SPISULA FOSSIL CLAMS OF HAIDA GWAII

Some lovely Spisula praecursor (Dall) fossil clams from the Skonun Formation of Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, captured from the Miocene when this coastline looked very different from today. 

These fossil bivalves belong to the surf clam lineage, a group well adapted to shallow, energetic marine environments with shifting sands and strong wave action. 

Their robust, equivalve shells and streamlined form speak to a life spent burrowed just beneath the sediment surface, filtering seawater for food while riding out constant motion above.

The Skonun Formation preserves a rich snapshot of nearshore marine life along the northeastern Pacific margin during the Miocene, roughly 23 to 5 million years ago. 

At that time, Haida Gwaii lay along an active tectonic edge, with sediments accumulating in coastal and shelf settings influenced by currents, storms, and abundant nutrient flow. 

Fossils such as Spisula praecursor help us reconstruct these dynamic environments, offering clues about water depth, substrate type, and even paleoclimate.

These particular specimens came from a single block only accessible on a falling tide. Timing, as ever, was everything—and the tide had other ideas. 

The excavation involved equal parts determination and seawater, leaving both collector and fossils thoroughly soaked. Still, there is something fitting about getting wet while freeing marine clams from their ancient shoreline, a small reminder that fieldwork often mirrors the environments we are trying to understand.

SAXMAN TOTEM PARK AND TLINGIT HISTORY

In the hard-edged years of the Great Depression, when darkness settled across the American economy and hope felt threadbare, President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched an unprecedented experiment. 

His New Deal programs sent electricity into rural Tennessee, built schools and dams across the nation, and—far to the northwest in the dripping rainforests of Southeast Alaska—sparked a cultural resurgence few federal planners could have imagined.

Between 1938 and 1942, more than two hundred Tlingit and Haida artists were hired through the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). 

Their charge was to carve monumental cedar poles and restore others standing in the mossy remains of unoccupied villages. 

Officials imagined the creation of “totem parks” that would lure American tourists northward. Perhaps not in the short term, as the recession raged across the nation and the world, but eventually, these parks would bring new visitors and their welcome dollars to the north.

Instead, the project became something far more profound: a revitalization of cultural memory, clan identity, and sovereignty, expressed through carving, paint, story, and the spirits of crest beings older than the United States itself.

Historian Emily L. Moore explores this unlikely convergence in her landmark book Proud Raven, Panting Wolf: Carving Alaska’s New Deal Totem Parks. 

Her research reveals the New Deal not as a moment of cultural salvage, but as one of Indigenous resurgence—an era when Tlingit families reclaimed their visual histories and reaffirmed their relationships to ancestral land.

 
Crests: Living Ancestors, Sacred Property

To understand the poles of Saxman Totem Park, one must understand the Crests depicted upon them. Among the Tlingit, a Crest is not a symbol in the Western sense. 

It is a living being—an animal person, a supernatural entity, or a powerful natural force—encountered by clan ancestors in the ancient past. 

 Dogfish Memorial Pole for Chief Ebbits 

These encounters, often world-changing and sometimes life-threatening, established the unique identity, character, and territorial rights of each clan.

The right to depict a Crest is sacred. In many histories, the ownership of a crest was acquired as kaa naawuweidi'—a payment for the life of an ancestor who survived or was lost during the clan's originating event—a death for a crest. 

That payment bestowed upon the clan not only the right to portray the being, but stewardship over its spirit, the land where the encounter occurred, and all material expressions of that relationship. 

These include carved house screens, frontlets and headdresses, Chilkat robes (naaxein), Chilkat tunics (naaxein k'oodás') spruce root hats, carved cedar war canoes, grave posts, weapons, ceremonial objects, stories, songs, mourning calls at ku.éex’, personal names, and place names.

Crests are held in perpetuity as at.óow—sacred clan property regarded as very much alive. Their spirits dwell within the objects and narratives that represent them. 

Seen in this way, you begin to understand that a totem pole is a monument, a being, a lineage, a territorial claim, and a continuation of the moment when a human ancestor first encountered a powerful other-than-human life.

 
The Lincoln Pole: A Crest, a Claim, a Lineage

One of the most discussed poles brought into Saxman Totem Park during the CCC era was the Lincoln Pole, relocated in 1938. 

The Lincoln Pole

At its summit, a familiar face gazes outward—a stylized representation of Abraham Lincoln. Many visitors assume the figure references American politics, but Tlingit Elders have long taught that the image originally referred to the first white man seen in Tlingit territory in the 1700s.

By the 1880s, members of the Gaanax.ádi Raven clan of the Tongass Tlingit—my ancestors—commissioned this pole to commemorate the event. Carvers selected Lincoln’s likeness simply because it was widely recognizable. 

As with many Crests, the visual representation is less important than the lineage of the encounter and the rights it affirms. This particular pole claims Gaanax.ádi presence and sovereignty long before American expansion reached Alaska.

When CCC carvers restored the pole in the 1940s, they revived more than cedar. They revived the voice of a clan asserting its ancient rights—rights transmitted through at.óow, through story, and through carved beings whose spirits continue to watch over their homeland.
The Dogfish Pole: Honour for a Chief, Story of a Life

Not far from the Lincoln Pole stands another monument filled with ancestral power: the Dogfish Pole, carved for Chief Ebbits Andáa of the Teikweidi, Valley House. Raised in Old Tongass Village in 1892, the pole memorializes the Head Chief of the Tongass Tlingit, whose crest relationships, titles, and life story are carved into its cedar body.

At birth, he was Neokoots. In adulthood, he inherited the title of Chief Sheiks from his father—Chief of Chiefs among the Tlingit of the region. Tlingit names are tides, earned and bestowed throughout a lifetime. 

Yet the transition from Sheiks to Ebbits was unusual. In the late nineteenth century, while trading with Americans aboard one of John Jacob Astor’s vessels, the Chief formed a deep friendship with a fur trader named Ebbits. In a rare ceremony, the two exchanged names. Their act created a bond that echoed through generations.

Chief Ebbits married Aanseet, Chief-of-All-Women of Drifted Ashore House. Their children—Anisalaga Mary Ebbits Hunt, Gaachnéin, Abbie (Atk'géigee), Keenanúk, Kéilsháawat, and the son Yaashút’, who died tragically in 1876—became ancestors to hundreds of descendants across British Columbia and Alaska. Anisalaga, renowned for her Chilkat weaving, carried many names, as is the way among Tlingit and Kwaguʼł families. 

Seattle Pole in Pioneer Square raised for Aanseet

Her artistry and lineage unite today’s Cadwallader, Spencer, Lyons, Hunt, Henderson, and many families of the Pacific Northwest.

Aanseet drowned on the Nass River in 1870. Two memorial poles, Princess-Shining-on-Copper, were raised in her honour: one in Alaska, and one in Tsaxis (Fort Rupert), raised by her daughter Anisalaga. 

The pole that stands in Pioneer Square in Seattle is a replica of the original pole stolen from Tongass Island back in 1899. The theft was undertaken by a group of Seattle businessmen on an expedition to the north. They moored near the village of Old Tongass and went ashore to cut down the pole. It was later presented to the city of Seattle and erected in Pioneer Square. 

