Bald Eagle / Kwikw / Haliaeetus leucocephalus |
Saturday 4 February 2023
MIGHTY KWIKW: BALD EAGLE
Friday 3 February 2023
FOSSILS IN THE LAND OF THE NUU-CHAH-NULTH FIRST NATIONS
Nootka Fossil Field Trip. Photo: John Fam |
Just off the shores of Vancouver Island, east of Gold River and south of Tahsis is the picturesque and remote Nootka Island.
This is the land of the proud and thriving Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations who have lived here always.
Always is a long time, but we know from oral history and archaeological evidence that the Mowachaht and Muchalaht peoples lived here, along with many others, for many thousands of years — a time span much like always.
While we know this area as Nootka Sound and the land we explore for fossils as Nootka Island, these names stem from a wee misunderstanding.
Just four years after the 1774 visit by Spanish explorer Juan Pérez — and only a year before the Spanish established a military and fur trading post on the site of Yuquot — the Nuu-chah-nulth met the Englishman, James Cook.
Captain Cook sailed to the village of Yuquot just west of Vancouver Island to a very warm welcome. He and his crew stayed on for a month of storytelling, trading and ship repairs. Friendly, but not familiar with the local language, he misunderstood the name for both the people and land to be Nootka. In actual fact, Nootka means, go around, go around.
Two hundred years later, in 1978, the Nuu-chah-nulth chose the collective term Nuu-chah-nulth — nuučaan̓uł, meaning all along the mountains and sea or along the outside (of Vancouver Island) — to describe themselves.It is a term now used to describe several First Nations people living along western Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
It is similar in a way to the use of the United Kingdom to refer to the lands of England, Scotland and Wales — though using United Kingdom-ers would be odd. Bless the Nuu-chah-nulth for their grace in choosing this collective name.
An older term for this group of peoples was Aht, which means people in their language and is a component in all the names of their subgroups, and of some locations — Yuquot, Mowachaht, Kyuquot, Opitsaht. While collectively, they are the Nuu-chah-nulth, be interested in their more regional name should you meet them.
But why does it matter? If you have ever mistakenly referred to someone from New Zealand as an Aussie or someone from Scotland as English, you have likely been schooled by an immediate — sometimes forceful, sometimes gracious — correction of your ways. The best answer to why it matters is because it matters.
Each of the subgroups of the Nuu-chah-nulth viewed their lands and seasonal migration within them (though not outside of them) from a viewpoint of inside and outside. Kla'a or outside is the term for their coastal environment and hilstis for their inside or inland environment.
It is to their kla'a that I was most keen to explore. Here, the lovely Late Eocene and Early Miocene exposures offer up fossil crab, mostly the species Raninid, along with fossil gastropods, bivalves, pine cones and spectacularly — a singular seed pod. These wonderfully preserved specimens are found in concretion along the foreshore where time and tide erode them out each year.
Five years after Spanish explorer Juan Pérez's first visit, the Spanish built and maintained a military post at Yuquot where they tore down the local houses to build their own structures and set up what would become a significant fur trade port for the Northwest Coast — with the local Chief Maquinna's blessing and his warriors acting as middlemen to other First Nations.
Following reports of Cook's exploration British traders began to use the harbour of Nootka (Friendly Cove) as a base for a promising trade with China in sea-otter pelts but became embroiled with the Spanish who claimed (albeit erroneously) sovereignty over the Pacific Ocean.
Dan Bowen searching an outcrop. Photo: John Fam |
George Vancouver on his subsequent exploration in 1792 circumnavigated the island and charted much of the coastline. His meeting with the Spanish captain Bodega y Quadra at Nootka was friendly but did not accomplish the expected formal ceding of land by the Spanish to the British.
It resulted however in his vain naming the island "Vancouver and Quadra." The Spanish captain's name was later dropped and given to the island on the east side of Discovery Strait. Again, another vain and unearned title that persists to this day.
Early settlement of the island was carried out mainly under the sponsorship of the Hudson's Bay Company whose lease from the Crown amounted to 7 shillings per year — that's roughly equal to £100.00 or $174 CDN today. Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, was founded in 1843 as Fort Victoria on the southern end of Vancouver Island by the Hudson's Bay Company's Chief Factor, Sir James Douglas.
