FOSSILS AND GEOLOGY OF THE EAST KOOTENAY REGION

Tanglefoot Mountain. Photo: Dan Bowden

The East Kootenay region on the south-eastern edge of British Columbia is a land of colossal mountains against a clear blue sky. 

That is not strictly true, of course, as this area does see its fair share of rain and temperature extremes — but visiting in the summer every view is a postcard of mountainous terrain.

Rocks from deep within the Earth's crust underlie the entire East Kootenay region and are commonly exposed in the area's majestic mountain peaks, craggy rocky cliffs, glaciated river canyons, and rock cuts along the highways. Younger Ice Age sediments blanket much of the underlying rock.

I have been heading to the Cranbrook and Fernie area since the early 1990s. My interest is the local geology and fossil history that these rocks have to tell. I am also drawn to the warm and welcoming locals who share a love for the land and palaeontological treasures that open a window to our ancient past.  

Cranbrook is the largest community in the region and is steeped in mining history and the opening of the west by the railway. It is also a stone's throw away from Fort Steele and the Lower Cambrian exposures of the Eager Formation. These fossil beds rival the slightly younger Burgess Shale fauna and while less varied, produce wonderful examples of olenellid trilobites and weird and wonderful arthropods nearly half a billion years old. 

Labiostria westriopi, McKay Group

The Lower Cambrian Eager Formation outcrops at a few localities close to Fort Steele, many known since the early 1920s, and up near Mount Grainger near the highway. 

Further east, the Upper Cambrian McKay Group near Tanglefoot Mountain is a palaeontological delight with fifteen known outcrops that have produced some of the best-preserved and varied trilobites in the province — many of them new species. 

The McKay Formation also includes Ordovician outcrops sprinkled in for good measure.

Other cities in the area and the routes to and from them produce other fossil fauna from Kimberley to Fernie and the district municipality of Invermere and Sparwood. This is an arid country with native grasslands and forests of semi-open fir and pine. Throughout there are a host of fossiliferous exposures from Lower Cretaceous plants to brachiopods. 

The area around Whiteswan Lake has wonderful large and showy Ordovician graptolites including Cardiograptus morsus and Pseudoclimacograptus angustifolius elongates — some of our oldest relatives. A drive down to Flathead will bring you to ammonite outcrops and you can even find Eocene fresh-water snails in the region. 

The drive from Cranbrook to Fernie is about an hour and change through the Cambrian into the Devonian which flip-flops and folds over revealing Jurassic exposures. On my last visit, I made the trip with local geologist Guy Santucci who swings around the hairpin bends with panache. He is a delight to travel with and interspersed great conversation with tasty bits of information on the local geology.

Fernie Ichthyosaur Excavation, 1916

The Crowsnest Highway into Fernie follows Mutz Creek. From the highway, you can see the Fernie Group and the site along the Elk River where an ichthyosaur was excavated in 1916. 

The Fernie Formation is Jurassic. It is present in the western part of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in western Alberta and northeastern British Columbia. 

It takes its name from the town of Fernie, British Columbia, and was first defined by W.W. Leach in 1914. The town of Fernie is rimmed by rugged mountains tipped with Devonian marine outcrops. In essence, all these mountains are upside down with the oldest layers flipped to the top and a good 180 million years older than those they sit upon. 

Before they were mountains, these sedimentary rocks were formed as sediment collected in a shallow sea or inland basin. About 360 million years ago, the rocks that you see in Fernie today were down near the equator. They road tectonic plates, pushing northeast smashing into the coastline of what would become British Columbia. A little push here, shove there — compression and thrust faulting — and the rock was rolled over on its head — repeatedly. But that is how mountains are often formed, though not usually pushed so hard that they flip over. But still, it is a slow, relentless business. 

Cretaceous Plant Material, Fernie, BC

Within Fernie, there are small exposures of Triassic and Jurassic marine outcrops. East of the town there are Cretaceous plant sites, and of course, the Jurassic 1.4-metre Titanites occidentalis ammonite up on Coal Mountain.

Once up at the fossil exposures we begin to look for treasures. Over the next four or five hours, as the heat of the day sets in, we find block after block of dark brown to beige Cretaceous material embedded with coal seams and lithified fossil remains.

The regional district's dominant landform is the Rocky Mountain Trench, which is flanked by the Purcell Mountains and the Rocky Mountains on the east and west, and includes the Columbia Valley region. The southern half of which is in the regional district — its northern half is in the Columbia-Shuswap Regional District. 

The regional district of Elk Valley in the southern Rockies is the entryway to the Crowsnest Pass and an important coal-mining area. 

