Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

The day after I went to the Dinosaur park, I drove down to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. The drive was about 2 hours and just as fascinating as the drive to Dinosaur park. I guess all drives out of Calgary are pretty much the same unless you head west.

Anyway, about an hour and a half into the drive I started to see
strange sticks coming out of the ridge on the horizon. It being Alberta, I just assumed they were oil derricks. But as I got closer and closer (but still 30 or so km away) more and more of them came into view. It seemed like waaay too many to be oil derricks, also they seemed to be way too tall and skinny. For a brief instant I considered it to be a horde of attacking Ents from Montana.

A bit farther down the road and I could start to make out some detail on these giants. “Are they moving? WTF? Ohhhh they're wind-mills. ... Wow there’re a lot of them.” Not wanting to really focus in and count while driving, I estimated there to be about 50 or so. I continued in to the Head-Smashed-In site.

Now I already had a feeling that I wouldn’t be super impressed with the Buffalo Jump. It’s just a cliff for crying out loud. So that’s probably why I got so distracted by the huge wind-farm. After I parked at the site parking lot, I got out my binoculars and counted 197 wind-mills. It was obvious though that there were more hiding behind the ridge.

Stifling my fascination with the massive wind-farm, I went up to the Head-Smashed-In site. The museum is actually really cleverly built into the side of the cliff. Good job Mr. Architect.

Actually, there was one kind of strange over-sight to the design of the museum. You walk in on the ground floor, but it’s designed to be viewed from top-to-bottom, so you have to rabbit around taking a few stair cases and elevators to the top. Then you go outside the cliff, uh, Buffalo Jump.

The view from the observation area is cool.
But you’re not looking at the actual jump if you’re looking at the view, you’re looking at the last things the buffalo looked at. The buffalo jump is actually the 10m tall cliff right next to you. Which, is actually fascinating in it’s plainness. It’s a great example of how something can be so dependent on context. By itself it’s just a cliff, given the context and the sites 5,000 year history it’s actually quite amazing.

Once I was done up on the cliff (taking pictures of the wind-farm), I wandered through the museum. I ate a Buffalo-smokey because I figured it was culturally the right-thing to do. Bought my post-card, and jumped in the car to head to the wind-farm.

The wind-farm was actually a bunch of wind-farms. I guess it’s easy for the power companies to realise a site is a good wind-farm site when other companies are putting up their wind-mills. Pays to be a lazy prospector.

I found a small ‘viewing area’ which provided a bit closer look at the wind-sucking giants. The site said the largest wind-farm (aka: group of wind-mills owned by one company) was at 114 wind-mills. But in the next field there were some more under construction with the same logo on it, so I’m guessing the plaque was out of date. Sadly, because there were so many different companies represented I have no idea how many wind-mills there actually were. I know my count of 197 was low, but I can’t be sure by how much.

I think wind power is really cool. But, I can’t believe we can understand all the effects it has on the environment. Sure, right at the site it’s pretty minimal, but if we take all that energy out of the wind, well... if we left the energy in the wind, where would it end up? Is there some place in the middle of the country that now has perfectly still air because we took away their little bits of wind energy? I know that’s not the case, but it sort of shows my point. Weather is a complex system, and we’re minutely changing some of the variables. But, because it’s a complex system, all you have to do is minutely change a few variables to completely fuck with it. I love green power, but I hope wind-mills don’t destroy the universe.

Been there, done that, got the post-card

A while ago I was surfing the webs and found the wikipedia article on the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. I had no idea that these existed or why, but immediately thought they were a pretty good idea. After looking at the list for a while I came up with two conclusions.

1.) I should visit as many of these as possible in my life time
2.) There are 3 within 2 hours drive of my apartment (until I move, of course)

It just makes good sense. From the Wikipedia article “The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of humanity.” So, if I’m going to go visit a provincial park, which I like to do, why not visit the ones that fit that definition, instead of the normal ones that are just mind-blowingly pretty. A park that is beautiful AND culturally significant? It’s like walking on the Mona Lisa’s face. Amazing.