With Douglas's help, the Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Rupert on the north end of Vancouver Island in 1849. Both became centres of fur trade and trade between First Nations and solidified the Hudson's Bay Company's trading monopoly in the Pacific Northwest.The settlement of Fort Victoria on the southern tip of Vancouver Island — handily south of the 49th parallel — greatly aided British negotiators to retain all of the islands when a line was finally set to mark the northern boundary of the United States with the signing of the Oregon Boundary Treaty of 1846. Vancouver Island became a separate British colony in 1858. British Columbia, exclusive of the island, was made a colony in 1858 and in 1866 the two colonies were joined into one — becoming a province of Canada in 1871 with Victoria as the capital.
Dan Bowen, Chair of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society (VIPS) did a truly splendid talk on the Fossils of Nootka Sound. With his permission, I have uploaded the talk to the ARCHEA YouTube Channel for all to enjoy. Do take a boo, he is a great presenter. Dan also graciously provided the photos you see here. The last of the photos you see here is from the August 2021 Nootka Fossil Field Trip. Photo: John Fam, Vice-Chair, Vancouver Paleontological Society (VanPS).
Know Before You Go — Nootka Trail
The Nootka Trail passes through the traditional lands of the Mowachaht/Muchalat First Nations who have lived here since always. They share this area with humpback and Gray whales, orcas, seals, sea lions, black bears, wolves, cougars, eagles, ravens, sea birds, river otters, insects and the many colourful intertidal creatures that you'll want to photograph.
This is a remote West Coast wilderness experience. Getting to Nootka Island requires some planning as you'll need to take a seaplane or water taxi to reach the trailhead. The trail takes 4-8 days to cover the 37 km year-round hike. The peak season is July to September. Permits are not required for the hike.
Access via: Air Nootka floatplane, water taxi, or MV Uchuck III
- Dan Bowen, VIPS on the Fossils of Nootka: https://youtu.be/rsewBFztxSY
- https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sir-james-douglas
- file:///C:/Users/tosca/Downloads/186162-Article%20Text-199217-1-10-20151106.pdf
- Nootka Trip Planning: https://mbguiding.ca/nootka-trail-nootka-island/#overview
Saturday 21 January 2023
INDIGO: NATURAL DYES
Archaeologists have found evidence of textile dyeing dating back to the Neolithic period. In China, dyeing with plants, barks and insects has been traced back more than 5,000 years and looks to be our first attempt at the practice of chemistry.
The essential process of dyeing changed little over time. Typically, the dye material is put in a pot of water and then the textiles to be dyed are added to the pot, which is heated and stirred until the colour is transferred. Sometimes, we use workers with stout marching legs to mix this up.
Traditional dye works still operate in many parts of the world. There is a revival of using natural indigo in modern Egypt — although their indigo dye is mostly imported. The same is true further south in Sudan. They've been importing cloth from Upper Egypt as far back as we have written records and continue the practice of the cloth and dye imports today. Clean white cotton is more the style of western Sudan and Chad, but they still like to throw in a bit of colour.
Traditional Dye Vats |
My guide took me to the top of a building so I could look down on rows and rows of coloured vats. In every other one was a man marching in place to work the dye into the wool. Their legs took on the colour from their daily march in place in huge tubs of liquid dye and sheared wool.
Many natural dyes require the use of chemicals called mordants to bind the dye to the textile fibres; tannin from oak galls, salt, natural alum, vinegar, and ammonia from stale urine were staples of the early dyers.
Many mordants and some dyes themselves produce strong odours. Urine is a bit stinky. Not surprisingly, large-scale dyeworks were often isolated in their own districts.
Woad, Isatis tinctoria |
Dyes such as cochineal and logwood, Haematoxylum campechianum, were brought to Europe by the Spanish treasure fleets, and the dyestuffs of Europe were carried by colonists to America.
Throughout history, people have dyed their textiles using common, locally available materials, but scarce dyestuffs that produced brilliant and permanent colours such as the natural invertebrate dyes. Crimson kermes became highly prized luxury items in the ancient and medieval world. Red, yellow and orange shades were fairly easy to procure as they exist as common colourants of plants. It was blue that people sought most of all and purple even more so.
Indigofera tinctoria, a member of the legume or bean family proved just the trick. This lovely plant — named by the famous Swedish botanist Carl Linneaus, the father of formalized binomial nomenclature — grows in tropical to temperate Asia and subtropical regions, including parts of Africa.
The plants contain the glycoside indican, a molecule that contains a nitrogenous indoxyl molecule with some glucose playing piggyback.
To make the lovely blue and purple dyes, we harvest the plants and ferment them in vats with urine and ash. The fermentation splits off the glucose, a wee bit of oxygen mixes in with the air (with those sturdy legs helping) and we get indigotin — the happy luxury dye of royalty, emperors and kings.
