File:Dinosaur hunting in western Canada (1966) (20956310185).jpg

Title: Dinosaur hunting in western Canada
Identifier: dinosaurhuntingi00russ (find matches)
Year: 1966 (1960s)
Authors: Russell, Loris Shano, 1904-; Royal Ontario Museum
Subjects: Dinosaurs; Paleontology
Publisher: (Toronto : Printed at the University of Toronto Press)
Contributing Library: ROM - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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G. M. Dawson's field party in southern Alberta, 1881. The tall figure in the centre is presumably McConnell. G.S.C., No. 398-C3. In 1875, after completion of the boundary survey, Dawson joined the Geological Survey of Canada, and carried out explorations in British Columbia. In 1881 he returned to southern Alberta to begin his geological survey of the "Bow and Belly River Region". By this time the North-West Mounted Police had established some order in the area, the Canadian Pacific Railway was building westward from Winnipeg, and freight was coming in to Fort MacLeod and Coalbanks (Lethbridge) by wagon from Montana. Dawson was now one of the distinguished officers of the Survey, and he rated a well-qualified assistant. The assignment went to Richard George McConnell (Hanson, 1942), who was born at Chatham, Quebec, in 1857, and graduated from McGill University in 1879. McConnell rose to succeed Dawson as Director of the Geological Survey of Canada, but in 1881 he had just been appointed. Physically he was a contrast to his chief, for he was tall and thin, and in later years, at least, wore an imperial beard. Strenuous exertion did not bother him, which was a good thing, because Dawson spared neither himself nor his assistants. During the summer of 1881 Dawson and McConnell explored the valleys of the St. Mary, Oldman, and Bow Rivers by canvas canoe and visited many other localities in what is now southern Alberta by wagon or saddle horse. Fragments of dinosaur bones were found along Belly (Old- man) River in the "Sub-Pierre rocks" (Dawson, 1883, p. 8). At the end of the field season Dawson returned to Ottawa, while McConnell settled in Calgary for the winter, to be on hand for an early beginning in 1882. Dawson did not come west that year, and McConnell filled in the observa- tions and extended them into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The discovery of fossil bones during this season is definitely recorded (Selwyn, 1883, p. 13). This was at a low escarpment known as Scabby Butte, north- east of Fort MacLeod, and about three miles east of the present village of Nobleford. In a small area of badlands here, in the lower part of the St. Mary River formation, McConnell obtained "a large and interesting collection ... of reptilian bones, probably of Dinosaurs, some of which are now exhibited in the museum" (loc. cit.). This was the third discovery of dinosaurs in western Canada and the second in what is now Alberta.

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