Other than the Columbia and Kootenay Rivers, whose valleys shape the bottomlands of the Rocky Mountain Trench, the regional districts form the northernmost parts of the basins of the Flathead, Moyie and Yahk Rivers. 

The Moyie and Yahk are tributaries of the Kootenay, entering it in the United States, and the Flathead is a tributary of the Clark Fork into Montana.

Photo One: Tyaughton Mountain, Mckay Group taken by Dan Bowden via drone; Photo Two: Labiostria westriopi, Upper Cambrian McKay Group, Site ML (1998); John Fam Collection; Photo Three: Ichthyosaur Excavation, Fernie, British Columbia, 1916; Photo Four: Cretaceous Plant Fossils, east of Fernie towards Coal Mountain. The deeply awesome Guy Santucci as hand-model for scale. 

CRANBROOK EAGER FORMATION: TUZOIA

This specimen of the arthropod Tuzoia sp. is from the Lower Cambrian Eager Formation of British Columbia. 

Tuzoia is an extinct genus of large bivalved arthropod known from Early to Middle Cambrian marine environments in what is now the Burgess Shale, Emu Bay Shale, Kaili, the Rockslide Formation, the Spence Shale, Wheeler Formation, and Marjum Formation, and the Kinzers Formation. 

As you can see here, they are also found in the Lower Cambrian Eager Formation near Cranbrook British Columbia. 

This particular specimen is from the Rifle Range outcrop near Cranbrook where you can also find numerous fragments and complete specimens of the olenellid trilobites Ollenellus sp. and the larger, more robust Wanneria dunnae, along with Mesonacis eagerensis (Best, 1952).

The site outcrops at a few locations as you head east out of Cranbrook towards Fort Steele. The first trilobites were discovered with the building of the Kootenay Highway connecting Cranbrook to Fort Steele and beyond. Several other localities, including the outcrops at the Silhouette Rife Range — which is literally on a Rifle Range where folks go to shoot at things — is a shade older than the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale but the fauna here is much less varied. 

The site has been known and collected since the 1920s. Back in the day, fossil collecting was a family affair with folks heading out in their lightly coloured finery to picnic and surface collect the eroding exposures. Cranbrook local, Clement Hungerford Pollen was an engineer and avocational palaeontologist. He promoted collecting the exposures of the Eager Formation around 1921. As a pedigreed Englishman of considerable means, he had invested in the Kootenay Central Railway, revitalizing the town by opening up railway access within the region.

DESTINATION BC: EAST KOOTENAY REGION

The East Kootenay region on the south-eastern edge of British Columbia is a land of colossal mountains against a clear blue sky. 

That is not strictly true, of course, as this area does see its fair share of rain and temperature extremes — but visiting in Autumn every view is a postcard of mountainous terrain.

Rocks from deep within the Earth's crust underlie the entire East Kootenay region and are commonly exposed in the areas majestic mountain peaks, craggy rocky cliffs, glaciated river canyons, and rock cuts along the highways. Younger Ice Age sediments blanket much of the underlying rock.

I've been heading to the Cranbrook and Fernie area since the early 1990s. My interest is the local geology and fossil history that these rocks have to tell. I'm also drawn to the warm and welcoming locals who share a love for the land and palaeontological treasures that open a window to our ancient past.  

Cranbrook is the largest community in the region and is steeped in mining history and the opening of the west by the railway. It is also a stone's throw away from Fort Steele and the Lower Cambrian exposures of the Eager Formation. These fossil beds rival the slightly younger Burgess Shale fauna and while less varied, produce wonderful examples of olenellid trilobites and weird and wonderful arthropods half a billion years old. 

Labiostria westriopi, McKay Group

The Lower Cambrian Eager Formation outcrops at a few localities close to Fort Steele, many known since the early 1920s, and up near Mount Grainger near the highway. 

Further east, the Upper Cambrian McKay Group near Tanglefoot Mountain is a palaeontological delight with fifteen known outcrops that have produced some of the best-preserved and varied trilobites in the province — many of them new species. 

The McKay Formation also includes Ordovician outcrops sprinkled in for good measure.

Other cities in the area and the routes to and from them produce other fossil fauna from Kimberley to Fernie and the district municipality of Invermere and Sparwood. This is an arid country with native grasslands and forests of semi-open fir and pine. Throughout there are a host of fossiliferous exposures from Lower Cretaceous plants to brachiopods. 

The area around Whiteswan Lake has wonderful large and showy Ordovician graptolites including Cardiograptus morsus and Pseudoclimacograptus angustifolius elongates — some of our oldest relatives. A drive down to Flathead will bring you to ammonite outcrops and you can even find Eocene fresh-water snails in the region. 

