The Hong Kong Veterans, 1941-1945

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

Ever since the Museum’s Earth History Gallery opened in the early 1970s, visitors have been struck by the appearance of a giant skeleton near the end of the gallery. Many children (and perhaps more than a few adults) have thought that it is a dinosaur, but it is in fact a mammal from the much more recent past, a replica of the giant ground sloth Megatherium americanum.

Megatherium was a huge ground-dwelling creature, distantly related to the modern tree sloths. Ground sloths were a very successful group, with fossils known from many parts of South and North America (including western Canada), but sadly they disappeared in the Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions, along with other wondrous creatures such as the woolly mammoth and short-faced bear.

But let me begin the sloth’s tale at its beginning.

Megatherium is among the best known of ground sloths, with dozens of fossils collected in South America and shipped to Europe from the 18th Century onward. Many specimens apparently came from the banks of the Luján River near Buenos Aires, Argentina, and were in collections and on exhibit in cities such as Paris, Madrid, and London. The first formal scientific description was produced by the great French scientist Georges Cuvier, in 1796. In the 1850s, a young American scientist, Henry Augustus Ward, made a detailed study of Megatherium, visiting collections in Paris and London among many other places. After his return to Rochester, New York, he became a professor at the University of Rochester, but also founded Ward’s Natural Science Establishment, a company that sold scientific specimens, replicas, and materials.

Ward got started on the casting and selling of fossil skeletons very early. His company was among the first to produce casts for sale to the many new natural history museums that were then being developed, and the giant Megatherium was one of his “star attractions.” His catalogue advertised that a full skeleton consisting of 124 different casts could be purchased for $250, “packed not painted” but including a replica tree.

In Montreal, a museum for McGill University was planned from the 1860s onward, to exhibit collections developed by the world-famous Professor William Dawson. This facility, funded by and named for the industrialist Peter Redpath, was opened in 1882. It was primarily to serve as a resource for the university’s faculty and students, but secondarily for the education of the people of Montreal.

Dawson had long corresponded with Ward concerning the acquisition of particular items, so it is not surprising that a description of the original museum includes:

But how did these fascinating and historic replicas become migrants once again, moving westward from Montreal to Winnipeg? In the 1960s there must have been a push to add other creatures such as a dinosaur to the Redpath’s exhibits, and the only way to do this was to replace the large pieces that filled its space (that part of the Redpath is now occupied by a tyrannosaurid dinosaur, among other exhibits).

According to what my predecessor Dr. George Lammers told me, the Redpath was looking for a home for these enormous casts, and this just happened to come at a time when The Manitoba Museum was constructing its new building, with plenty of square footage that needed to be filled. So the skeleton casts were transferred to our Museum, and they were crated and shipped to Manitoba.

On arrival at the Museum, the replicas were uncrated and examined. George told me that some repair was required as a result of damage in transit, and apparently the plaster bones were found to be stuffed with Reconstruction Era American newspapers! The Megatherium was re-mounted in a slightly different posture, and sadly lacks the “tree” on which it had appeared to browse for ninety years or so. But at least it had its friend, the glyptodont, nearby, and they seem to have happily settled into their new home, impressing (and sometimes scaring) the millions of children who have visited our Museum in the past forty years.

The glyptodont (above) and a detail of the bony plates that made up its protective shell (replica, in our example). Although it looks quite turtle-like, this creature was a mammal related to anteaters, sloths, and armadillos!

The name of our sloth is a bit complicated. The note that George left me calls it Megatherium cuvieri. This is what Ward had called it, and it was probably labelled as such when on exhibit at the Redpath. The species name “cuvieri” was, however, apparently based on a misguided attempt in the 1820s to re-brand Cuvier’s perfectly valid Megatherium americanum. Modern rules of taxonomic usage consider cuvieri to be a nomen illegitimum (“illegitimate name”), so we can  safely call it M. americanum.

Given this cast’s critical role in the history of exhibits at two of Canada’s most important natural history museums, and its place in the story of the development of North American paleontology, what is the future of our sloth? Since we have been progressing with a gradual refurbishment of the Earth History Gallery, I would like to soon plan new interpretive materials that explain the tremendous story and significance of this exhibit. But in the somewhat longer term, wouldn’t it be wonderful if it could be re-mounted and given back its “tree,” perhaps serving a new role as the centrepiece for a larger exhibit of extinct ice age animals?

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

Around the Museum this morning, people are excited that Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez visited over the weekend, enjoying a private dinner aboard the Nonsuch. I am pleased that they liked the Museum, and that they were particularly interested in Ancient Seas. But there is another piece of external attention that I am just as pleased about, even if it is unlikely to ever attract a story on Entertainment Tonight. In fact, I would have to say that I am “chuffed.”

A couple of weeks back, my colleague Bob Elias and I were contacted by the editors of the paleontological journal Lethaia, who were wondering if we might have photos suitable for their cover. It was time for a change from the ammonoid that had graced the cover for several years, and since there were going to be papers about fossil corals and reefs in a coming issue, they were looking for a suitable image of a Paleozoic coral.

Maybe this won’t attract hundreds new visitors to the Museum, but it is still nice to have since it will make our existence known to people in very distant places. It is good to see our collections out there; they are so often useful in ways that we have not even thought of!

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

When we got back from Churchill a couple of weeks ago, Debbie Thompson handed me a piece that she felt inspired to write. This was her first visit to the Hudson Bay coast, and as an artist her perspective is quite different from mine.

It’s always depressing leaving a place that fills a void in my soul. There is a solitude here that tugs on my spirit, yearning for acknowledgment

There is a sensual beauty in the eroded and smooth curves of these ancient rocks. There is a harsh beauty reflected in the black spruce. There is a sad beauty in derelict buildings of the past. Forgotten to decay, or to be torn down to reveal a scar. And there is a radiant beauty in the voices of the people here, ringing with a subtle, ancient lightness.

The weather is harsh, the insects unflagging, the land unforgiving. But it is beautiful, quiet, and serene when I choose it to be so. There is a different pace up here. It must be the ebb and flow of these ocean tides and the koanic sweeps of bows and bends of timeless rocks. Why rush … nothing else does.

These grey stones, a riddle in form solely, should be a reflection of my soul. They do not change in a day, but over time are never the same. Yet are always present in some form.

That something so beautiful and graceful is birthed of relentless time and the harshest of trials … could not my very essence aspire to such a virtue?

(photos by me)

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).