Day 63 (July 16). Burgess Shale and out of Canada

From: Lake Louise, AB

To: Bonners Ferry, ID

Miles today: 292

Total miles: 13140

Does it rain every day in Canada?  It’s starting to feel that way.  Lake Louise located where AB 93 dead ends into the Trans-Canada Highway (CA 1).  Instead of continuing east on CA 1 to Banff, as I expect most travelers do, I went west (and back into BC), in large part because this route passes by the famous “Walcott Quarry” where the famous Burgess Shale is exposed.  These famous rocks preserve not just the hard parts, but the soft parts of an entire ecosystem shortly after the Cambrian Explosion, one of the most interesting and important events in natural history.  It was during this brief period that all of the phyla of animals that we know today came into existence; no new ones have appeared since.  Stephen Jay Gould, of whom I have created an entire web site (sjgouldessays.com), wrote his best-selling book “Wonderful Life” about the exotic organisms that lived during this period, many of whom vanished by the end of the period without leaving descendents. Anyway, I had to go.  The town closest to the site is called Field, so my intention was to go there and wander around a bit. I had read that there were ways to hike to the quarry itself (with a guide – no fossil collecting allowed, this is now a UNESCO heritage site), but the rigors of climbing halfway up a mountain to see a rocks I couldn’t touch has less appeal for me than it did years ago.  Still, homage of some sort must be paid.

To my complete surprise, there was a Field Interpretive Center right on the main road on the edge of town. While most of it was associated with Yoho National Park (next to Banff National Park), a small amount of it was tied to the Burgess Shale, and there were even some displays of the unique fauna on display. Just before it started raining yet again (cold and hard), I saw a group of people standing around a guy in a Parks uniform (“Hugh”) standing in front of an outdoor display of the Burgess Shale and talking about it.  It turns out that this was a twice-a-day three-hour walking tour and lecture of this subject.  I had just stumbled on to it!  After an introduction, we walked over (in the rain) to the Field schoolhouse, which also served as the headquarters of a small group called the Burgess Shale Institute.  The lecture was good, and most of my fellow tourists were throwing around terms like “Ordovician” and “Opabinia” with ease; I felt pretty comfortable! 

Then, after an hour or so, he took us down to the basement to examine – yes – actual Burgess Shale fossils.  Mind you, I have seen such fossils before: at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, behind thick glass and not very well lit.  Here were big slabs of them lying on a table.  I had to ask: “Are we allowed to touch these?”  Hugh’s reply: “Of course – you can’t really make out the detail unless you pick them up and tilt them different ways in the light.”  I swear, I felt as if I had been told it was ok to pick up and examine an original Mozart composition in his own hand, or the Shroud of Turin. I kept thinking, “Don’t drop it!”

A table full of Burgess Shale fossils available for handling. This does not happen in real life.

Yeah, that's right -- I'm holding an Anomalocaris appendage, bitches!

Left: a textbook picture of what I'm holding.  Right: an artist's sketch of the entire animal.

After that – all of this was just unbelievable to me – Hugh said “OK, let’s break open some rocks.”  We went outside (it had stopped raining, and the sun had even come out) and he handed out small baggies of limestone with Cambrian trilobites buried in them.   These were NOT burgess shale fossils; they were from a nearby site of about the same age, but without soft part preservation.  But still – I now have in my possession some more very cool rocks. 

Tourists hammering on Cambrian rocks in front of Mount Burgess.  The Walcott quarry, where the famous Burgess Shale fossils were found, is on the far side, and actually on a nearby mountain. There are guided hikes to it several times per week. 

It was about 2 pm by the time the entire adventure was over, and I headed on down Route 1 to Golden a town in a deep valley.  This trip was pretty wild; I felt like I was descending at the maximum allowable 9% grade for twenty miles, weaving back and fourth down hairpin turns with big trucks coming up the other way.  My ears popped a dozen times.  When I reached the bottom, I was out of the Rockies.  At Golden I picked up BC 95, which runs down this valley for about 150 miles to the US border.  The border crossing into Idaho was easy. Part of this I attribute to the wisdom of age: I replied politely “no sir” when the border guard asked me if I, an American citizen, was bringing any firearms FROM Canada INTO Idaho. 

The air was considerably warmer at these lower altitudes, the sky was now clear, and almost without noticing I found myself driving down one of the most enjoyable roads of my trip so far.  Gently left and right, up and down, with attractive scenery in all directions. I pulled into a motel near the village of Bonners Ferry after a long day.