To catalog my quest to visit these sites I’ve decided to collect a post-card from each site. Post-cards are great because the pictures were always taken on the most beautiful of days, so even if I visit on a rainy day I get a perfect image to take home and they are cheap, which is a word I would use to describe myself if I was trying to avoid describing myself as broke.

There is a slight problem in that I’ve already visited a few sites, namely in Greece. However, while I remember going I don’t remember being as impressed as I would be now that I’ve had two semesters of Art History. So those are going to be do-overs.

So, realising I had this amazing opportunity of living so close to so many sites but for only a few more weeks I decided to act! Hence, my trip to Dinosaur Provincial Park. (The first thing I learned on this trip was that there is no ‘h’ in the word “Provincial”)

The drive out was pretty laid back. Prarie driving is kind of weird, you could be driving through anywhere: Ohio, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Iowa, Delta. It also meets this strange paradox of being entertaining and boring. There’s nothing to really look at, but because of that you (as the driver) can actually take time to look around.

After taking a bunch of seemingly random turns, and wondering how I still had a cell-phone signal, I all of a sudden came upon a gigantic gorge. Gigantic. “Oh.”

This is where dinosaurs went to die. Luckily for us, this is also where rivers went to run. As the Red Deer river runs through the park, it erodes the soil and exposes fossils. Lots of fossils. 500 specimens covering 39 species. Including 5 different Dromaesauridae species, including two new and unknown species. In pop culture terms these are “raptors”.

Q: What’s scarier than a raptor?
A: A raptor + the unknown.

The park was amazing, but, some what bitter-sweetly most of it is closed to the public. Actually, more sweetly than bitter. Protect the place damn-it! Also, this gives me a great excuse not to have hiked much of the park. I love hiking and all, but let me tell you, the mosquitos out there! Holy shit. Jurassic Park is so much more believable after getting bitten forty times per minute. If I was a dinosaur getting bitten that often I probably would’ve jumped in a big mud puddle too.

I went to the Drumheller Field Museum to collect my post card. I also decided to wander about their exhibits. I may be broke, but $3 is totally worth it to support the conservation of the park. Infact, $3 is worth it just to take pictures of the raptors and make all the stupid comments I attached to their pictures on my facebook album.

While I was lining up to pay my entry fee, there was a family ahead of me in line. The young boy of about 8, looked like he was really into the whole dinosaur thing. With a completely serious look on his face, he asked the girl at the cash register about the skeleton hanging above our heads:

Boy: How do they know it’s a Gorgosaurus and not an Albertosaurus or even just a young Albertosaurus
Girl at cash register: Hahaha... That’s a great question, in fact our palentologists can’t even decide on that. They’re not sure if Gorgosaurus is even it’s own species or if they’re all just young Albertosaurus’.
Boy: *walks away shaking his head with a really disappointed look on his face*

Science, it works, but some times it takes a while to figure out.

The trip around the field museum motivated me to make the drive to Drumheller and visit the real museum. The Royal Tyrell Museum is about 2 hours away from the park and still an hour and half away from Calgary. Needless to say, I put some clicks on the Fit.

Drumheller seems to have taken the dinosaur thing and run with it. There are dinosaurs every where. Including the worlds largest dinosaur, a gigantic model of a Tyrannosaurus. You can climb the T-Rex and view the town from it’s open mouth. I opted for a shot from my rolled down car window.

$10 more to get into the real museum, but again, totally worth it. After a few rooms of “whatever” exhibits you get to a room which is exactly what you (and by you, I mean I) expect. A dark room with exhibits all around the perimeter, in the center a full Tyrannosaurus skeleton ready to bite your head off. The surrounding artifacts all seemed to be either T-Rex or Raptor related. Yes, this is exactly what I had come to see.

The museum also had a few special exhibits going on. One on Darwin and Evolution, and the other on the Burgess Shale.