While much of our early dye came from plants — now it is mostly synthesized — other critters played a role. Members of the large and varied taxonomic family of predatory sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks, commonly known as murex snails were harvested by the Phoenicians for the vivid dye known as Tyrian purple.
While the extant specimens maintained their royal lineage for quite some time; at least until we were able to manufacture synthetic dyes, it was their fossil brethren that first captured my attention. There are about 1,200 fossil species in the family Muricidae.
George E. Radwin and Anthony D'Attilio: The Murex shells of the World, Stanford University press, 1976, ISBN 0-8047-0897-5
Pappalardo P., Rodríguez-Serrano E. & Fernández M. (2014). "Correlated Evolution between Mode of Larval Development and Habitat in Muricid Gastropods". PLoS ONE 9(4): e94104. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0094104
Miocene Gastropods and Biostratigraphy of the Kern River Area, California; United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 642
Saturday 14 January 2023
FOUR TUSKS AND A TRUNK: TETRALOPHODON
Tetralophodon ("four-ridged tooth") is an extinct proboscidean genus belonging to the superfamily Elephantoidea.
Tuesday 6 December 2022
OYSTER: T'LOX'TLOX
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, protected from the sun's rays and heat? Are they the rough and tumble beach denizens whose thick shells tell us of a life spent withstanding the relentless 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.
Oyster in Kwak'wala is t̕łox̱t̕łox̱ |
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 and my family, 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.
Wednesday 26 October 2022
KILLER WHALES OF THE PACIFIC: KEET MAX'INUX
This past week, there has been a pod hunting and playing in the waters near Maple Bay on Vancouver Island. It is wonderful and a wee bit unusual to see them so long in the same hunting grounds. This partially due to their normal hunting behaviour but definitely impacted by the relentless roar of the motors of whale-watching boats.
In the Kwak̓wala language of the Kwakiutl or Kwakwaka'wakw, speakers of Kwak'wala, of the Pacific Northwest, orca are known as max̱'inux̱. I do not know the word for orca in the language of the Quw'utsun Cowichan First Nation whose shores they are swimming near this week.
Up close, their colouring is equally lovely. When I was little, a few resident orcas would come up to our float house and rub up against the side to give themselves a good scritch. We used to offer to help them with this by lowering a deck broom and rubbing it along them. They would roll around playfully and seemed to enjoy it much the same way dogs and cats appreciate a good scratch.
They show curiosity and intelligence when they look at you and understand that your intention was to help not hurt when the broom was offered. One of them did give the broom a gentle nibble and carried it off a ways but very politely returned it a few minutes later.Across their back and along their pectoral flippers is a nice glossy black, The exception is their saddle, a wee patch of greyish white just behind their dorsal fin.
Whales breathe through their nostril or blowhole that sits in the centre of their forehead. The blow of mist you see in the photo above is this fellow breathing and pushing air out through his blowhole and some seawater along with it.
Killer whales have a white patch under their heads (lower jaw), under each fluke and a patch along their rear edge as you move towards the tail. While these patches of white make them easier for us to see and identify them, they act as camouflage to those they are hunting in the water.
Their large bodies are streamlined (hydrodynamic), like a submarine, for moving through the water. Whales have flukes or a tail used for swimming. The flukes are moved in an up-and-down motion to accelerate. The dorsal fin acts like the keel of a boat; it keeps the whale from rolling side to side while swimming. They have pectoral flippers just behind the head. These pectoral flippers are used for steering, turning, and stopping.
Live in coastal and offshore waters; resident pods may frequent localized waterways (bays, sounds, etc.) whereas transient pods tend to cover more extensive, varied areas.
An extended clan of orcas, known as the Southern Resident Orca community, socialize and forage in the inland waters of Washington State and British Columbia. The population grows and lessens in relation to the overall Chinook salmon abundance. It may have been this pod that were playing off our shores this week. They are certainly in the neighborhood on and off.
Females (cows) reach reproductive maturity quite late in life at around 14 to 15 years. They give birth every three to ten years, following a 17-month pregnancy. In our local waters, these young join the pod and stay together their whole lives.At birth, the 2.6 m long calves arrive able to swim and dive and grow quickly feasting on their mothers' milk for the first year of their lives.
The newborns stay close to mamma, feeding and learning from her and from the close-knit members of the pod. Over the course of their lives, these newborns will grow from 120 to 160 kg up to 3,600 to 7,250 kg.
