a-half-year voyage of exploration commanded by Captain George Vancouver of the British Royal Navy.

Their voyage was built on the work of James Cook. Cook was arguably the first ship's captain to ensure his crew remained scurvy free by implementing a practice of nutritious meals — those containing ascorbic acid also known as Vitamin C — and meticulous standards for onboard hygiene. 

Though he did much to lower the mortality rate amongst his crew, he made some terrible decisions that led to his early demise. Cook was the poster child for British colonialism and Valentine's gone horribly wrong. He was attacked and summarily killed on February 14, 1779, during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific. Having foolishly considered the "natives" as specimens and not human beings, he met his end while attempting to kidnap the Island of Hawaii's monarch, Kalaniʻōpuʻu. 

During the four and a half year Vancouver Expedition voyage, the crew and officers bickered amongst themselves, circumnavigated the globe, touching down on five continents. Little did they know, for many of them it would be the last voyage they would ever take. 

The expedition returned to a Britain more interested in its ongoing war than in Pacific explorations. Vancouver was attacked by the politically well-connected Menzies for various slights, then challenged to a duel by Thomas Pitt, the 2nd Baron of Camelford. 

The fellow for whom the fair city of Vancouver is named never did complete his massive cartographical work. With health failing and nerves eroded, he lost the dual and his life. It was Peter Puget, whose name adorns Puget Sound, who completed Vancouver's — and arguably Cook's work on the mapping of our world.

And while it is now called Vancouver the city has many names as it falls within the traditional territory of three Coast Salish peoples — the Squamish (Sḵwxwú7mesh), Tsleil-waututh and Xwméthkwyiem ("Musqueam"—from masqui "an edible grass that grows in the sea"), and on the southern shores of Vancouver along the Fraser River, the Xwméthkwyiem.

If you would like to explore more of the history of eponymous naming from Linnaeus to Darwin, to Bowie himself, take a boo at a new book from Stephen B. Heard, "Charles Darwin's Barnacle and David Bowie's Spider. It is fresh off the press and chock full of historical and pop-culture icons.

References: The City of Vancouver Archives has three George Vancouver documents of note:

• The Commission, dated July 10, 1783, appointing him fourth Lieutenant of the HMS Fame (this is the official document confirming a field commission given to him May 7, 1782)
• A letter to James Sykes (a Navy Agent in London) written from the ship Discovery (not the same Discovery used by Cook) while in Nootka Sound near the end of Vancouver’s exploration of the West Coast, October 2, 1794. Vancouver states that they have determined that the Northwest Passage does not exist, which was one of the main goals of his voyage
• A letter to James Sykes written from Vancouver’s home in Petersham, England, after his voyage, October 26, 1797 

FOSSIL BEES AND FIRST NATIONS HISTORY

Welcome to the world of bees. This fuzzy yellow and black striped fellow is a bumblebee in the genus Bombus sp., family Apidae. 

We know him from our gardens where we see them busily lapping up nectar and pollen from flowers with their long hairy tongues.

My Norwegian cousins on my mother's side call them humle. Norway is a wonderful place to be something wild as the wild places have not been disturbed by our hands. Head out for a walk in the wild flowers and the sounds you will hear are the wind and the bees en masse amongst the flowers.   

There are an impressive thirty-five species of bumblebee species that call Norway hjem (home), and one, Bombus consobrinus, boasts the longest tongue that they use to feast solely on Monkshood, genus Aconitum, you may know by the name Wolf's-bane.

In the Kwak̓wala language of the Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala, and my family on my father's side in the Pacific Northwest, bumblebees are known as ha̱mdzalat̕si — though I wonder if this is actually the word for a honey bee, Apis mellifera, as ha̱mdzat̕si is the word for a beehive.

I have a special fondness for all bees and look for them both in the garden and in First Nation art.

Bumblebees' habit of rolling around in flowers gives us a sense that these industrious insects are also playful. In First Nation art they provide levity — comic relief along with their cousins the mosquitoes and wasps — as First Nation dancers wear masks made to mimic their round faces, big round eyes and pointy stingers. 

A bit of artistic license is taken with their forms as each mask may have up to six stingers. The dancers weave amongst the watchful audience and swoop down to playfully give many of the guests a good, albeit gentle, poke. 