In 1938, it was heavily damaged by arson and a new pole, a replica, was made. Once the families found out where their pole had gone, a court case ensued. A federal grand jury indicated eight men, but the case was dismissed. 

The Dogfish Pole weathered to a silvery grey by the early twentieth century, its paint long stripped by wind and time now stands restored in Saxman Totem Park. 

CCC artists restored it in 1938. In 2022, a new restoration stabilized its cedar and freshened its paint so that coming generations might continue to read its stories and honour its spirit.
Letters Across Time

Chief Abbits to Anisalaga

Not all history is carved. Some is fragile as paper. 

Among our family records is a letter from Chief Ebbits—signed “Abbits”—written in 1876 to his daughter Anisalaga, informing her of her brother’s death. 

The shifting spelling of names in these documents reflects not inconsistency, but the complexity of translating Tlingit sounds into English—a multilingual echo of a time when Indigenous and Euro-American worlds were learning to speak across profound differences.

 
A Legacy of Sovereignty

Today, visitors strolling through Saxman Totem Park near Ketchikan see more than restored poles—they see a forest of living beings, each carrying the spirits of crest ancestors. 

Ironically, a program designed to reshape Indigenous lives helped strengthen them. CCC carvers, many of them young Tlingit and Haida men, used federal wages to carve their clan stories back into visibility.

It also put carving tools back into the hands of artists to use their skills and refine them in the refurbishing of poles that would have (rightly) decayed into the moss and sands of these windswept shores.  

The Tlingit, along with other Northwest Coast peoples, hold the belief that totem poles should be allowed to decay naturally and return to the earth as part of the life cycle of these crests 

Photographer Jeff Whyte, whose work captures the saturated greens and mist-washed cedar of the Pacific Northwest, shared images with me from Saxman. 

His lens reveals what Tlingit communities have always known: the poles are alive, watching over their descendants as steadfastly as the spruce and hemlock rising behind them.

For those seeking deeper understanding, The Wolf and the Raven by anthropologist Viola Garfield and architect Linn Forrest—another talented member of our extended family—remains essential reading.
Cedar Memory

Saxman Totem Park

Alaska’s totem parks do not exist soley because a federal program sought to ease unemployment. That was the action that set them in motion but to carry out the work takes skill honed over many years. 

These parks exist because Tlingit clans chose to pick up their adzes, reclaim their Crests, restore their at.óow, and reassert their sovereignty in a rapidly changing world.

What stands at Saxman today is a story-forest, a lineage made visible, a gathering of ancestral beings raised toward the sky and carried into the future by those who continue to speak their names.

Visiting Saxman Totem Park

Saxman Totem Park is a public park located just south of Ketchikan in the Tlingit community of Saxman, Alaska. Established during the New Deal as part of the Civilian Conservation Corps’ ambitious totem restoration project, the park today houses one of the world’s most significant collections of Tlingit and Haida poles.

Many poles were relocated from unoccupied villages including Old Tongass, Cat Island, Village Island, Pennock Island, and Fox Village. Others were re-carved by master Tlingit artists hired through the CCC in the 1930s, and then again later as the poles once more weathered to show their age. 

Among the cultural treasures recovered from abandoned sites was a marble statue of a grizzly bear—an exceptional example of Indigenous stone carving.

Notable Poles and House Posts

• Sun and Raven
• Raven and Frog
• Tired-Wolf House Posts
• The Beaver Posts
• The Blackfish Pole
• Klawak Blackfish Fin
• The Frog Tree
• Grizzly Bear Monument
• Kats and his Bear Wife
• The Lincoln Totem
• Secretary of State Pole
• Raven Pole
• The Grizzly Bear Post
• The Loon Tree
• Owl Memorial
• Pointing Figure
• Giant Rock Oyster Pole
• Memorials of Eagle Tail House
• Dogfish Totem

Photo Credit: Saxman Totem Park poles courtesy of Jeff Whyte of  www.jeffwhytephotography.com.

SEALS OF THE NORTH PACIFIC: FOSSILS AND LIVING STORIES OF THE KWAKIUTL

Along the storm-polished shores of northern Vancouver Island, where cedar-dark forests lean out over the Salt Chuck and the tide breathes in long, tidal sighs, the seal has long held a place of honour—not only as a keystone species of the coast, but as a cultural relative, teacher, and provider to the First Nations of northern Vancouver Island. 

Long before marine biologists began tagging pinnipeds or calculating biomass, Kwakwaka'wakw families, my family, understood the rhythms, migrations, and behaviours of ts’áxwi (harbour seals) intimately. 

Seals were never merely animals of the sea; they were participants in the community of beings, woven through stories, ceremony, and the practical technologies that allowed coastal life to flourish.

This deep relationship is reflected vividly in one of the most important annual institutions of Kwakiutl society: the Seal Society.

The Seal Society (Tsawadi): Winter Dances, Identity, and the First Step Into Knowledge

During the winter tseka—the great ceremonial season—First Nation communities transformed their bighouses into worlds between worlds. Flames swayed across cedar-planked walls. Dancers and masked performers embodied supernatural beings, ancestors, and the animal nations with whom the Kwakiutl share their homelands.

Among these dramatic and spiritually potent societies, the Seal Society (Tsawadi) held special significance.

For younger initiates, it was often the first step on a lifelong path into deeper ceremonial knowledge. Through dance, drama, and story, they learned to see the seal not only as a source of subsistence but as a teacher of adaptability, cooperation, and ocean wisdom.

The performances were more than representations—they were conversations across species, reaffirming relationships renewed each winter.

The Most Useful Animal of the Salt Chuck

Kwakiutl oral historians often remark that no other sea animal has been more consistently useful than the seal. Before the arrival of Europeans, seals provided:

• Meat and fat — rich, nutritious, and vital for winter survival
• Skin and fur — warm, water-resistant, stitched into clothing, blankets, and waterproof gear
• Intestines and sinew — fashioned into floats, fishing nets, and line
• Oil — for lamps, waterproofing, and trade

Because the seal was gentle and could be quietly approached on rocky islets and river-mouth sandbars, it became an essential part of coastal subsistence rounds.

Even feasts—the great ceremonial showcases of wealth, generosity, and status—featured seal meat as a prestige dish. The most tender portions were reserved for honoured guests. Thus, the seal became a motif in carved feast bowls, cooking vessels, and serving dishes, often inlaid with glistening abalone shell. I have a beautiful carved seal bowl that holds a place of honour in my house.

To eat seal at a potlatch was not simply to partake of food; it was to acknowledge relationship, territory, and gratitude.

The Thunder Bird and the Cedar Stump: A Kwakiutl Legend of Hunger and Humility

Stories, like tides, reveal deeper truths beneath the surface. Among the Kwakiutl, one legend tells of Tootooch, the Thunder Bird—a being of immense power and appetite—whose hunger leads to a moment of both humour and humility.

One day, Thunder Bird descended near the mouth of a river where a herd of seals slept on the rocks.

Using a rough club, he struck them down, piled them into a great roast, and consumed the lot.

But even after the feast, he remained ravenous—a reminder that supernatural hunger is never easily satisfied.

Borrowing a man’s canoe and seal spear, he hunted four more seals and placed them atop fire-heated rocks to cook. Needing skunk cabbage leaves to wrap the meat, he left his feast unattended beside a great cedar stump.