Like all dolphins, orcas use sophisticated biological sonar, called echolocation. Echolocation enables them to locate and discriminate objects underwater. The vocalizations within whale communities vary and each are different from those in other communities. The calls also bring the pods together over large areas of water when it is not possible for the whales to see each other.
When all goes well, orcas live to be a ripe old age. Some males have been known to live into their 40s and perhaps up to 60+ years old. Females have been known to live up to 90+ years old.
Thursday 8 September 2022
AMMONITE TIME KEEPERS: INDEX FOSSILS
Argonauticeras besairei, José Juárez Ruiz |
Ammonites were predatory, squidlike creatures that lived inside coil-shaped shells.
Like other cephalopods, ammonites had sharp, beak-like jaws inside a ring of squid-like tentacles that extended from their shells.
They used these tentacles to snare prey, — plankton, vegetation, fish and crustaceans — similar to the way a squid or octopus hunt today.
Catching a fish with your hands is no easy feat, as I am sure you know. But the Ammonites were skilled and successful hunters. They caught their prey while swimming and floating in the water column.
Within their shells, they had a number of chambers, called septa, filled with gas or fluid that were interconnected by a wee air tube. By pushing air in or out, they were able to control their buoyancy in the water column.
They lived in the last chamber of their shells, continuously building new shell material as they grew. As each new chamber was added, the squid-like body of the ammonite would move down to occupy the final outside chamber.
They were a group of extinct marine mollusc animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda.These molluscs, commonly referred to as ammonites, are more closely related to living coleoids — octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish) than they are to shelled nautiloids such as the living Nautilus species.
The Ammonoidea can be divided into six orders:
- Agoniatitida, Lower Devonian - Middle Devonian
- Clymeniida, Upper Devonian
- Goniatitida, Middle Devonian - Upper Permian
- Prolecanitida, Upper Devonian - Upper Triassic
- Ceratitida, Upper Permian - Upper Triassic
- Ammonitida, Lower Jurassic - Upper Cretaceous
Ammonites have intricate and complex patterns on their shells called sutures. The suture patterns differ across species and tell us what time period the ammonite is from. If they are geometric with numerous undivided lobes and saddles and eight lobes around the conch, we refer to their pattern as goniatitic, a characteristic of Paleozoic ammonites.
If they are ceratitic with lobes that have subdivided tips; giving them a saw-toothed appearance and rounded undivided saddles, they are likely Triassic. For some lovely Triassic ammonites, take a look at the specimens that come out of Hallstatt, Austria and from the outcrops in the Humboldt Mountains of Nevada.
Hoplites bennettiana (Sowby, 1826) Christophe Marot |
One of my favourite Cretaceous ammonites is the ammonite, Hoplites bennettiana (Sowby, 1826). This beauty is from Albian deposits near Carrière de Courcelles, Villemoyenne, near la région de Troyes (Aube) Champagne in northeastern France.
At the time that this fellow was swimming in our oceans, ankylosaurs were strolling about Mongolia and stomping through the foliage in Utah, Kansas and Texas. Bony fish were swimming over what would become the strata making up Canada, the Czech Republic and Australia. Cartilaginous fish were prowling the western interior seaway of North America and a strange extinct herbivorous mammal, Eobaatar, was snuffling through Mongolia, Spain and England.
In some classifications, these are left as suborders, included in only three orders: Goniatitida, Ceratitida, and Ammonitida. Once you get to know them, ammonites in their various shapes and suturing patterns make it much easier to date an ammonite and the rock formation where it is found.
Ammonites first appeared about 240 million years ago, though they descended from straight-shelled cephalopods called bacrites that date back to the Devonian, about 415 million years ago, and the last species vanished in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.
They were prolific breeders that evolved rapidly. If you could cast a fishing line into our ancient seas, it is likely that you would hook an ammonite, not a fish. They were prolific back in the day, living (and sometimes dying) in schools in oceans around the globe. We find ammonite fossils (and plenty of them) in sedimentary rock from all over the world.
In some cases, we find rock beds where we can see evidence of a new species that evolved, lived and died out in such a short time span that we can walk through time, following the course of evolution using ammonites as a window into the past.For this reason, they make excellent index fossils. An index fossil is a species that allows us to link a particular rock formation, layered in time with a particular species or genus found there.
Generally, deeper is older, so we use the sedimentary layers of rock to match up to specific geologic time periods, rather like the way we use tree rings to date trees. A handy way to compare fossils and date strata across the globe.