Honey bees actually do a little dance when they get back to the nest with news of an exciting new place to forage — truly they do. Bumblebees do not do a wee bee dance when they come home pleased with themselves from a successful foraging mission, but they do rush around excitedly, running to and fro to share their excitement. They are social learners, so this behaviour can signal those heading out to join them as they return to the perfect patch of wildflowers. 

Bumblebees are quite passive and usually sting in defense of their nest or if they feel threatened. Female bumblebees can sting several times and live on afterwards — unlike honeybees who hold back on their single sting as its barbs hook in once used and their exit shears it off, marking their demise.

They are important buzz pollinators both for our food crops and our wildflowers. Their wings beat at 130 times or more per second, literally shaking the pollen off the flowers with their vibration. 

And they truly are busy bees, spending their days fully focused on their work. Bumblebees collect and carry pollen and nectar back to the nest which may be as much as 25% to 75% of their body weight. 

And they are courteous — as they harvest each flower, they mark them with a particular scent to help others in their group know that the nectar is gone. 

The food they bring back to the nest is eaten to keep the hive healthy but is not used to make honey as each new season's queen bees hibernate over the winter and emerge reinvigorated to seek a new hive each Spring. She will choose a new site, primarily underground depending on the bumblebee species, and then set to work building wax cells for each of her fertilized eggs. 

Bumblebees are quite hardy. The plentiful hairs on their bodies are coated in oils that provide them with natural waterproofing. They can also generate more heat than their smaller, slender honey bee cousins, so they remain productive workers in cooler weather.    

We see the first bumblebees arise in the fossil record 100 million years ago and diversify alongside the earliest flowering plants. Their evolution is an entangled dance with the pollen and varied array of flowers that colour our world. 

We have found many wonderful examples within the fossil record, including a rather famous Eocene fossil bee found by a dear friend and naturalist who has left this Earth, Rene Savenye.

His namesake, H. Savenyei, is a lovely fossil halictine bee from Early Eocene deposits near Quilchena, British Columbia — and the first bee body-fossil known from the Okanagan Highlands — and indeed from Canada. 

It is a fitting homage, as bees symbolize honesty, playfulness and willingness to serve the community in our local First Nation lore and around the world — something Rene did his whole life.

STEPPING-STONE ISLANDS

Steeped in mist and mythology, the islands of Haida Gwaii abound in local lore that surrounds their beginnings. 

Today the Hecate Strait is a tempestuous 40-mile wide channel that separates the mist-shrouded archipelago of Haida Gwaii from the BC mainland. Haida oral tradition tells of a time when the strait was mostly dry, dotted here and there with lakes. 

During the last ice age, glaciers locked up so much water that the sea level was hundreds of feet lower than it is today. Soil samples from the sea floor of Hecate Strait contain wood, pollen, and other terrestrial plant materials that tell of a tundra-like environment. Whether or not the strait was ever completely dry during these times, it seems that it did at least contain a series of stepping-stone islands and bridges that remained free of ice. An ancient Haida tale, recorded in the late 1800s by a Hudson’s Bay Company trader, records the island's glacial history. 

Scannah-gan-nuncus, a boy who lived in the village now called Skidegate, had canoed up the Hunnah, a tributary to Skidegate Channel. Today, the Hunnah is a rocky creek, seldom deep enough to navigate. 

The Haida the legend accurately records that it used to be several times deeper. Tired from paddling upstream, Scannah-gan-nuncus landed to take a nap. “In those days at the place where he went ashore were large boulders in the bed of the stream, while on both sides of the river were many trees. While resting by the river, he heard a dreadful noise upstream. 

Looking to see what it was, he was surprised to behold all the stones in the river coming toward him. … all the trees were cracking and groaning … he went to see what was crushing the stones and breaking the trees. On reaching them, he found that a large body of ice was coming down, pushing everything before it.” Scannah-gan-nuncus’ experience with the glacier would have been familiar to the inhabitants of the islands. 

Today, the highest peaks are often bare of vegetation and snow-covered during most of the year, but back in the time of the glaciers, these same local mountains were the birthplace of advancing ice. 

Precipitation and a significant drop in temperature gave rise to the Queen Charlottes ice-sheet, a thick mass of flowing ice that ran tandem with the Cordilleran sheet in the Hecate Lowlands. Strolling around today, you can see where the glaciers left their mark on the Islands’ U-shape valleys, once a steep V-shape, now scoured into a smooth by glaciers that also deposited the erratic boulders can been seen sitting like out of place sentinels on the beach.