Before leaving he teased the stump:

“Don’t you wish you had some?”

But cedar stumps are not as passive as they appear.

While Thunder Bird was away, the stump crept over—quiet as old growth moss—and sat directly on the roasting seals, flattening and spoiling the meal. When Thunder Bird returned, he wept and cursed, fearing the long hunger ahead before he could find more seals.

To the Kwakiutl, the story is a reminder of humility before the natural world—and a playful nudge toward respecting even those beings we think rooted and still. Kwakiutl stories and practices align strikingly with ecological realities that scientists are only now fully appreciating.

Harbour Seals (Phoca vitulina richardsi) 

Common along the BC coast, they haul out on beaches, rocks, and estuaries—the very places described in oral traditions. Genetic studies show strong site fidelity: seals return to the same haul-outs generation after generation, much as families return to ancestral fishing grounds.

Elephant Seals (Mirounga angustirostris)

Once hunted nearly to extinction, they are now returning to Vancouver Island, Haida Gwaii and all the waters of the Pacific Northwest—something First Nation Guardians and researchers alike have noted with fascination.

Today, we Kwakwaka'wakw continue to honour seals through art, stories, and cultural practice. This knowledge offers a vital human perspective to modern marine conservation—our ecosystems are not only ecological networks, but relationships of reciprocity, story, and responsibility.

And in every tale—from scientific surveys to Thunder Bird’s misadventures—one truth remains:

The seal is not merely an animal of the sea. It is a relative, a resource, a teacher, and a partner in the great living web of the Northwest Coast.

CHIEF EBBITS POLE. FATHER OF ANISALAGA

The Dogfish Kootéeyaa Pole in Saxman Totem Park

Rural Tennessee has electricity for the same reason Southeast Alaska has Totem Parks—to help the nation recover from The Great Depression. 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, created several federal agencies to put people to work and work they did. 

From 1938-1942 more than 200 Tlingit and Haida First Nation carved totem poles and cleared land for the Civilian Conservation Corps to create “totem parks” the federal government hoped would draw travelers to Alaska.

This odd intersection of federal relief, Alaska Native art and marketing is the subject of Emily L. Moore’s book “Proud Raven, Panting Wolf: Carving Alaska’s New Deal Totem Parks.”

This effort to bring poles out of abandoned villages includes the Lincoln Pole being moved to Saxman Totem Park by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), who established the Saxman Totem Park in 1938.  Though it has been impossible to establish the exact year it was dedicated, the carving of President Lincoln was raised in Old Tongass Village in the late 1870s or the early 1880s, ten to fifteen years after the events it commemorated.

The top carving on the Lincoln Pole bears a great likeness of Abraham Lincoln. According to the teachings of many Tlingit elders, this carving was meant to represent the first white man seen in Tlingit territory in the 18th century.  

A century later, in the 1880s, one of my ancestors from the Gaanax.ádi Raven clan of the Tongass Tlingit commissioned the pole to commemorate our ancestor's pride to have seen this first white man—which has become a Gaanax.ádi crest—using a photograph of Abraham Lincoln as the model. 

It is important not only for these various readings of the crests but also because it claims Gaanax.ádi clan territory before the first Europeans and budding Americans came to these shores—territory that Tlingit carvers who were re-carving the pole in the 1940s were trying to assert to the U.S. government as sovereign land.

Interestingly, another pole in that same park is the Dogfish Pole, carved for Chief Ebbits Andáa, Teikweidi, Valley House. 

The Chief Ebbits Memorial Pole—the Dogfish Kootéeyaa Pole—was raised in 1892 in Old Tongass Village in honour of the Head Chief of the Tongass—a great man and my ancestor. 

Inscribed on the back is, "In Memory of Ebbits, Head Chief of Tongass, January 11, 1892."  

While the Memorial Pole was originally erected in Tongass, it was moved, re-carved and re-painted at Saxman Totem Park in 1938 as part of Roosevelt's program—and was refurbished again just a few years ago. 

The Pole shows the crests of our Clan and tells the story of his life. At his death, he was Chief Ebbits but he had been born Neokoots and became Chief Sheiks, after his father—Chief of Chiefs of all Tlingit in what would become to be known as Alaska. 

The changing of names is not unusual in our culture, or at least the acquiring of names. This happens throughout ones lifetime. What is unusual is the exchanging of names and that is just what happened for Chief Sheiks to become Chief Ebbits.

Later in life, he met and traded with some early American fur traders sailing aboard Commander John Jacob Astor's ship. One of those traders, a Mister Ebbits, became his great friend and the two sealed that friendship with the exchanging of names.  

Chief Ebbit's wife was Aanseet, Chief-of-All-Women, Drifted Ashore House.

Together, they had six children, including Anisalaga Mary Ebbits (Ebbetts) Hunt (the All-Mother), Yaashút' (their son who died in 1876, shot and killed by Kaltcheh), their daughter Gaachnéin who married Kucheesh III, their daughter Abbie (Atk'géigee) who married W. H. Bond, their son Keenanúk who married Xanséek and their daughter Kéilsháawat who married Xaashgáaksh II.

Aanseet drowned on the Nass River in 1870. Two memorial poles were raised in her honour — one in Alaska and one in my home town in Fort Rupert.

If you would like to read more about the Dogfish pole and others, I recommend, The Wolf and the Raven, by anthropologist Viola Garfield and architect Linn Forrest—another talented cousin—published in 1948 and reprinted in 1961.

The paint you see on the pole in these photographs is from the 1938 restoration. The pole had weathered to a silver grey and all paint had been stripped by wind and time. In 2022, an RFP was issued for a local carver to freshen up the paint and stabilize this ancient memorial pole to bring it back to some of its original luster so that the pole can be enjoyed for generations to come.

Jeff Whyte Photography of the Saxman Totem Park

Photos: Jeff Whyte kindly sent me these photos earlier this year from his last trip to the Saxman Totem Park. Jeff is a wonderful photographer from Calgary, Alberta, whose work captures the gorgeous landscape and people of the Pacific Northwest and western Canada.

You can visit his work showcasing amazing landscapes, cityscapes and prairie vistas at www.jeffwhytephotography.com

Letter from Chief Ebbits to Anisalaga Mary Ebbits Hunt

I found a letter from Chief Ebbits to my great-great-great grandmother Anisalaga Mary Ebbits-Hunt from 1876 telling her of her brother's death at the hands of Kaltcheh. 

Here, Chief Ebbits spells his name Abbits in the signature line. You will see Ebbetts, Ebbits and many variations on Anisalaga in the early recorded histories. 

Anisalaga / Anis'laga / Ansnaq / Anain / Anéin / A'naeesla'ga / Mary Ebbits Ebbetts (Abbits) Hunt (1823-1919) held many names. 

Her name has become famous for her beautiful Chilkat weavings. Her given Kwagu'ł name was Musgemxàala which she received when she moved down from Tongass to marry Robert Hunt. 

She belonged to the Raven/Yéil phratry of the Gigalgam Kyinanuk Tlingit of Tongass. 

Anisalaga is the All-Mother whose blood binds all the Cadwalladers, Spencers, Lyons, Hunts and Hendersons and many families of  the Pacific Northwest. 