References: Inoue, S., Kondo, S. Suture pattern formation in ammonites and the unknown rear mantle structure. Sci Rep 6, 33689 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep33689
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep33689?fbclid=IwAR1BhBrDqhv8LDjqF60EXdfLR7wPE4zDivwGORTUEgCd2GghD5W7KOfg6Co#citeas
Photos: Argonauticeras besairei from the awesome José Juárez Ruiz.
Photo: Hoplites bennettiana from near Troyes, France. Collection de Christophe Marot
Sunday 21 August 2022
HELIANTHASTER / ASTEROIDEA
- January 18 – Third voyage of James Cook: Captain James Cook, with ships HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery, first views Oahu then Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands of the Pacific Ocean, which he names the Sandwich Islands.
- February 5 – South Carolina becomes the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation. General John Cadwalader shoots and seriously wounds Major General Thomas Conway in a duel after a dispute between the two officers over Conway's continued criticism of General George Washington's leadership of the Continental Army.[1]
- February 6 – American Revolutionary War – In Paris, the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce are signed by the United States and France, signalling official French recognition of the new republic.
- February 23 – American Revolutionary War – Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania and begins to train the American troops.
- March 6–October 24 – Captain Cook explores and maps the Pacific Northwest coast of North America, from Cape Foulweather (Oregon) to the Bering Strait.
- March 10 – American Revolutionary War – George Washington approves the dishonourable discharge of Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin, for "attempting to commit sodomy, with John Monhort a soldier."
- July 10 – Louis XVI of France declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain.
- July 27 – American Revolutionary War – First Battle of Ushant – British and French fleets fight to a standoff.
- August 3 – The La Scala Opera House opens in Milan, with the première of Antonio Salieri's Europa riconosciuta.
Friday 19 August 2022
BOSS VERSUS HORN: PACHYRHINOSAURUS
Monday 15 August 2022
TOTEMS AND LEGENDS OF STANLEY PARK
Totem, Welcome & Mortuary Poles at Stanley Park |
What you are viewing are replicas of First Nation welcome and totem poles that once stood in the park but have been returned to their homes within the province's diverse First Nation communities — or held within museum collections.
Some of the original totems came from Alert Bay on Cormorant Island, near the Port McNeill on the north coast of Vancouver Island.
Others came from communities in Haida Gwaii — and still more from the Wuikinuxv First Nations at Rivers Inlet on British Columbia's central west coast — home of the Great Bear Rainforest with her Spirit Bears.
The exception is the most recent addition carved by Robert Yelton in 2009. Robert is a First Nation carver from the Squamish Nation and his original welcome pole graces Brockton Point, the original settlement site of a group of Squamish-Portuguese settlers.
If you look at the photo above, the lovely chocolate, red and turquoise pole on the right is a replica of the mortuary pole raised to honour the Raven Chief of Skedans or Gida'nsta, the Haida phrase for from his daughter, the title of respect used when addressing a person of high rank. Early fur traders often took the name of the local Chief and used it synonymously as the place names for the sites they visited — hence Skedans from Gida'nsta.
Chief Skedans Mortuary Pole |
Upon Chief Skedan's death, the mortuary pole was carved both to honour him and provide his final resting place. Dates are a bit fuzzy, but local accounts have this as sometime between 1870-1878 — and at a cost of 290 blankets or roughly $600 in today's currency.
The great artistry of the pole was much admired by those in the community and those organizing the celebrations for the 1936 Vancouver Golden Jubilee — witnessed by 350,000 newly arrived residents.
Negotiations were pursued and the pole made its way down from Haida Gwaii to Stanley Park in time for the celebrations. The original totem graced Stanley Park for a little over twenty years before eventually making its way back to Haida Gwaii. It was returned to the community with bits of plaster and shoddy paint marring the original. These bits were scraped off and the pole welcomed back with due ceremony.
In 1964, respected and renowned Northwest Coast master carver, Bill Reid, from the Kaadaas gaah Kiiguwaay, Raven/Wolf Clan of T'anuu, Haida Gwaii and Scottish-German descent, was asked to carve this colourful replica.
Mountain Goat Detail, Skedans Mortuary Pole |
Don Yeomans, Haida master carver, meticulously recarved the moon crest in 1998. If you have admired the totem pole in the Vancouver Airport, you will have seen some of Yeoman's incredible work.
The crest is Moon with the face, wings, legs and claws of a mighty and proud Thunderbird with a fairly smallish hooked beak in a split design. We have Moon to thank for the tides and illuminating our darkest nights. As a crest, Moon is associated with transformation and acting as both guardian and protector.
The original pole had a mortuary box that held the Chief's remains. The crest sits atop a very charming mountain goat. I have included a nice close-up here of the replica for you to enjoy.
