The Manitoba Museum’s Conservation staff had their work cut out for them last fall as they undertook the restoration of a very special work of art. Created by renowned Odawa (Ottawa) artist Daphne Odjig in 1971, the 7 x 10 foot painting had been hanging in the hallway of Peguis Central School in Hodgson, Manitoba.
In June 2002, following a request made to The Manitoba Museum’s Preventive Conservation Services, Head Conservator Radu Balica and Conservator Kathy Nanowin travelled to the Peguis First Nation, located 170 kilometres north of Winnipeg, to retrieve the damaged painting. “This has been an intensive project for our department,”
said Balica of the work that has seen himself, Nanowin; Andrew Fallak, Conservation Technician; Museum intern Cornelia Herrmann from Germany and a crew of volunteers working since late September to repair the painting.”

“Although the school had tried to protect the piece with plexi-glass a few years ago, the damage had already been done, especially to the bottom portion where students had rubbed against it. The painting had also been punctured in three places, so overall, it presented severe damage and was in dire need of cleaning and a new frame.” On October 22, Fallak and Balica travelled to the newly built school where they installed the restored painting in the main foyer. On October 23,2002 at a special rededication ceremony, the painting was unveiled once again for the benefit and enjoyment of future students.

In each day of our Churchill field studies, we have recognized that we are working in a unique place, on a unique part of the geological record.”

- Dr. Graham Young Curator of Geology and Paleontology -

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ancient-moose

An Ancient Giant
The Excavation Process

Canadian paleontologists working in northern Manitoba have discovered the world’s largest recorded complete trilobite fossil. The 445 million-year-old fossil is over 70 cm in length, 70% longer than the previous record holder. Trilobites, an extinct group of sea-dwelling arthropods (joint-legged animals) distantly related to crabs, scorpions and insects, are among the most familiar fossils of the Paleozoic Era (about 545-250 million years ago). Their fossil remains are eagerly sought by amateur and professional paleontologists. Most trilobites were between 3 and 10 cm long. The giant trilobite was found and recovered during a long-term field project investigating fossil life along a Late Ordovician age tropical coast.

1998 Field crew (L-R) David Wright, Graham Young, Bob Elias, Dave Rudkin, Curtis Moffat, Janis Klapecki, Ed Dobrzanski.

The project is led by Graham Young (The Manitoba Museum) and Bob Elias (University of Manitoba); the trilobites are being studied by Dave Rudkin (Royal Ontario Museum).

We acknowledge financial support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the University of Manitoba, The Manitoba Museum Foundation, and the Royal Ontario Museum Foundation.

An Ancient Giant

The Manitoba Museum is now home to a sensational find – a 445 million-year-old trilobite fossil.

As a Museum, we are primarily an educational facility and this trilobite provides us with an excellent opportunity to educate our visitors about a fossil animal group other than the dinosaurs. We have found a very unusual specimen that illustrates some of the diversity and weirdness of ancient life.”

Dr. Graham Young, Museum Curator of Geology and Paleontology

Science is 99% hard work and 1% inspiration, and most scientists only rarely have the thrill of making a significant discovery. For the group of scientists who discovered the world’s largest known trilobite, the intense excitement of uncovering this incredible specimen made the preliminary fieldwork, delicate quarrying to extract the fossil, and subsequent research and specimen preparation all worthwhile.

Reconstruction of a trilobite living on the sea bottom.

Trilobites, an extinct group of sea-dwelling arthropods (joint-legged animals) distantly related to crabs, scorpions and insects, are among the most familiar fossils of the Paleozoic Era (about 250 – 570 million years ago). Rudkin noted that “The majority of trilobites were between three and ten centimetres long. Their fossil remains are eagerly sought by amateur and professional paleontologists alike.” However, there is nothing familiar about this particular specimen! “It is an important and amazing find” says Dr. Bob Elias.

