Fossils in Nova Scotia: Joggins and George

Pausing for muskrat activity on the Sackville bike trail

We woke up on our street-end boondock alongside a wildlife marsh in charming Sackville, New Brunswick on Liz’s birthday. Soras and tree swallows were mating and the muskrats were busy, as we took a lovely morning bike ride, ending up at a thrift store in town. The birthday was off to a good start as we hit the road headed toward the (dreaded) eight-mile bridge onto Prince Edward Island. 

We bought lobster at a supermarket 

But the birthday girl’s idea of a good time did not include that drive over the bridge. She wanted a lobster roll for lunch and then to go see rocks and fossils. So we found some lobster and headed instead into Nova Scotia. Lilypad turned southwest along the Glooscap Trail, a scenic byway along the Bay of Fundy which takes its name from an indigenous Mi'kmaq creator figure who was said to have created Nova Scotia and controlled the tides. These tides needed controlling: they are the highest in the world, rising to the height of a five-story building.

Fundy tides constantly erode the shore

The first stop along this route was Joggins Fossil Cliffs, a world-famous UNESCO site reflecting 315 million years of geological history. The site sports a LEED-certified building with fossil displays, café and gift shop. Enthusiastic young people lead tours down to the beach to point out the remains of the 20^th-century coal-mining operation, and the fossils and geology that are continuing to be uncovered by the tidal action.

 310 million year old trees

Fossilized organic material including giant seed fern trees, primitive fish, insects and amphibians have been found along the coal seams.  Reptiles found there lived 100 million years before dinosaurs and it was their descendents that gave rise to dinosaurs and mammals. These fossils show that this area was once a warm-climate swamp, and the Joggins discoveries have greatly expanded how western science understands the earth’s history including the fact that Nova Scotia was once located near the equator. The cliffs were mentioned by Charles Darwin in Origin of the Species as part of his argument for evolution, and the visitor center displays an interpretation of this controversial intellectual history with odd echoes of our current controversy about the truth of science.

Partridge Island is famous for gemstone collecting

Our interest in all things rock being whetted (well, actually Liz’s interest, because Janna is deeply embedded in volume two of the Blanche Weisen Cook biography of Eleanor Roosevelt), we headed along the coast of Chignecto Bay and the Minas Channel where Liz filled her pockets on lovely low-tide beaches. After lunch we stopped to learn more about the tides and current attempts to harness tidal energy from Mary McPhee, the delightful and knowledgeable site director of a nonprofit organization called The Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy (FORCE) a leading test center for tidal energy technology. She herself was a force, and her depth of knowledge about the research and experimentation going on, left us breathless. This work will likely evolve to extracting renewable clean energy from the vast tidal flow in the Minas Passage to power a million homes in Nova Scotia. Check out the impressive video on their webpage.

Site for newest tidal effort in the greater Bay of Fundy

Another interesting footnote: both of the young women who so impressed us with their work, Jessica at Joggins and Mary at FORCE, grew up in the area and became interested in their respective fields because of the work of their ancestors. Jessica’s father and grandfather worked at the coal mines where the fossils were discovered. Mary’s father and grandfather were fisherman and she grew up learning about the tides and deep waters of the Bay of Fundy. Her father always believed there should be an attempt to harness the tidal energy. 

Another night boondocking, this time at the Fundy GeologicalMuseum in Parrsboro.  Not having asked permission this time (it’s true: we are getting more and more brazen) we left early the next morning and waited in the parking lot for the Parrsboro Rock andMineral Shop and Museum to open. This turned out to be a move that was serendipitous and an experience we won’t forget. The owner of the shop, seeing us in the store parking lot through the window of his home next door, decided to come and open the shop himself instead of waiting for his employee. 

Liz learns from the master

We spend the next hour and a half in in the good company of 84-year-old Eldon George whose fossil discoveries made Parrsboro famous. Eldon was born in the house which is now the rock shop and was then the family homestead. He has spent his whole life finding rocks and fossils on the beaches nearby and continues to do so. 

He was nine years old when his wise mother realized he was finding things of significance and notified authorities. He was fifty-two when he found the tiny dinosaur footprints that put Parrsboro on the map and brought in experts from all over the world who determined that the smallest dinosaurs known lived in this area. In 1948 he opened the Parrsboro Rock and Mineral Shop and over the years has filled it with his rocks and collections. In addition to the rocks and fossils he’s personally gathered from the area, he has gemstones and minerals from all over Canada, and shells and amethysts from around the world, and he is currently negotiating with a museum to keep the collection in Nova Scotia after he is gone.

Eldon kindly identified Liz's rocks

 We spent a delightful morning with Eldon, looking at the rocks, the fossils and the accolades that have been showered on his life work, and admiring his jewelry.   Until recently Eldon did his own cutting, polishing and mounting in silver.We bought one of his pendants made of labradorite, a stone found mainly in Newfoundland and Madagascar, another example of the evolution and movements of the surface of the earth over the last 500 million years. Then several public health nurses bundled him off to the house and his much younger assistant came to take over the shop, but not before he gave Liz a big hug. We felt fortunate to have this quality encounter with someone who really is a national treasure of Canada.