Mountain Goats live in the high peaks of British Columbia and being so close to the sky, they have the supernatural ability to cross over to the sky world. They are also credited as being spirit guardians and guides to First Nation shamans.
I love his horns and tucked in cloven hooves. There is another pole being carved on Vancouver Island that I hope to see during its creation that also depicts a Mountain Goat. With permission and in time, I hope to share some of those photos with you.
Mountain Goat is sitting atop Grizzly Bear or Huaji or Xhuwaji’ with little human figures placed in his ears to represent the Chief's daughter and son-in-law, who raised the pole and held a potlatch in his honour.
Beneath the great bear is Seal or Killer Whale in his grasp. The inscription in the park says it is a Killer Whale but I am not sure about that interpretation — both the look and lore make Seal more likely. Perhaps if Killer Whale were within Thunderbird's grasp — maybe.
Though it is always a pleasure to see Killer Whale carved in red cedar, as the first whales came into being when they were carved in wood by a human — or by Raven — then magically infused with the gift of life. We think of totem pole as being part of the material culture of all Indigenous cultures across Canada when, indeed, they are carved by only a few and not always in the ways that you expect.
Some are welcome poles, others record the loss of a loved one in a mortuary pole, some have spread wings like those carved by the Kwakwaka'wakw.Some are house fronts or house posts, others are shaped like an entryway versus the tall thin poles you might expect.
We can thank the talented artists of the Haida, Nuxalk, Kwakwaka'wakw, Tlingit, Tsimshian and Coast Salish for the poles we enjoy in the Pacific Northwest.
It is their storytelling and clan crests that we are enjoying when we look upon these carvings. These are the stories of their ancestors, their heroics, challenges, titles, deeds and sorrow. Each a masterpiece as a visual that supports an oral tradition—stories told and reinforced year-upon-year at Winter ceremonies.
Siwash Rock on the northern end of Third Beach, Stanley Park |
Glacial deposits sit atop as a mix of clay, sand, cobbles and larger boulders of glacial till.
There are a few areas of exposed volcanics within the park that speak to the scraping of the glaciers as they retreated about 12,500 years ago.
The iconic moss and lichen coated Siwash Rock on the northern end of Third Beach is one of the more picturesque of these. It is a basaltic and andesitic volcanic rock — a blend of black phenocrysts of augite cemented together with plagioclase, hornblende and volcanic glass.
Images not shown:
Do check out the work of Emily Carr and her paintings of Q:o'na from the 1940s. I'll share a link here but do not have permission to post her work. http://www.emilycarr.org/totems/exhibit/haida/ssintro.htm
Friday 12 August 2022
AVES; LIVING DINOSAURS
Cassowary, Casuariiformes |
You will also likely know their sounds. The tweets, chirps, hoots and caws of the species living in your backyard.
There are about ten thousand living species, more than half of which are passerine, or "perching" birds. Birds have wings whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds.
Wings evolved from forelimbs giving birds the ability to fly |
The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have further evolved for swimming.
Wee Feathered Theropod Dinosaurs
We now know from fossil and biological evidence that birds are a specialized subgroup of theropod dinosaurs, and more specifically, they are members of Maniraptora, a group of theropods that includes dromaeosaurs and oviraptorids, amongst others. As palaeontologists discover more theropods closely related to birds, the previously clear distinction between non-birds and birds has become a bit muddy.
Recent discoveries in the Liaoning Province of northeast China, which include many small theropod feathered dinosaurs — and some excellent arty reproductions — contribute to this ambiguity.
Still, other fossil specimens found here shed a light on the evolution of Aves. Confuciusornis sanctus, an Early Cretaceous bird from the Yixian and Jiufotang Formations of China is the oldest known bird to have a beak.
Like modern birds, Confuciusornis had a toothless beak, but close relatives of modern birds such as Hesperornis and Ichthyornis were toothed, telling us that the loss of teeth occurred convergently in Confuciusornis and living birds.
The consensus view in contemporary palaeontology is that the flying theropods, or avialans, are the closest relatives of the deinonychosaurs, which include dromaeosaurids and troodontids.Together, these form a group called Paraves. Some basal members of this group, such as Microraptor, have features that may have enabled them to glide or fly.
The most basal deinonychosaurs were wee little things. This raises the possibility that the ancestor of all paravians may have been arboreal, have been able to glide, or both. Unlike Archaeopteryx and the non-avialan feathered dinosaurs, who primarily ate meat, tummy contents from recent avialan studies suggest that the first avialans were omnivores. Even more intriguing...