It is to her and Robert that this Huntress owes heartfelt appreciation for so many cousins!

Photo Credits of Dogfish Pole courtesy of Jeff Whyte Photography  / www.jeffwhytephotography.com

Photo: Princess-Shining-Copper (that was taken to Seattle and raised in Pioneer Square) and one in Tsaxis/T'sakis, Fort Rupert, raised by Anisalaga.

THE CURIOUS TALE OF THE FOSSIL RHINO

The Miocene pillow basalts from the Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area of central Washington hold an unlikely fossil. 

What looks to be a rather unremarkable ballooning at the top of a cave is actually the mould of a small rhinoceros, preserved by sheer chance as its bloated carcass sunk to the bottom of a shallow lake just prior to a volcanic explosion.

We have known about this gem for a long while now. The fossil was discovered by hikers back in 1935 and later cast by the University of California palaeontologists in 1948. 

The Dirty Thirties & The Great Depression

These were the Dirty Thirties and those living in Washington state were experiencing the Great Depression along with the rest of the country and the world. Franklin D. Roosevelt was President of the United States, navigating the States away from laissez-faire economics. 

Charmingly, Roosevelt would have his good name honoured by this same park in April of 1946, a few years before researchers at Berkeley would rekindle interest in the site.

Both hiking and fossil collecting was a fine answer to these hard economic times and came with all the delights of discovery with no cost for natural entertainment. And so it was that two fossil enthusiast couples were out looking for petrified wood just south of Dry Falls on Blue Lake in Washington State. 

While searching the pillow basalt, the Frieles and Peabodys came across a large hole high up in a cave that had the distinctive shape of an upside-down rhinoceros.

This fossil is interesting in all sorts of ways. First, we so rarely see fossils in igneous rocks. As you might suspect, both magma and lava are very hot. Magma, or molten rock, glows a bright red/orange as it simmers at a toasty 700 °C to 1300 °C (or 1300 °F to 2400 °F) beneath the Earth's surface.

A Rhinoceros Frozen in Lava

During the late Miocene and early Pliocene, repeated basaltic lava floods engulfed about 63,000 square miles of the Pacific Northwest over a period of ten to fifteen million years. After these repeated bathings the residual lava accumulated to more than 6,000 feet.

As magma pushes up to the surface becoming lava, it cools to a nice deep black. In the case of our rhino friend, this is how this unlikely fellow became a fossil. Instead of vaporizing his remains, the lava cooled relatively quickly preserving his outline as a trace fossil and remarkably, a few of his teeth, jaw and bones. The lava was eventually buried then waters from the Spokane Floods eroded enough of the overburden to reveal the remains once more.

Diceratherium tridactylum (Marsh, 1875)

Diceratherium (Marsh, 1875) is known from over a hundred paleontological occurrences from eighty-seven collections.

While there are likely many more, we have found fossil remains of Diceratherium, an extinct genus of rhinoceros, in the Miocene of Canada in Saskatchewan, China, France, Portugal, Switzerland, and multiple sites in the United States.

He has also been found in the Oligocene of Canada in Saskatchewan, and twenty-five localities in the United States — in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming.  

Diceratherium was a scansorial insectivore with two horns and a fair bit of girth. He was a chunky fellow, weighing in at about one tonne (or 2,200 lbs). That is about the size of a baby Humpback Whale or a walrus.

Back in the Day: Washington State 15 Million-Years Ago

He roamed a much cooler Washington state some 15 million years ago. Ice dams blocked large waterways in the northern half of the state, creating reservoirs. Floodwaters scoured the eastern side of the state, leaving scablands we still see today. In what would become Idaho, volcanic eruptions pushed through the Snake River, the lava cooling instantly as it burst to the surface in a cloud of steam. 

By then, the Cascades had arrived and we had yet to see the volcanic eruptions that would entomb whole forests up near Vantage in the Takama Canyon of Washington state. 

Know Before You Go

You are welcome to go see his final resting site beside the lake but it is difficult to reach and comes with its own risks. Head to the north end of Blue Lake in Washington. Take a boat and search for openings in the cliff face. You will know you are in the right place if you see a white "R" a couple hundred feet up inside the cliff. Inside the cave, look for a cache left by those who've explored here before you. Once you find the cache, look straight up. That hole above you is the outline of the rhino.

If you don't relish the thought of basalt caving, you can visit a cast of the rhino at the Burke Museum in Seattle, Washington. They have a great museum and are pretty sporting as they have built the cast sturdy enough for folk to climb inside. 

The Burke Museum 

The Burke Museum recently underwent a rather massive facelift and has re-opened its doors to the public. You can now explore their collections in the New Burke, a 113,000 sq. ft. building at 4300 15th Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98105, United States. Or visit them virtually, at https://www.burkemuseum.org/

Photo: Robert Bruce Horsfall - https://archive.org/details/ahistorylandmam00scotgoog, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12805514

Reference: Prothero, Donald R. (2005). The Evolution of North American Rhinoceroses. Cambridge University Press. p. 228. ISBN 9780521832403.

Reference: O. C. Marsh. 1875. Notice of new Tertiary mammals, IV. American Journal of Science 9(51):239-250

Lincoln, Roosevelt and Recovery from The Great Depression

Rural Tennessee has electricity for the same reason Southeast Alaska has totem parks. In order to help the nation recover from The Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, created a number of federal agencies to put people to work. From 1938-1942 more than 200 Tlingit and Haida men carved totem poles and cleared land for the Civilian Conservation Corps in an effort to create “totem parks” the federal government hoped would draw travelers to Alaska.

This odd intersection of federal relief, Alaska Native art and marketing is the subject of Emily L. Moore’s book “Proud Raven, Panting Wolf: Carving Alaska’s New Deal Totem Parks.”

This effort to bring poles out of abandoned villages includes the Lincoln Pole being moved to Saxman Totem Park by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), who established the Saxman Totem Park in 1938.  

The top carving on the Lincoln Pole bears a great likeness of Abraham Lincoln. According to the teachings of many Tlingit elders, this carving was meant to represent the first white man seen in Tlingit territory in the 18th century.  

A century later, in the 1880s, one of my ancestors from the Gaanax.ádi Raven clan of the Tongass Tlingit commissioned the pole to commemorate our ancestor's pride to have seen this first white man—which has become a Gaanax.ádi crest—using a photograph of Abraham Lincoln as the model. 

It is important not only for these various readings of the crests but also because it claims Gaanax.ádi clan territory before the first Europeans and budding Americans came to these shores—territory that Tlingit carvers who were re-carving the pole in the 1940s were trying to assert to the U.S. government as sovereign land.

Interestingly, another pole in that same park is the Dogfish Pole, carved for Chief Ebbits Andáa, Teikweidi, Valley House. The Chief Ebbits Memorial Pole—the Dogfish Kootéeyaa Pole—was raised in 1892 in Old Tongass Village in honour of a great man, Head Chief of the Tongass and my ancestor. It was then moved, re-carved and re-painted at Saxman Totem Park in 1938 as part of Roosevelt's program—and it due to be re-carved again this year. 

