He looks at me from under one small raised eyebrow. "They're just statues"!
Fair enough, but I happen to think they're pretty impressive statues. I decided to get myself a summer job to keep me sane while finishing writing my thesis (although, to be honest, I've not written a word of my thesis for a worrying number of weeks), and ended up at the Jurassic Forest - an old-growth woodland north of Edmonton filled with 40 animatronic dinosaurs. It's a unique park for Canada, only opened last summer, and is provides impressive educational fun, especially as many of the dinosaur species have been found in Alberta. And they are more than just statues: they move, they roar, they scare.
Here's one little guy: Styracosaurus. The day I had my camera it rained a lot, so better pictures of the big guys to come later!The job so far has been a lot of fun. I've leanred a lot about the dinosaurs, but also about the forest. Part of the job, and part of the experience for visitors, is the forest itself, which was virtually untouched in the making of the park. A natural route was found through the trees, and with the consultation of a specialist all sensitive plants were avoided and left in peace. No trees were cut down, although this has had one unexpected donwside: today was an exceptionally windy day and at least a dozen old, brittle trees actually came down. I saw one fall; a big crack and down came a tree that was probably decades old, approaching a century. I don't think I've ever seen a tree fall, let alone such a tall, aged one. The wind also tends to make the dinosaurs crazy, electronics and mechanics malfunctioning all over the place.
The weather kept me busy today, but during the weekdays I often take school groups on tours (with varying degrees of success, dependant on age group and how aware the teachers are that I am not there to keep the children from being unruly) and on weekends I wander the trails generally being friendly. I like it in the evening, when there are less people and more wildlife. I've seen frogs, squirrels, a moose, woodpeckers, Canadian geese, a sandpiper, hares and a porcupine nest, although none of the critters themselves yet. And mosquitoes. The wind has kept them down this week, but the ponds and swamps are chock full of larvae, all ready to eat me alive. But I'm happy and proud to finally be able to recognise birds, frogs, trees and flowers of all kinds.
Aside from the day-to-day, we occasionally have speakers come to the Forest. A couple of weeks ago we had Phil Currie, the University of Alberta dinosaur expert who I've interviewed a couple of times for The Gateway (although he didn't recognise me). He gave a talk about the dinosaurs of Alberta, which was very interesting, but more entertaining were the audience members. I was sat at the back behind a bedraggled mother trying desperately to pin down two young boys. I thought then that perhaps she saw the talk was going on and bought tickets on the off-chance it would entertain them. But I was soon proved wrong when the question period began. The older boy, who must have only been four or five, stuck his hand up and asked how the coelacampha survived. All of us frowned, what was he talking about? After a while Phil gave up and said that perhaps that was a dinosaur he hadn't heard of, to which the kid replied "Nooo, it's a fish!" Then it all clicked, he'd said coelacanth. This was a fish believed to have gone extinct at the same time as the dinosaurs, until one was caught off the coast of South Africa in 1938. It seems they had been lurking in deep waters for millions of years, evading our grasp. How the little guy knew about the coelacanth was a mystery to all of us.
Later, as they stood in line waiting to get a book signed by Dr Currie, his mother confessed to me she knew more about dinosaurs than she ever wanted to, and frankly she would be glad when he could read for himself!!
Phil Currie and our ride-on Ankylosaurus