One of the great perspectives I got from living in Ohio for seven years was that not everyone believes in evolution. Beliefs to me are for Santa, you believe for a while, then you grow up and understand the truth. Apparently this isn’t the case for other parts of the world.

What I noticed in all the exhibits, but obviously more strongly at the Burgess Shale and the Darwin exhibits is that they discussed evolution as a fact. As an assumption you made before you came to the museum. It was axiomatic. It was refreshing.

These two exhibits didn’t make much for taking pictures, so I didn’t.

After them it was the standard bones-in-poses. I took lots of pictures, highlights are in my facebook album.

All together it was a great day. A literally jaw dropping view of the badlands and good science to mentally chew over. Perfect.

Drenched

I just got back from working a 4 hour shift at Drenched Fest. It wasn't nearly as awesome as the website makes it look due to the Vancouver style rain we've had for the past few days. Also, the bands don't start until Thursday so it was just water skiing.

Or so I was told. My job was to sit out by the entrance and ... I don't know. Answer questions if people had them?

"Does this road with the sign that says 'Event Parking' lead to the parking lot?" "...yes"

The first hour or so was interesting. I've made a goal for myself to see how long I can go without wearing pants (uniforms and pajamas don't count) so I left the house this morning in shorts. I didn't know I'd be standing in the rain all day, and boy was it cold.

After an hour of that I hitched a ride to the parking lot from a passing school bus driven by a recent immigrant from England. Picked up my car and drove out to where we'd been standing. We then sat in my car on the side of the road for the last few hours and did as close to nothing as has ever been done.

Cod with Wasabi

I had a dream when I was napping this morning that I would blog about how we ate Cod seasoned with wasabi last night for dinner. We didn't though.

We ate cod, but we massacred it because no one know how to cook it. Oops.

Killer Heat

It's so hot here. I don't know how it happened. It seems like just a few weeks ago I was running with icicles on my eyelashes.

It's about 28C inside my apartment right now, which is some how 5 degrees hotter than outside.

I guess our apartments ability to retain heat was a good thing in January. Now it just means I have to go to sleep with ice packs in my bed.

Still Trying to Balance

I'm still having issues with the balance thing.

I've definitely pulled up too much and haven't been working out quite as much as I probably should if the goal is a Half-Ironman. I should still be able to finish the thing at this rate, but boy will it hurt.

I'm not too concerned though. "Training" was becoming too much of it's own burden. I like just going for a run or a ride. Semantics.

Night Runner

Last night I went out for a run at about 11:30pm, I love running at night, it just has a different feel to it. I haven't run at night since it was about -25 C out. What a difference 40 degrees can make!

The route I picked was a bit of an odd choice: down to the river, across the Edworthy Park bridge, along the south side of the river, back under Crowchild Trail. Now, for the non-Calgarians reading, the south side of the river between Crowchild and Edworthy Park is pretty much a paved path through the forest. Which at midnight, is very, very, very dark.

Of course I had my headlamp and red turtle light on.

It was a very interesting experience. If I let my mind wander and forget where I was, it was serene and pretty. But every so often I'd remember I was running through a dark forest at night and would be looking over my shoulder constantly and seeing things in the shadows.

At one point I was running along, close to the rivers edge when I saw two dark patches on the path and then a dark mass off to the side. My first thought was "Oh, that's a severed head and the dark patches are the blood from when they dragged the body into the river."

No.

It was a freaking beaver.

It turned to look at me, which really shocked me, but I was still extremely happy to realise that it wasn't a severed head turning to look at me. I stopped and said "What the hell are you doing here?" as if it were the one that was out of place in a forest, by a river in the middle of the night. It kept looking at me, sort of shrugged, turned and went back to the river.

Anyway, that was a great course for a tempo run. Easy down to the park, absolute terror down the south side of the river, easy back home. I'll bike it out later and see how far the south side is, but it took me roughly 20 minutes -- including talking to the beaver. I'm guessing it's around 5km? And fueled by the horrifying fear of the unknown I probably just did a best 5km time.