Drumheller - Books - Reading

"He had long wanted some neutral time, in which he could let go of the fixations of a liner life story story and rediscover the infinite potential of simply being. "

from Shrike
by Quentin S. Crisp

Dr. Dale A. Russell (1937-2019)

 During a visit to the website of Caitlín R. Kiernan, one of my favourite writers and a paleontologist, I learned that Dr. Dale A. Russell had passed away in December. As dinosaurs remain a life long interest I wanted to remember him here. 

Wikipedia notes that 

"Dale Alan Russell (27 December 1937-21 December 2019 was an American-Canadian geologist and palaeontologist. He was Research Professor at the Department of Marine Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (MEAS) at North Carolina State University and Senior Paleontologist at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Dinosaurs he has described include Daspletosaurus, and he was amongst the first paleontologists to consider an extraterrestrial cause (supernova, comet, asteroid) for the extinction of the dinosaurs.[1]

In 1982, Russell created the "dinosauroid" thought experiment, which speculated an evolutionary path for Troodon if it had not gone extinct in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 65 million years ago, and had instead evolved into an intelligent being. Russell commissioned a model of his dinosauroid by artist Ron Sequin, and the concept became popular." 

In fiction the British writer Neal Asher evokes Russell's dinosauroid reconstruction when describing the artificially created alien dracomen of his polarity SF series. 

 

I was surprised I could not find an obituary for Russell on a news service like CBC, but Keirnan offers a lovely tribute here. 

https://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/1519682.html

A more recent take on the evolution of dinosaurs, assuming they had survived can be found here and Russell is mentioned. 

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170918-what-if-the-dinosaurs-hadnt-died-out 

“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.”

from Zen in the Art or Writing
by Ray Bradbury

Annals of the Former World

"The world has not always been as it is today.
Much knowledge had to be gathered, and much patient observation was needed, before this was recognized. There are still things to be discovered, for the veil of mystery has not yet been stripped from all these secrets. Perhaps they will be discovered tomorrow, perhaps in a year, perhaps not for a hundred years. Time is not so important as the certain knowledge that one day they will be brought to light and that the darkness which surrounds all mysteries will melt away."

Prehistoric reptiles and birds, Dr Josef Augusta, 
Ill. by Zdenek Burian, Trans. by Margaret Schiel, 1961

A young paleontologist may have discovered a record of the most significant event in the history of life on Earth.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/08/the-day-the-dinosaurs-died

“how futile is man's poor, weak imagination 

by comparison with Nature's incredible genius.” 

from At The Earth's Core

by  Edgar Rice Burroughs

THE PRAIRIE GAVE BREATH; I GREW AND DIED:

ALIVE ON THIS AIR THESE LIVES ABIDE.

SIGNATURE

                               Dorothy Livesay

I am still working through photos from our trip to the cabin

in July. On the way home we stopped to visit friends from

our days in archaeology. These are the Hand Hills in 

Southeastern Alberta. This area is described as fescue

and mixed grass prairie ( Peterson The North American

Prairie)  they also note that this area was used by native

people to  obtain stone for tools. One tribe that utilized

this area was the Blood or Kainai, they were considered part of

the Blackfoot Confererancy and their reserve is located quite some

distance away in the foothills by Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump.

It was actually the first rain we had on our trip and

the mosquitoes were ferocious.

Laraine's horses.

Other critters included the Great Spangled Fritillary

The Mountain Cottontail who can be identified by the

" rusty orange patch on the nape of his neck" Mammals

of Alberta, Pattie and Fisher. It is interesting that the

distribution map for Alberta indicates that they occur in the

Southeast portion of the province which is prairie and they 
do not seem to occur in the mountains.

The infamous Brown-Headed Cowbird

they are known for nest parasitism this behavior

is felt to have occurred because they followed the

herds of Bison and therefore laid their eggs in the

nests of other songbirds. The Cowbird chicks outgrow

the hosts own nestlings resulting in them starving or

 pushed out. Their range has expanded and they

now parasitize over 140 species. Birds of Alberta Fisher

and Acorn.

Yogi and Andi, Tim and Laraine's

Akhash-Maremana crosses enjoy a quiet moment.

During my years in archaeology I worked in the prairies,

 the foothills, the mountains and the parkland. Each area has it's

own special rhythms and unique beauty. While Helen and I have

settled on the parkland for our cabin for a number of reasons,

 the sweeping vista of the prairie is a truely wonderful thing to

experience and once you spend time in the area you realize it

is not empty but rich in both history and prehistory, and that

it has an ecosystem as beautiful and vibrant as any on the planet.

During our visit Tim who has worked at the

Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller Alberta

in the past, took us to see some dinosaur bones

he had reported to the museum. As you can see

they are fairly subtle traces of once great creatures.

A couple of weeks later a crew from the Museum

came out and removed the skeleton of a Triceratops

dinosaur. While Alberta is know for dinosaurs

Triceratops are rare in the province and about 30 %

of the skeleton remained which is fairly significant.

The story was widely reported in the media and it was

a lot of fun to have seen the bones with their discoverer.

It was a great visit.

"And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was 

one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight 

and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree 

to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. 

And I saw that it was holy."

                        Black Elk 

                                              Black Elk Speaks 1932

                                                        Oglala Lakota (Sioux)

           

            

         

As it snowed again Thursday and you were about to

be treated to more pictures of the frozen trees

it the yard, and birds or more likely squirrels at the feeders

as they are cleaning me out, when I received my Easter

present. Just as well, the snow is melting fairly quickly.

But we will doubtless have more snow so your not off

the hook yet.

But my Easter present generated a new subject. It was a copy

of Charles R. Knight The Artist Who Saw Through Time

by Richard Milner, Abrams, New York 2012

ISBN 978-9-8109-8479-0. ( Thanks sweetie )

"Charles Robert Knight

(October 21, 1874 in Brooklyn – April 15, 1953 in Manhattan)

was an American artist best known for his influential paintings of

dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. His works have been

reproduced in many books and are currently on

display at several major museums in the United States."

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I mentioned in an earlier post Sunday, November 13, 2011

how much I loved dinosaurs as a child,and this interest in dinosaurs,

early mammals, and early man has never really disappeared. Knight and

Zdenek Burian (I posted several photos from his work on my poetry

site for a poem called Lost Things,Friday, January 21, 2011) created

the images that fed the  wonderful world of my childhood imagination

( too late I realize I have to thank my parents for supporting this interest )

and played an important part in my first career in Archaeology

( great memories but no money there ).

by J . Augusta illustrated by (the great) Zdenek Burian

So this was a great present. I have quickly scanned the book

and found a wealth of information on Knight's career and the

many struggles he had to present his version of the past through

his murals and sculptures. The new information that

we have received on dinosaurs in the past few years, especially

the many finds in China mean the images shown in my books

and my beloved collection of Papo dinosaurs could well be wrong

and that Tyrannous may look more like a Secretary bird than

a Monitor lizard. But truth be told it is the images of Knight and Burian

that still roam the Jurassic plains of my imagination or peek out

of the stories of Ray Bradbury, the films of Ray Harryhausen

roaring defiance down  through the years.

Figures from the Bronx Zoo

Papo Dinosaurs

 "Out of the debris of dying stars,
   this rain of particles
   that waters the waste with brightness...

   The sea-wave of atoms hurrying home,
   collapse of the giant,
   unstable guest who cannot stay..."

                                                        Little Cosmic Dust Storm

                                                     John Hanies