Avialae, which translates to bird wings, are a clade of flying dinosaurs containing the only living dinosaurs, the birds. It is usually defined as all theropod dinosaurs more closely related to modern birds — Aves — than to deinonychosaurs, though alternative definitions are occasionally bantered back and forth.
The Earliest Avialan: Archaeopteryx lithographica
Archaeopteryx lithographica, from the late Jurassic Period Solnhofen Formation of Germany, is the earliest known avialan that may have had the capability of powered flight. Archaeopteryx, bird-like dinosaur from the Late Jurassic
However, several older avialans are known from the Late Jurassic Tiaojishan Formation of China, dating to about 160 million years ago.
The Late Jurassic Archaeopteryx is well-known as one of the first transitional fossils to be found, and it provided support for the theory of evolution in the late 19th century.
Archaeopteryx was the first fossil to clearly display both traditional reptilian characteristics — teeth, clawed fingers, and a long, lizard-like tail—as well as wings with flight feathers similar to those of modern birds. It is not considered a direct ancestor of birds, though it is possibly closely related to the true ancestor.
Unlikely yet true, the closest living relatives of birds are the crocodilians. Birds are descendants of the primitive avialans — whose members include Archaeopteryx — which first appeared about 160 million years ago in China.
DNA evidence tells us that modern birds — Neornithes — evolved in the Middle to Late Cretaceous, and diversified dramatically around the time of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 mya, which killed off the pterosaurs and all non-avian dinosaurs.In birds, the brain, especially the telencephalon, is remarkably developed, both in relative volume and complexity. Unlike most early‐branching sauropsids, the adults of birds and other archosaurs have a well‐ossified neurocranium. In contrast to most of their reptilian relatives, but similar to what we see in mammals, bird brains fit closely to the endocranial cavity so that major external features are reflected in the endocasts. What you see on the inside is what you see on the outside.
This makes birds an excellent group for palaeoneurological investigations. The first observation of the brain in a long‐extinct bird was made in the first quarter of the 19th century. However, it was not until the 2000s and the application of modern imaging technologies that avian palaeoneurology really took off.
Understanding how the mode of life is reflected in the external morphology of the brains of birds is but one of several future directions in which avian palaeoneurological research may extend.
Although the number of fossil specimens suitable for palaeoneurological explorations is considerably smaller in birds than in mammals and will very likely remain so, the coming years will certainly witness a momentous strengthening of this rapidly growing field of research at the overlap between ornithology, palaeontology, evolutionary biology and the neurosciences.
Reference: Cau, Andrea; Brougham, Tom; Naish, Darren (2015). "The phylogenetic affinities of the bizarre Late Cretaceous Romanian theropod Balaur bondoc (Dinosauria, Maniraptora): Dromaeosaurid or flightless bird?". PeerJ. 3: e1032. doi:10.7717/peerj.1032. PMC 4476167. PMID 26157616.
Reference: Ivanov, M., Hrdlickova, S. & Gregorova, R. (2001) The Complete Encyclopedia of Fossils. Rebo Publishers, Netherlands. p. 312
Wednesday 10 August 2022
FRAGILE BEAUTY: RUGOSE AND TABULATE CORALS
Scleractinian Fossil Coral, Florida |
Corals first appeared in the Cambrian about 535 million years ago. Fossils are extremely rare until the Ordovician period, 100 million years later, when rugose and tabulate corals became widespread.
Palaeozoic corals seem to make friends wherever they live and often contain numerous endobiotic symbionts.
Tabulate corals occur in limestones and calcareous shales of the Ordovician and Silurian periods, and often form low cushions or branching masses of calcite alongside rugose corals.
Their numbers began to decline during the middle of the Silurian period, and they became extinct at the end of the Permian period, 250 million years ago.
Rugose or horn corals became dominant by the middle of the Silurian and became extinct early in the Triassic period. The rugose corals existed in solitary and colonial forms and were also composed of calcite.
The famous Great Barrier Reef is thought to have been laid down about two million years ago. If you have had the pleasure of scuba diving near it to take in its modern wonders, perhaps you will be interested to learn how it was formed. Over long expanses of time, the corals here have broken up, fragmented and died. Sand and rubble accumulate between the corals, and the shells of clams and other molluscs decay to form a gradually evolving calcium carbonate structure to what you view today.
Coral reefs are extremely diverse marine ecosystems hosting over 4,000 species of fish, massive numbers of cnidarians, molluscs, crustaceans, and many other animals.
