Changeover!

This week was all about changing over from school tours to ½ days and 1 and 2 day tours.

Lisa led a school dig tour on Monday. They had lots of fun digging in the shale and enjoying the day. The kids were patient diggers and great at excavation!

Tuesday was my first ½ day dig tour. The group was awesome and we joked a lot about how much jarosite we were finding and that they could open up their own shop with how many Pembina diamonds they collected. They managed to take some of their favorite minerals with them. We decided, then, to hike over to the lookout point and found that the path to the lookout point was completely flooded over and we could only have reached it by swimming across. Still, they were absolute troopers; they made the best of it and we had a lot of fun.

Wednesday was another ½ day tour and this time there was only one gentlemen and his son. They were a delight to give a tour to as they asked many interesting and thoughtful questions. They were both great amateur geologists and knew many of the minerals before I even had to tell them. They even had their own rock shop with many interesting minerals and rocks. The son was a fossil magnet as he had found many other fossils during other digs and this day was no different. I wasn’t having any luck until he came over to dig with me and suddenly we were finding fossils left, right and center. We found some fish scales on the shale, a fish vertebra, a possible end of a phalange(finger bone) and a possible tooth. The son was a very experienced digger, already on his way to becoming a great palaeontologist! He brought his own rock hammers and dug for bentonite for his collection.

Thursday we had another very special group who came out for the entire day. The Royal Astronomical Society was a group gathered from all parts of Canada. This day was one of the hottest and muggiest, but many of the group members were absolute troopers and they stayed out the whole time, digging and sweating it out. A couple fish vertebrae were found and some miscellaneous ribs also.

Our tours have been going great so far and we hope they continue to be as fun as they are! We’re starting to change over from school groups to family groups. We’re excited for the changeover and invite you all to come on out and join us on a grand fossil adventure!