The drive from Cranbrook to Fernie is about an hour and change through the Cambrian into the Devonian which flip-flops and folds over revealing Jurassic exposures. 

Fernie Ichthyosaur Excavation, 1916

The Crowsnest Highway into Fernie follows Mutz Creek. From the highway, you can see the Fernie Group and the site along the Elk River where an ichthyosaur was excavated in 1916. 

The Fernie Formation is Jurassic. It is present in the western part of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in western Alberta and northeastern British Columbia. 

It takes its name from the town of Fernie, British Columbia, and was first defined by W.W. Leach in 1914. The town of Fernie is rimmed by rugged mountains tipped with Devonian marine outcrops. In essence, all these mountains are upside down with the oldest layers flipped to the top and a good 180 million years older than those they sit upon. 

Before they were mountains, these sedimentary rocks were formed as sediment collected in a shallow sea or inland basin. About 360 million years ago, the rocks that you see in Fernie today were down near the equator. They road tectonic plates, pushing northeast smashing into the coastline of what would become British Columbia. A little push here, shove there — compression and thrust faulting — and the rock was rolled over on its head — repeatedly. But that is how mountains are often formed, though not usually pushed so hard that they flip over. But still, it is a slow, relentless business. 

Cretaceous Plant Material, Fernie, BC

Within Fernie, there are small exposures of Triassic and Jurassic marine outcrops. East of the town there are Cretaceous plant sites, and of course, the Jurassic 1.4-metre Titanites occidentalis ammonite up on Coal Mountain.

The regional district's dominant landform is the Rocky Mountain Trench, which is flanked by the Purcell Mountains and the Rocky Mountains on the east and west, and includes the Columbia Valley region. The southern half of which is in the regional district — its northern half is in the Columbia-Shuswap Regional District. 

The regional district of Elk Valley in the southern Rockies is the entryway to the Crowsnest Pass and an important coal-mining area. 

Other than the Columbia and Kootenay Rivers, whose valleys shape the bottomlands of the Rocky Mountain Trench, the regional districts form the northernmost parts of the basins of the Flathead, Moyie and Yahk Rivers. 

The Moyie and Yahk are tributaries of the Kootenay, entering it in the United States, and the Flathead is a tributary of the Clark Fork into Montana.

Photo One: Tyaughton Mountain, Mckay Group; Photo Two: Labiostria westriopi, Upper Cambrian McKay Group, Site ML (1998); John Fam Collection; Photo Three: Ichthyosaur Excavation, Fernie, British Columbia, 1916; Photo Four: Cretaceous Plant Fossils, east of Fernie towards Coal Mountain. The deeply awesome Guy Santucci as hand-model for scale. 

NOOTKA FOSSIL AND FIRST NATIONS HISTORY

Nootka Fossil Field Trip. Photo: John Fam

The rugged west coast of Vancouver Island offers spectacular views of a wild British Columbia. Here the seas heave along the shores slowly eroding the magnificent deposits that often contain fossils. 

Just off the shores of Vancouver Island, east of Gold River and south of Tahsis is the picturesque and remote Nootka Island.

This is the land of the proud and thriving Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations who have lived here always. 

Always is a long time, but we know from oral history and archaeological evidence that the Mowachaht and Muchalaht peoples lived here, along with many others, for many thousands of years — a time span much like always. 

While we know this area as Nootka Sound and the land we explore for fossils as Nootka Island, these names stem from a wee misunderstanding. 

Just four years after the 1774 visit by Spanish explorer Juan Pérez — and only a year before the Spanish established a military and fur trading post on the site of Yuquot — the Nuu-chah-nulth met the Englishman, James Cook.  

Captain Cook sailed to the village of Yuquot just west of Vancouver Island to a very warm welcome. He and his crew stayed on for a month of storytelling, trading and ship repairs. Friendly, but not familiar with the local language, he misunderstood the name for both the people and land to be Nootka. In actual fact, Nootka means, go around, go around. 

Two hundred years later, in 1978, the Nuu-chah-nulth chose the collective term Nuu-chah-nulth — nuučaan̓uł, meaning all along the mountains and sea or along the outside (of Vancouver Island) — to describe themselves. 

It is a term now used to describe several First Nations people living along western Vancouver Island, British Columbia. 

It is similar in a way to the use of the United Kingdom to refer to the lands of England, Scotland and Wales — though using United Kingdom-ers would be odd. Bless the Nuu-chah-nulth for their grace in choosing this collective name.  

An older term for this group of peoples was Aht, which means people in their language and is a component in all the names of their subgroups, and of some locations — Yuquot, Mowachaht, Kyuquot, Opitsaht. While collectively, they are the Nuu-chah-nulth, be interested in their more regional name should you meet them. 