It tells the story of his life and the curious way he became Ebbits as he was born Neokoots. He met and traded with some early American fur traders. One of those traders was a Mister Ebbits. The two became friends and sealed that friendship with the exchanging of names.  

If you would like to read more about that pole and others, I recommend, The Wolf and the Raven, by anthropologist Viola Garfield and architect Linn Forrest (my talented cousin), published in 1961 and still in print as I ordered a copy for a friend just this year.

SPISULA FOSSIL CLAMS FROM HAIDA GWAII

Some lovely Spisula praecursor (Dall) fossil clams from the Skonun Formation of Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, captured from the Miocene when this coastline looked very different from today. 

These fossil bivalves belong to the surf clam lineage, a group well adapted to shallow, energetic marine environments with shifting sands and strong wave action. 

Their robust, equivalve shells and streamlined form speak to a life spent burrowed just beneath the sediment surface, filtering seawater for food while riding out constant motion above.

The Skonun Formation preserves a rich snapshot of nearshore marine life along the northeastern Pacific margin during the Miocene, roughly 23 to 5 million years ago. 

At that time, Haida Gwaii lay along an active tectonic edge, with sediments accumulating in coastal and shelf settings influenced by currents, storms, and abundant nutrient flow. 

Fossils such as Spisula praecursor help us reconstruct these dynamic environments, offering clues about water depth, substrate type, and even paleoclimate.

These particular specimens came from a single block only accessible on a falling tide. Timing, as ever, was everything—and the tide had other ideas. 

The excavation involved equal parts determination and seawater, leaving both collector and fossils thoroughly soaked. Still, there is something fitting about getting wet while freeing marine clams from their ancient shoreline, a small reminder that fieldwork often mirrors the environments we are trying to understand.

MISTY SHORES AND DAPPLED LIGHT: HAIDA GWAII

Misty shores, moss-covered forests, dappled light, and the smell of salt air—these are my memories of Haida Gwaii, a land where ancient stories are written in stone.

Formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, the archipelago of Haida Gwaii lies at the far western edge of Canada, where the Pacific Ocean meets the continental shelf. 

These islands—steeped in the rich culture of the Haida Nation—are not only a cultural treasure but a geologic and paleontological wonderland.

Geologically, Haida Gwaii is part of Wrangellia, an exotic tectonostratigraphic terrane that also includes parts of Vancouver Island, western British Columbia, and Alaska. The region's complex geological history spans hundreds of millions of years and includes volcanic arcs, seafloor spreading, and the accretion of entire landmasses.

The Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) has long been fascinated with these remote islands. 

Their geologists and paleontologists have led numerous expeditions over the past century, documenting the diverse sedimentary formations and fossiliferous beds. 

Much of the foundation for this work was laid by Joseph Frederick Whiteaves, the GSC’s chief paleontologist in Ottawa during the late 19th century.

In 1876, Whiteaves published a pioneering paper on the Jurassic and Cretaceous faunas of Skidegate Inlet. This work firmly established the paleontological significance of the archipelago and cemented Whiteaves’ reputation as a global authority in the field. His paper, "On the Fossils of the Cretaceous Rocks of British Columbia" (GSC Report of Progress for 1876–77), remains a key early reference for West Coast palaeontology.

Later, Whiteaves would go on to describe Anomalocaris canadensis from the Burgess Shale—an “unlike other shrimp” fossil that would later be recognized as one of the most extraordinary creatures of the Cambrian explosion.

Whiteaves' early work on the fossil faunas of Haida Gwaii, particularly in the Haida Formation, created a foundation for generations of researchers to follow.

One of our most memorable fossil field trips was to the Cretaceous exposures of Lina Island, part of the Haida Formation. We considered it one of our “trips of a lifetime.” 

With great sandstone beach exposures and fossil-rich outcrops dating from the Albian to Cenomanian, Lina Island offered both scientific riches and stunning natural beauty.

Haida Fossil Fauna

Our expedition was supported and organized by John Fam, Vice Chair of the Vancouver Paleontological Society, and Dan Bowen, Chair of the British Columbia Paleontological Alliance and the Vancouver Island Paleontological Society. 

Their dedication to fostering collaborative research and building relationships with local Haida communities was key. 

We were warmly welcomed, and field trips to fossil sites were arranged in partnership with community members and cultural stewards.

The Haida Formation yielded beautifully preserved specimens embedded both in bedding planes and in concretions—hard, rounded nodules that often house exceptionally preserved fossils. 

Collecting in the mists along the foreshore, our finds included:

• Douvilleiceras spiniferum
• Brewericeras hulenense
• Cleoniceras perezianum
• Fossil cycads, evidence of rich Cretaceous plant life

These fossils offered a rare glimpse into an ancient marine ecosystem that once teemed with life. Douvilleiceras, a spiny ammonite, is particularly striking. 

Douvilleiceras spiniferum, Haida Gwaii

This genus, first identified by Whiteaves from Haida Gwaii, ranges from the Middle to Late Cretaceous and has been found across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.  

The Haida specimens, from the early to mid-Albian, to my eye are the most beautiful—and beautifully preserved.

  Douvilleiceras is one of my favourite ammonites of all time and I was blessed to find several good examples of that species from our expeditions to these fossil-rich outcrops.

All of the fossils I collected from Haida Gwaii have been skillfully prepped and donated to the Haida Gwaii Museum in Skidegate, British Columbia. 

It is a privilege to contribute in a small way to the scientific and cultural understanding of these extraordinary islands.

References and Further Reading:

Whiteaves, J.F. (1876). On the Fossils of the Cretaceous Rocks of British Columbia. Geological Survey of Canada, Report of Progress.

Jeletzky, J.A. (1970). Paleontology of the Cretaceous rocks of Haida Gwaii. Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 175.

Haggart, J.W. (1991). New Albian (Early Cretaceous) ammonites from Haida Gwaii. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, 28(1), 45–56.

Haggart, J.W. & Smith, P.L. (1993). Paleontology and stratigraphy of the Cretaceous Queen Charlotte Group. Geological Survey of Canada Paper 93-1A.

Carter, E.S., Haggart, J.W., & Mustard, P.S. (1988). Early Cretaceous radiolarians from Haida Gwaii and implications for tectonic setting. Micropaleontology, 34(1), 1–14.

THE CURIOUS TALE OF THE FOSSIL RHINO

The Miocene pillow basalts from the Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area of central Washington hold an unlikely fossil. 

What looks to be a rather unremarkable ballooning at the top of a cave is actually the mould of a small rhinoceros, preserved by sheer chance as its bloated carcass sunk to the bottom of a shallow lake just prior to a volcanic explosion.

We have known about this gem for a long while now. The fossil was discovered by hikers back in 1935 and later cast by the University of California palaeontologists in 1948. 

The Dirty Thirties & The Great Depression

These were the Dirty Thirties and those living in Washington state were experiencing the Great Depression along with the rest of the country and the world. Franklin D. Roosevelt was President of the United States, navigating the States away from laissez-faire economics. 

Charmingly, Roosevelt would have his good name honoured by this same park in April of 1946, a few years before researchers at Berkeley would rekindle interest in the site.

Both hiking and fossil collecting was a fine answer to these hard economic times and came with all the delights of discovery with no cost for natural entertainment. And so it was that two fossil enthusiast couples were out looking for petrified wood just south of Dry Falls on Blue Lake in Washington State. 

