A man who played a role in the key discovery 50 years ago that eventually led to what today is the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre has now helped kickstart the museum’s next era of exploration.
Coinciding with the anniversary of the discovery of the mosasaur known as Bruce, the land adjacent to that site north of Thornhill has been gifted to the CFDC.
David Lumgair has donated 18 acres of the land connected to Bruce’s site at what is known as the Thornhill Cooley valley.
“So now, he is still being a key piece for the continued development of the museum,” said executive director Adolfo Cuetara. “I am pretty sure that big things will be coming from this land … I am pretty sure another Bruce may be waiting for us there.”
“We learn from our history … and I do value the fossil centre,” said Lumgair. “I hope the gift of land immediately adjacent to where Bruce was found will give a good opportunity close to Morden … for the fossil centre to expand and to dig where there have been so many good fossils.”
Cuetara said the acquisition of the land has been in the works for about a year, with a number of steps that had to be taken, including doing a survey of the property.
He estimated the cost of the whole process and legal work comes to about $20,000, but it is well worth it given the potential he sees in what might be beneath the surface waiting for them to find.
He noted the land was not mined, so it is untouched and contains exactly the same layers where Bruce and other important fossils were found in 1974. Some test holes have already been excavated at the site, and they have found the very same layers of bentonite and shale where fossils are likely to be found.
“We are really, really happy with this acquisition. It’s very exciting for several reasons,” said Cuetara. “We have been happy with the land that we have had now for the last 20 years near Miami, but that was already mined in the ‘60s and the ‘70s … so a lot of the good stuff was gone. We are still finding nice specimens, but we know that best ones are gone. We do still have to prospect some sites that are still there.
“This new land that Dave Lumgair has generously donated is the continuation of the strip of land where all the discoveries in 1974 were made,” he continued. “So I have very high expectations about this strip of land … and we already started to dig up some trenches there, and we know where to start looking for fossils.”
It is going to be a long process and a lot of work to develop the site, Cuetara noted.
“It is a lot of work … we don’t have any infrastructure there, but I have already started looking into being able to build a field station there. I am having conversations at the provincial and the federal level.”
The municipality is already looking at an improvements to the dirt road that leads to the site along the edge of a field, but Cuetara said the land overall will be easy to access.
“This land is very accessible … one thing we can’t do with the other land that we have is that we can’t bring, for example, school tours because they last two miles of road there is really, really rough,” he said. “This new land is flat enough and very accessible … so that creates a new opportunity for us … it will opening up new possibilities for us.”
