Guys, guys, guys. It's been a while. Not so long, perhaps, in relation to the temporal interludes between previous posts, but time enough for many things to have changed. For starters, I am no longer skipping back and forward across Europe. I'm in Northern BC, Canada.
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| Walking in Neanderthal footsteps in Gib. |
What a hectic few months January through April were! My intern opportunity in the US fell through, leaving me homeless, unemployed and basically without a branch to perch on. I went to Gibraltar to cheer myself up-- boy did that work (expect a post about this trip sometime in the future)!
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| Neanderthal handiwork at Creswell. |
Then I went to Scotland to stay with my brother, then back to Norway for a few weeks, then back to Scotland again. While there, I managed to cop a weekend in Sheffield visiting the amazing Creswell Crags where Neanderthals once roamed (again, expect a post sometime), and then it was Norway again for the final two weeks before embarking upon my current adventure! Busy, busy, busy.
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| Homework... |
So why, exactly am I in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada? Let me put it as simply as I can; Dinosaurs. Tracie Bennitt, my wonderful friend from Colorado (who has been my professional rock these past nine months) put me in touch with Rich McCrea and Lisa Buckley of the Peace Region Palaeontology Research Centre back in March-- and what do you know? They were more than happy to offer me everything I was missing out on thanks to the US internship's demise-- and more! So from this moment onwards, this blog shall be mostly an ode to the awesome things I have been and will be part of up here. Real, hands-on experiences rather than recaps of my archaeo-tourism. Sound good? It does to me.
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| Prepping a caudal vertebrae. |
I've been here since May 1st learning, doing, and living the palaeontological dream. So far I've collected a 55lb mammoth tusk from a gravel pit, traversed Grizzly country to smear latex over a 100 million year old crocodilian trackway, learned the patience involved in fossil preparation, worked in a room alongside a Tyrannosaur trackway,
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| Ankylosaur skin impressions. |
produced plaster casts of theropod footprints, seen an Ankylosaur skin impression by a riverside, been wow'ed by Elatides fossils, learned elementary cataloguing in
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| Dermestes lardarius on a bear skull. |
Collections, and stared weekly at a colony of Dermestes lardarius scavenger beetles as they feast upon the decaying flesh of unfortunately dispatched wildlife specimens.
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| That tusk, though... |
And you guys? You guys can follow it all right here in my blog (as well as on Twitter and Instagram).
I'm so ready for this... Are you?