While searching the pillow basalt, the Frieles and Peabodys came across a large hole high up in a cave that had the distinctive shape of an upside-down rhinoceros.

This fossil is interesting in all sorts of ways. First, we so rarely see fossils in igneous rocks. As you might suspect, both magma and lava are very hot. Magma, or molten rock, glows a bright red/orange as it simmers at a toasty 700 °C to 1300 °C (or 1300 °F to 2400 °F) beneath the Earth's surface.

A Rhinoceros Frozen in Lava

During the late Miocene and early Pliocene, repeated basaltic lava floods engulfed about 63,000 square miles of the Pacific Northwest over a period of ten to fifteen million years. After these repeated bathings the residual lava accumulated to more than 6,000 feet.

As magma pushes up to the surface becoming lava, it cools to a nice deep black. In the case of our rhino friend, this is how this unlikely fellow became a fossil. Instead of vaporizing his remains, the lava cooled relatively quickly preserving his outline as a trace fossil and remarkably, a few of his teeth, jaw and bones. The lava was eventually buried then waters from the Spokane Floods eroded enough of the overburden to reveal the remains once more.

Diceratherium tridactylum (Marsh, 1875)

Diceratherium (Marsh, 1875) is known from over a hundred paleontological occurrences from eighty-seven collections.

While there are likely many more, we have found fossil remains of Diceratherium, an extinct genus of rhinoceros, in the Miocene of Canada in Saskatchewan, China, France, Portugal, Switzerland, and multiple sites in the United States.

He has also been found in the Oligocene of Canada in Saskatchewan, and twenty-five localities in the United States — in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming.  

Diceratherium was a scansorial insectivore with two horns and a fair bit of girth. He was a chunky fellow, weighing in at about one tonne (or 2,200 lbs). That is about the size of a baby Humpback Whale or a walrus.

Back in the Day: Washington State 15 Million-Years Ago

He roamed a much cooler Washington state some 15 million years ago. Ice dams blocked large waterways in the northern half of the state, creating reservoirs. Floodwaters scoured the eastern side of the state, leaving scablands we still see today. In what would become Idaho, volcanic eruptions pushed through the Snake River, the lava cooling instantly as it burst to the surface in a cloud of steam. 

By then, the Cascades had arrived and we had yet to see the volcanic eruptions that would entomb whole forests up near Vantage in the Takama Canyon of Washington state. 

Know Before You Go

You are welcome to go see his final resting site beside the lake but it is difficult to reach and comes with its own risks. Head to the north end of Blue Lake in Washington. Take a boat and search for openings in the cliff face. You will know you are in the right place if you see a white "R" a couple hundred feet up inside the cliff. Inside the cave, look for a cache left by those who've explored here before you. Once you find the cache, look straight up. That hole above you is the outline of the rhino.

If you don't relish the thought of basalt caving, you can visit a cast of the rhino at the Burke Museum in Seattle, Washington. They have a great museum and are pretty sporting as they have built the cast sturdy enough for folk to climb inside. 

The Burke Museum 

The Burke Museum recently underwent a rather massive facelift and has re-opened its doors to the public. You can now explore their collections in the New Burke, a 113,000 sq. ft. building at 4300 15th Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98105, United States. Or visit them virtually, at https://www.burkemuseum.org/

Photo: Robert Bruce Horsfall - https://archive.org/details/ahistorylandmam00scotgoog, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12805514

Reference: Prothero, Donald R. (2005). The Evolution of North American Rhinoceroses. Cambridge University Press. p. 228. ISBN 9780521832403.

Reference: O. C. Marsh. 1875. Notice of new Tertiary mammals, IV. American Journal of Science 9(51):239-250

Lincoln, Roosevelt and Recovery from The Great Depression

Rural Tennessee has electricity for the same reason Southeast Alaska has totem parks. In order to help the nation recover from The Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, created a number of federal agencies to put people to work. From 1938-1942 more than 200 Tlingit and Haida men carved totem poles and cleared land for the Civilian Conservation Corps in an effort to create “totem parks” the federal government hoped would draw travelers to Alaska.

This odd intersection of federal relief, Alaska Native art and marketing is the subject of Emily L. Moore’s book “Proud Raven, Panting Wolf: Carving Alaska’s New Deal Totem Parks.”

This effort to bring poles out of abandoned villages includes the Lincoln Pole being moved to Saxman Totem Park by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), who established the Saxman Totem Park in 1938.  

The top carving on the Lincoln Pole bears a great likeness of Abraham Lincoln. According to the teachings of many Tlingit elders, this carving was meant to represent the first white man seen in Tlingit territory in the 18th century.  

A century later, in the 1880s, one of my ancestors from the Gaanax.ádi Raven clan of the Tongass Tlingit commissioned the pole to commemorate our ancestor's pride to have seen this first white man—which has become a Gaanax.ádi crest—using a photograph of Abraham Lincoln as the model. 

It is important not only for these various readings of the crests but also because it claims Gaanax.ádi clan territory before the first Europeans and budding Americans came to these shores—territory that Tlingit carvers who were re-carving the pole in the 1940s were trying to assert to the U.S. government as sovereign land.

Interestingly, another pole in that same park is the Dogfish Pole, carved for Chief Ebbits Andáa, Teikweidi, Valley House. The Chief Ebbits Memorial Pole—the Dogfish Kootéeyaa Pole—was raised in 1892 in Old Tongass Village in honour of a great man, Head Chief of the Tongass and my ancestor. It was then moved, re-carved and re-painted at Saxman Totem Park in 1938 as part of Roosevelt's program—and it due to be re-carved again this year. 

It tells the story of his life and the curious way he became Ebbits as he was born Neokoots. He met and traded with some early American fur traders. One of those traders was a Mister Ebbits. The two became friends and sealed that friendship with the exchanging of names.  

If you would like to read more about that pole and others, I recommend, The Wolf and the Raven, by anthropologist Viola Garfield and architect Linn Forrest (my talented cousin), published in 1961 and still in print as I ordered a copy for a friend just this year.

HUMPBACK WHALES: GWA'YAM

Look deep into the knowing eye of this magnificent one. 

He is a Humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae, a species of baleen whale for whom I hold a special place in my heart. 

Baleens are toothless whales who feed on plankton and other wee oceanic tasties they consume through their baleens, a specialised filter of flexible keratin plates that frame their mouth and fit within their robust jaws.

Baleen whales, the mysticetes, split from toothed whales, the Odontoceti, around 34 million years ago. The split allowed our toothless friends to enjoy a new feeding niche and make their way in a sea with limited food resources. 

There are fifteen species of baleen whales who inhabit all major oceans. Their number include our humbacks, grays, right whales and the massive blue whale. Their territory runs as a wide band running from the Antarctic ice edge to 81°N latitude. 

In the Kwak̓wala language of Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations, speakers of Kwak'wala, of the Pacific Northwest, and my cousins on my father's side, whales are known as g̱wa̱'ya̱m, and revered along the coast. 

Both the California grey and the Humpback whale live on the coast. Only a small number of individuals in First Nation culture had the right to harpoon a whale. This is a practice from many years ago. It was generally only the Chief who was bestowed this great honour. Sometimes the whales would pass at sea and wash up on shore with this bounty to be shared by all.