Monday 25 July 2022
ABALONE: GWA'LIT'SA
Tuesday 5 July 2022
SUPERNATURAL BRITISH COLUMBIA
The province is home to more than a hundred native species including a few only known from British Columbia. Birds, bees, bats and insects soar, buzz & flutter on our coastal winds. Our nutrient rich coastal waters are home to diverse marine life from jellyfish, salmon to our coastal whales.
From great bears to wee mice, the Pacific Northwest is a paradise with abundant food resources. Here's a partial list for you to look for as you explore the province: Moose, Black and Brown Bear, Boreal Woodland Caribou, Black-tailed & Mule Deer, British Columbia Wolf, Roosevelt Elk, Eagles, Owls, Hawks, Steller's Jay, American Bison, Humpback, Orca and Blue whales, California Sea Lions, Canada Lynx, Collared Pika, Cougar, Dall sheep, Northern Elephant Seal, Northern Right-whale Dolphin, Wolverine, Yellow-Bellied & Vancouver Island Marmots, Vancouver Island water shrew, Queen Charlotte Hairy Woodpecker, Pine Grosbeak and Townsend Voles.
The land they inhabit and you and I stroll upon was built by great tectonic forces that pushed and pulled large sections of the Earth's crust to the shape of the landmasses we see today.
Our province is a crazy quilt of bits and pieces made up from the accretion of exotic terranes that have been added bit by bit lengthening our province from where it meets Alberta then west to were it meets the Pacific — the ocean we can thank for our mild climate.
For those who live in Vancouver, we live upon the North American Plate which sits near the boundary of a major fault. The Juan de Fuca plate is slowly pushing against the edge of our province and slowly sliding underneath.That process of relentless pushing against the outer edge of British Columbia is what helped to form our mountains. Picture slowly pressing and sliding a table cloth along a table. As you press, the material bunches up, folds and builds small ridges.
That faulting and folding mimics what we see across our world as the tectonic plates play the same role as your hand, pressing and pushing large sections of land. The movement and pressure is released as earthquakes and the eruption of volcanoes which have also shaped our province.
Our climate has also changed over time. We can see this in the smooth mountains and deep valleys that were gouged or polished by massive glaciers. There was a time when the city I live in and much of our coast was covered in 2 kilometres of ice. It began to melt and recede from our Interior about 18,000 years ago and our coast around 13,000 years ago
Along that journey of province-building forces, the rocks we find here today record the life history of our province — and indeed that of the Earth — for over 600 million years of Earth's 4.543 billion year history. British Columbia's fossil bounty includes dinosaurs, marine reptiles, plants, insects, fish, sharks, bison, musk ox, mammoth, birds, pterosaurs, ammonites and trilobites!
British Columbia's Provincial Symbols:
Every province has their official list of provincial birds, gemstones and fossils. Here's the hit list for British Columbia:
- Provincial Fossil: Elasmosaur
- Provincial Gemstone: Jade
- Provincial Fish: Pacific Salmon, Oncorhynchus (all seven species)
- Provincial Flower: Pacific Dogwood, Cornus nuttallii
- Provincial Bird: Steller's Jay, Cyanacitta stelleri
- Provincial Tree: Western Red Cedar (and we boast some more than 2,000 years old!)
- Provincial Mammal: Spirit Bear, Ursus americanus kermodei
- Lace Crab, Marrella splendens, Burgess Shale, Stephen Formation, Cambrian, 508 mya
- Ammonite, Canadoceras yokoyamai, Haslam Formation, Cretaceous, 80-84 mya
- Fusulinid Foraminifera (one-celled animal), Yabeina columbiana, Marble Canyon, 260-268 mya
- Ichthyosaur, Shonisaurus sikanniensis, Pardonet Formation, 210-220 mya
- Salmon, Eosalmo driftwoodensis, Tranquille Formation, 52-53 mya
- Trilobite, Olenoides serratus, Burgess Shale, Cambrian, 508 mya
Additional Reading:
If you are interested in reading more on the forming of British Columbia, I highly recommend Dr. John Clague's book: Vancouver — City on the Edge. It is very approachable and beautifully done. Dr. Clague is also Episode One of Season One on BC's Fossil Bounty coming to TELUS Optik TV Autumn 2022. I'll also put a copy of his audio on the Fossil Huntress Podcast once the episode airs in a few months.
To get to know your neighbours in British Columbia, you are welcome to visit www.speciesofthepacificnorthwest.com which shares many of our furry, feathery and fishy friends along with their names in Kwak'wala spoken by the Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations along British Columbia's coast.