Hands On: Practising Emergency Response

By Dr. Graham Young, past Curator of Palaeontology & Geology

This past week, I again appreciated the relationship between fieldwork and weather. In previous visits to Churchill, we usually had breaks in the outdoor work because of the region’s varied and often unpleasant weather. This year, I had anticipated that we would meet similar conditions, and that I would be able to fit some blog posts into the time at the research station waiting for rain/sleet/snow to clear.

But of course this was not to be, courtesy of unpredictable weather conditions. This time, we were met by the longest run of fine weather I have ever seen on the Hudson Bay coast. We could occasionally complain that it was unusually hot (i.e., a pleasant mid 20s Celsius), and the flies WERE horrible whenever the wind died down, but really we had nothing to complain about.

No two days were the same, but a typical day went like this:

6:30 am – The northern sun has already been beating through our window for hours. It is time to struggle out of bed, shave, and face the day.

7 am – Breakfast. Food is very good and plentiful at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, so this is always a pleasant experience, with eggs, potatoes, bacon, coffee, fruit, cinnamon buns, … roughing it in the field! After breakfast we will make sandwiches, then load gear into the truck.

8 am – Drive 25 km down the gravel road to our main study site. Unload collecting gear, attach kneepads, load shotguns, fill water pails from a pond on the tidal flat. The rock we are seeking is a not quite in-place bedrock, but its loose blocks have a very distinctive appearance and appear to come from just under our feet. I select a likely spot on the shore and pick up and split every piece of this rock type within reach, wetting the surfaces in the pail and examining with a hand lens for tiny fossils.

9, 10, 11 am – We continue to repeat the splitting and examining processes. I occasionally stand up, grumble about leg and knee pain, and scan the horizon for polar bears (Ed is holding a shotgun and acting as full-time bear patrol; my scanning is of marginal importance, but it makes me feel useful). I go and take a look whenever Debbie or Matt call out about a fossil they have found.

12:30 – Lunch. I find a nice rounded boulder low on the shore, and pull out the sandwich that I made at breakfast. Sandwiches always taste so much better when inhaled with sea air!

1 pm – A quick run to town to purchase supplies. There is always something we need for this sort of work, and town is nearby, so it makes a welcome break.

2 pm – Back on the shore, we are splitting rock. The sun has become hot and blinding, and this gets to be sleepy work. If the tide is out, maybe we will take a little breather at 3 and walk lower on the shore to examine fossils in the bedrock of the intertidal zone.

4 pm – We begin to pack up. Every likely slab that we had set aside is re-examined to determine if it is worthy of transport back to the research station. The good ones are wrapped in foam and carefully placed into bins. These fossils are easily abraded, and it would be a shame if we wrecked them after they have survived in good shape for 450 million years or so!

5 pm – Back at the Centre, we unload the gear and rocks, and wash up a bit to make ourselves marginally presentable. If there is time, we will examine a few of our finds before dinner.

9, 10, 11 pm – After our final return to the Centre, we spend a bit more time working on our fossil collections, perhaps socialize over a beer, and then return to our rooms to download some of the hundreds of photographs.

It has been a perfect field day, but also perfectly jam-packed. The only thing we could wish for more of is time. I wish that this particular batch of Churchill fieldwork could last a month, not just nine days; then I would really have enough time to appreciate the experience.

By Dr. Graham Young, past Curator of Palaeontology & Geology

We arrived in Churchill last night after a long hiatus; I hadn’t been here in six years. I hadn’t really thought that I missed the place, since I get to think about it so often, but when I hit the ground I was again shocked by how strikingly beautiful it all is.

I am here with some old “Churchill hands” (Dave Rudkin and Ed Dobrzanski) and some newcomers to the place (Debbie Thompson and Matt Demski). Sean Robson will join us later. I plan to post a few short pieces here to document our progress; we will have to see how this works.

We took a drive at sunset to get acclimated. Today so far has consisted of unpacking and organizing gear and driving to town for a few supplies. But that was not without its excitements; we saw a big white wolf on the way there, and a polar bear mother and cub on the drive back!

This afternoon, the real work begins. It is a pity that the weather has turned cooler with rain threatened, but hey, this is Churchill!

By Dr. Graham Young, past Curator of Palaeontology & Geology

In a couple of weeks we will be doing fieldwork near Churchill, collecting fossils on the shore of Hudson Bay. We will be flying up, and therefore have a limited checked baggage allowance. Paleontological fieldwork is not a lightweight pursuit, so the mound of gear shown above was shipped off this morning, taking the slow surface route by truck and train (Churchill has no road link to the rest of Canada).