Humpback whales like to feed close to shore and enter the local inlets. Around Vancouver Island and along the coast of British Columbia, this made them a welcome food source as the long days of winter passed into Spring.

Humpback whales are rorquals, members of the Balaenopteridae family that includes the blue, fin, Bryde's, sei and minke whales. The rorquals are believed to have diverged from the other families of the suborder Mysticeti during the middle Miocene. 

While cetaceans were historically thought to have descended from mesonychids—which would place them outside the order Artiodactyla—molecular evidence supports them as a clade of even-toed ungulates—our dear Artiodactyla. 

It is one of the larger rorqual species, with adults ranging in length from 12–16 m (39–52 ft) and weighing around 25–30 metric tons (28–33 short tons). The humpback has a distinctive body shape, with long pectoral fins and a knobbly head. It is known for breaching and other distinctive surface behaviours, making it popular with whale watchers and the lucky few who see them from the decks of our local ferries.

Both male and female humpback whales vocalize, but only males produce the long, loud, complex "song" for which the species is famous. Males produce a complex soulful song lasting 10 to 20 minutes, which they repeat for hours at a time. 

I imagine Gregorian Monks vocalizing their chant with each individual melody strengthening and complimenting that of their peers. All the males in a group produce the same song, which differed in each season. Its purpose is not clear, though it may help induce estrus in females and bonding amongst the males.

Humpback Whale, Megaptera novaeangliae

Found in oceans and seas around the world, humpback whales typically migrate up to 25,000 km (16,000 mi) each year. 

They feed in polar waters and migrate to tropical or subtropical waters to breed and give birth, fasting and living off their fat reserves. Their diet consists mostly of krill and small fish. 

Humpbacks have a diverse repertoire of feeding methods, including the bubble net technique.

Humpbacks are a friendly species that interact with other cetaceans such as bottlenose dolphins. They are also friendly and oddly protective of humans. 

You may recall hearing about an incident off the Cook Islands a few years back. Nan Hauser was snorkelling and ran into a tiger shark. Two adult humpback whales rushed to her aid, blocking the shark from reaching her and pushing her back towards the shore. We could learn a thing or two from their kindness. We have not been as good to them as they have been to us.

Like other large whales, the humpback was a tasty and profitable target for the whaling industry. My grandfather and uncle participated in that industry out of Coal Harbour on northern Vancouver Island back in the 1950s. So did many of my First Nation cousins. My cousin John Lyon has told me tales of those days and the slippery stench of that work.

Six whaling stations operated on the coast of British Columbia between 1905 and 1976. Two of these stations were located at Haida Gwaii, one at Rose Harbour and the other at Naden Harbour. 

Over 9,400 large whales were taken from the waters around Haida Gwaii. The catch included blue whales, fin whales, sei whales, humpback whales, sperm whales and right whales. In the early years of the century, primarily humpback whales were taken. In later years, fin whales and sperm whales dominated the catch. 

Whales were hunted off South Moresby in Haida Gwaii, and on the north side of Holberg Inlet in the Quatsino Sound region. 

We squirm at this reality today but it was the norm at the time and a way to make a living—especially for those who had hoped to work in the local coal mine but lost their employment when it shut down. 

While my First Nations relatives hunted whales in small numbers and many years ago, my Norwegian relatives participated in the hunt on a scale that nearly led to their extinction before the process was banned. 

The Coal Harbour Whaling Station closed in 1967. Once it had closed, my grandfather Einar Eikanger, my mother's father, took to fishing and my uncle Harry lost his life the year before when he slipped and fell over the side of the boat. He was crushed between the hull and a Humpback in rough seas. 

Humpback populations have partially recovered since that time to build their population up to 80,000 animals worldwide—but entanglement in fishing gear, collisions with ships, and noise pollution continue to negatively impact the species. So be kind if you see them. Turn your engine off and see if you can hear their soulful cries echoing in the water.

I did up a video on Humpback Whales over on YouTube so you could see them in all their majesty. Here is the link: https://youtu.be/_Vbta7kQNoM

SPISULA FOSSIL CLAMS FROM HAIDA GWAII

Some lovely Spisula praecursor (Dall) fossil clams from the Skonun Formation of Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, captured from the Miocene when this coastline looked very different from today. 

These fossil bivalves belong to the surf clam lineage, a group well adapted to shallow, energetic marine environments with shifting sands and strong wave action. 

Their robust, equivalve shells and streamlined form speak to a life spent burrowed just beneath the sediment surface, filtering seawater for food while riding out constant motion above.

The Skonun Formation preserves a rich snapshot of nearshore marine life along the northeastern Pacific margin during the Miocene, roughly 23 to 5 million years ago. 

At that time, Haida Gwaii lay along an active tectonic edge, with sediments accumulating in coastal and shelf settings influenced by currents, storms, and abundant nutrient flow. 

Fossils such as Spisula praecursor help us reconstruct these dynamic environments, offering clues about water depth, substrate type, and even paleoclimate.

These particular specimens came from a single block only accessible on a falling tide. Timing, as ever, was everything—and the tide had other ideas. 

The excavation involved equal parts determination and seawater, leaving both collector and fossils thoroughly soaked. Still, there is something fitting about getting wet while freeing marine clams from their ancient shoreline, a small reminder that fieldwork often mirrors the environments we are trying to understand.

TASEKO LAKES FOSSIL ADVENTURE

John Fam, VIPS & VanPS

Over three field seasons, thirty-five taxa from the Mineralense and Rursicostatum zones were studied and three new species were discovered and named: Fergusonites hendersonae, Eolytoceras constrictum and Pseudaetomoceras victoriense. 

The late Hettangian ammonite fauna from Taseko Lakes is diverse and relatively well‐preserved.

This material is very important as it greatly expands our understanding of the fauna and ranges of ammonites currently included in the North American regional ammonite zonation. 

Castle Peak, Taseko Lakes

If you look closely, you can see a wee jet ranger helicopter hovering over a very chilly Castle Peak in the southern Chilcotin Range, British Columbia, Canada. 

Castle Peak served as our glorious landmark and loadstone of basalt that marked the spot on our Jurassic/Triassic palaeo adventures collecting about 7000 ft. 

The peak itself reaches higher still to around 8,176 ft. 

The site is special, both in terms of its geology and paleontological bounty, but also for the time spent there with friends. 

I had the very great honour of having the newly named, Fergusonites hendersonae, a new species of nektonic carnivorous ammonite, named after me by palaeontologist Louse Longridge from the University of British Columbia. 

Fergusonites hendersonae (Longridge, 2008)

I had met Louise as an undergrad and was pleased as punch to hear that she would be continuing the research by Dr. Howard Tipper, the authority on this area of the Chilcotins and Haida Gwaii — which he dearly loved. 

"Tip" was a renowned Jurassic ammonite palaeontologist and an excellent regional mapper who mapped large areas of the Cordillera. 

He made significant contributions to Jurassic paleobiogeography and taxonomy in collaboration with Dr. Paul Smith, Head of Earth and Ocean Science at the University of British Columbia. 