But why does it matter? If you have ever mistakenly referred to someone from New Zealand as an Aussie or someone from Scotland as English, you have likely been schooled by an immediate — sometimes forceful, sometimes gracious — correction of your ways. The best answer to why it matters is because it matters.

Each of the subgroups of the Nuu-chah-nulth viewed their lands and seasonal migration within them (though not outside of them) from a viewpoint of inside and outside. Kla'a or outside is the term for their coastal environment and hilstis for their inside or inland environment.

It is to their kla'a that I was most keen to explore. Here, the lovely Late Eocene and Early Miocene exposures offer up fossil crab, mostly the species Raninid, along with fossil gastropods, bivalves, pine cones and spectacularly — a singular seed pod. These wonderfully preserved specimens are found in concretion along the foreshore where time and tide erode them out each year.

Five years after Spanish explorer Juan Pérez's first visit, the Spanish built and maintained a military post at Yuquot where they tore down the local houses to build their own structures and set up what would become a significant fur trade port for the Northwest Coast — with the local Chief Maquinna's blessing and his warriors acting as middlemen to other First Nations. 

Following reports of Cook's exploration British traders began to use the harbour of Nootka (Friendly Cove) as a base for a promising trade with China in sea-otter pelts but became embroiled with the Spanish who claimed (albeit erroneously) sovereignty over the Pacific Ocean. 

Dan Bowen searching an outcrop. Photo: John Fam

The ensuing Nootka Incident of 1790 nearly led to war between Britain and Spain (over lands neither could actually claim) but talk of war settled and the dispute was settled diplomatically. 

George Vancouver on his subsequent exploration in 1792 circumnavigated the island and charted much of the coastline. His meeting with the Spanish captain Bodega y Quadra at Nootka was friendly but did not accomplish the expected formal ceding of land by the Spanish to the British. 

It resulted however in his vain naming the island "Vancouver and Quadra." The Spanish captain's name was later dropped and given to the island on the east side of Discovery Strait. Again, another vain and unearned title that persists to this day.

Early settlement of the island was carried out mainly under the sponsorship of the Hudson's Bay Company whose lease from the Crown amounted to 7 shillings per year — that's roughly equal to £100.00 or $174 CDN today. Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, was founded in 1843 as Fort Victoria on the southern end of Vancouver Island by the Hudson's Bay Company's Chief Factor, Sir James Douglas. 

With Douglas's help, the Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Rupert on the north end of Vancouver Island in 1849. Both became centres of fur trade and trade between First Nations and solidified the Hudson's Bay Company's trading monopoly in the Pacific Northwest.

The settlement of Fort Victoria on the southern tip of Vancouver Island — handily south of the 49th parallel — greatly aided British negotiators to retain all of the islands when a line was finally set to mark the northern boundary of the United States with the signing of the Oregon Boundary Treaty of 1846. Vancouver Island became a separate British colony in 1858. British Columbia, exclusive of the island, was made a colony in 1858 and in 1866 the two colonies were joined into one — becoming a province of Canada in 1871 with Victoria as the capital.

Dan Bowen, Chair of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society (VIPS) did a truly splendid talk on the Fossils of Nootka Sound. With his permission, I have uploaded the talk to the ARCHEA YouTube Channel for all to enjoy. Do take a boo, he is a great presenter. Dan also graciously provided the photos you see here. The last of the photos you see here is from the August 2021 Nootka Fossil Field Trip. Photo: John Fam, Vice-Chair, Vancouver Paleontological Society (VanPS).

Know Before You Go — Nootka Trail

The Nootka Trail passes through the traditional lands of the Mowachaht/Muchalat First Nations who have lived here since always. They share this area with humpback and Gray whales, orcas, seals, sea lions, black bears, wolves, cougars, eagles, ravens, sea birds, river otters, insects and the many colourful intertidal creatures that you'll want to photograph.

This is a remote West Coast wilderness experience. Getting to Nootka Island requires some planning as you'll need to take a seaplane or water taxi to reach the trailhead. The trail takes 4-8 days to cover the 37 km year-round hike. The peak season is July to September. Permits are not required for the hike. 

Access via: Air Nootka floatplane, water taxi, or MV Uchuck III

• Dan Bowen, VIPS on the Fossils of Nootka: https://youtu.be/rsewBFztxSY
• https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sir-james-douglas
• file:///C:/Users/tosca/Downloads/186162-Article%20Text-199217-1-10-20151106.pdf
• Nootka Trip Planning: https://mbguiding.ca/nootka-trail-nootka-island/#overview