Tip’s regional mapping within BC has withstood the test of time and for many areas became the region's base maps for future studies. The scope of Tip’s understanding of Cordilleran geology and Jurassic palaeontology will likely never be matched. He passed away on April 21, 2005. His humour, knowledge and leadership will be sorely missed. 

Badouxia ammonites

Before he left us, he shared that knowledge with many of whom would help to secure his legacy for future generations. 

We did several trips over the years up to the Taseko Lake area of the Rockies joined by many wonderful researchers from the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society and Vancouver Paleontological Society, as well as the University of British Columbia. 

Both Dan Bowen and John Fam were instrumental in planning those expeditions and each of them benefited greatly from the knowledge of Dr. Howard Tipper. 

If not for Tipper's early work in the region, our shared understanding and much of what was accomplished in his last years and after his passing would not have been possible. 

Over the course of three field seasons, we endured elevation sickness, rain, snow, grizzly bears and very chilly nights  — we were sleeping right next to a glacier at one point — but were rewarded by the enthusiastic crew, and helicopter rides — which really cut down the hiking time — excellent specimens including three new species of ammonites, along with a high-spired gastropod and lobster claw that have yet to be written up. 

This area of the world is wonderful to hike and explore — a stunningly beautiful country. We were also blessed with access as the area is closed to all fossil collecting except with a permit.

MIGWAT: BRITISH COLUMBIA'S SEALS

They lift their heads first—dark, liquid eyes catching the shifting light of the Pacific. Then the whiskers twitch, sensing currents and vibrations. A soft exhale. 

A tumble from sun-warmed rock to cold green water. In a heartbeat, they vanish beneath the surface, transformed from sleepy beach-goers to effortless underwater hunters.

These are seals—migwat, in Kwak'wala—the shapeshifters of British Columbia’s coastlines, whose presence is so common today that it’s easy to forget just how extraordinary their story really is.

Their paleo history is written in siltstone and sandstone, in ancient sea cliffs and bone beds. It is a story more than 30 million years in the making.

While not as fossil-rich in pinnipeds as Washington or Oregon, Vancouver Island holds scattered but significant evidence of ancient seals and sea lions.

Fossil Pinnipeds of Vancouver Island

• Pleistocene seal vertebrae and ribs in glacial deposits near Comox, Qualicum, and Port Alberni
• Marine mammal bone fragments in uplifted beach terraces (particularly around Quadra Island, Muir Creek Foreshore on the Saanich Peninsula, and Nanoose Bay)
• Holocene Indigenous middens preserving thousands of years of seal bones—Harbour seal, fur seal, and occasional sea lion—informing both ecology and human history
• Rare but notable Miocene marine mammal material in the Carmanah and Nitinat formations

These bones—though often fragmentary—confirm that pinnipeds have been part of Vancouver Island’s marine ecosystems for hundreds of thousands of years, if not longer.

From Forest Walkers to Ocean Athletes

Pinnipeds—seals, sea lions, and walruses—are members of Carnivora, sharing ancestry with bears and mustelids. Their earliest proto-pinniped relatives roamed the temperate forests of the Oligocene. 

These land-dwelling carnivores still walked on feet, not flippers, but were beginning to explore a new ecological niche: coastal fishing.

Fossils such as Enaliarctos—a 23-million-year-old “walking seal” from the Pacific Northwest—show the transition spectacularly. In Enaliarctos, we see:

• Fully functional limbs still able to support body weight
• But with broad, paddle-like bones hinting at aquatic propulsion
• Teeth adapted for grasping slippery prey
• A streamlined skull with enlarged eye orbits—early upgrades for life underwater

Over millions of years, these transitional forms gave rise to the modern pinnipeds—masters of aquatic agility with powerful flippers, torpedo-shaped bodies, and exquisitely sensitive whiskers capable of detecting the wake of a fleeing fish.

Where I live in British Columbia on Vancouver Island, we have two native extant seal species:

Pacific Harbour Seal, Phoca vitulina richardii

• The most familiar and abundant—those spotted, dog-like seals lounging on logs and kelp beds.
• They inhabit every corner of the BC coast, from Haida Gwaii to Victoria’s Inner Harbour.
• Once when I was scuba diving near Victoria, one swam along side me in a clearly playful way interested to see what kind of creature I was and what I was doing.

There was a time—not long ago—when the quiet, whiskered faces of Harbour seals were rare on the shores of British Columbia. Intense culling programs and bounties from the 1910s through the 1960s reduced their numbers dramatically. By the mid-20th century, the entire coast of BC may have had as few as 10,000 Harbour seals left.

Today, the population is estimated at 105,000 to 110,000 individuals. That's a tenfold increase and one of the greatest conservation success stories in Canada, the Pacific Northwest, and the entire pinniped world.

Northern Elephant Seal, Mirounga angustirostris

Once nearly wiped out by 19th-century hunting, they now appear sporadically but increasingly along BC shores—particularly around Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands.

If the Harbour seal rebound is impressive, the elephant seal comeback is a resurrection.

In the 1880s, hunters reduced northern elephant seals, Mirounga angustirostris, to 20–100 individuals, likely surviving only on remote Guadalupe Island, Mexico.

Today, over 200,000 elephant seals exist worldwide. Along the British Columbia coast, sightings have steadily risen. We see them basking on the shores around Vancouver Island. Moulting individuals are a regular sight at Race Rocks, Barkley Sound, and Haida Gwaii.

At dawn on Hornby Island's Collishaw Point, the mist lifts as the tide sighs across the sandstone. Before you see them, you hear them. There is a soft shuffle… a splash… the quick, wet breath of a surfacing seal.

These communal gatherings—haul-outs—are the social centres of pinniped life. Dozens drape themselves across warm rock shelves, their mottled fur glistening. 

Underwater, the transformation is dramatic. 

Here, seals move with liquid precision, weaving effortlessly through giant kelp forests, chasing schooling herring, sand lance, and perch, and using their hypertactile whiskers to detect minute currents. It is a sight best observed in a drysuit as our waters here are icy cold but the view is worth it to see these quiet hunters of the coast.

Seal pups, turn the sea into a playground—darting, pirouetting, and often approaching divers or kayakers out of sheer curiosity. They are slowly reclaiming ancestral territory—massive, whiskered, loud, and utterly magnificent.

While our Harbour Seals and Elephant Seals are a regular occurance, the coast occasionally plays host to wayward Arctic wanderers such as Ribbon seals, Bearded seals and Ringed seals.

These remain rare, usually tied to unusual ice or climate events. Harbour seals are now so widespread in the Salish Sea that boaters, kayakers, and beachcombers often see them daily—lounging on kelp rafts, balancing on tidal rocks, or slipping through emerald water with barely a ripple.

Taken together, the fossil record from Vancouver Island, Washington, and Oregon reveals that this coastline has hosted pinnipeds for at least 25–30 million years. Early proto-seals evolved here—making the Pacific Northwest a cradle of pinniped evolution. Modern Harbour seals and Elephant seals represent only the latest chapters of a deep, ongoing story.

From Oligocene walking-seals to Miocene sea lions to today’s flourishing Harbour seal colonies, the Pacific coast has been home to these marine mammals through ice ages, warm epochs, shifting continents, and massive oceanic changes. This has always been their home. 

And thanks to careful stewardship, it will continue to be.