Measuring 72 centimetres in length, this giant trilobite is nearly 30 centimetres longer than the largest previously known to science! It also dwarfs most members of the trilobite group, typically ranging in size from three to ten centimetres.

Scale drawings of giant trilobites from northern Manitoba (a,c) other large species reported in the literature (b,d,e) and a typical large trilobite(f). A house cat is shown for size comparison.

“A trilobite of this size really is an amazing discovery,” said Dr. Graham Young, Museum Curator of Geology and Paleontology and member of the team of scientists that uncovered the creature. “The arthropods are animals without backbones so normally they are quite small. For small creatures like bugs, this structure works very well. However, in large creatures, this overall design raises questions about how blood is circulated throughout the body, how the nervous system functions and how oxygen is transported through the tissue.”

Long before unearthing this scientific treasure embedded in Churchill’s rocky shoreline, Young and Dr. Bob Elias of the University of Manitoba had been conducting preliminary fieldwork in the area. For the 1998 field season, the team included Young’s associate Ed Dobrzanski, Museum Collections Manager Janis Klapecki, volunteer David Wright, University of Manitoba summer student Curtis Moffat and David Rudkin, Assistant Curator of Palaeobiology of the Royal Ontario Museum.

In July of that year, the eager team of scientists set out for the northern Manitoba site. They hoped to find fossils similar to those uncovered by digs of the past, like the 43 centimetre-long trilobite excavated from the area in the 1980s.

The Excavation Process

“Do you want to see something amazing?” said Rudkin with exuberance, after returning from the field area far from the rest of the group, which he had chosen for the third day of the dig. Emerging from the deposited limestone was a trilobite tail much larger than any they had seen before. “If more of it is here, this could be the biggest trilobite anywhere.”

As the largest known trilobite and a member of a species previously unknown to science, this specimen is truly unique. Its size contradicts the idea that larger animals are more commonly associated with colder climates. Although Churchill is now sub-arctic, millions of years ago when trilobites ruled the region, it was submerged in salty sea water, located on the equator and had a tropical climate.

The trilobite , as discovered, is still largely hidden within the limestone bedrock.

A lot of hammer and chisel work is needed to uncover the fossil and lever it out of the rock.

The specimen is lifted out in four large pieces for transportation to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

This important scientific discovery will provide the Paleontology field with increased insight into this diverse group of fossil animals. To view this magnificent find, visit The Manitoba Museum’s Earth History Gallery.

Dr. Karen L. Johnson – (Retired) Curator of Botany

Assisted by other staff and volunteers, Dr. Johnson studied and tagged population (originally 100 plants) of the nationally and provincially endangered Western Prairie-Fringed Orchid (Platanthera praeclara) beginning in 1987. The site is part of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, located in southeastern Manitoba near Tolstoi and Vita.

The Western Prairie-Fringed Orchid is a large, showy plant, reaching one metre in height and with up to 20 fragrant white flowers. It is one of several rare and endangered plants found in the transitional Parklands/Mixed Woods region. The Manitoba orchids are the only ones in Canada and are at the northern end of the plant’s range. They form one of three metapopulations (over 1,000 individuals) found in North America. Ours is probably the largest metapopulation, with 20,000 flowering stems counted in 1996.

This orchid was not officially reported from Manitoba until 1984. Although residents of the region recall seeing them before then, we have no records of the orchid occurring in the former tall-grass prairie region. Being such a spectacular plant, it is not likely to have been overlooked by early botanists. So it probably never occurred outside its current small area in the province and may not have even been present in Manitoba until recently.

Another metapopulation occurs in northern Minnesota, some 70 km south of the Tolstoi area. Our orchids may have migrated north from these plants as seeds in the wind or on a bird’s foot. DNA testing is presently being done to determine the relationship of the Manitoba population with the one in Minnesota.

Not much is presently known about the biology and ecology of this orchid, but this information is needed if we are to preserve it in the future. Our study was expanded in 1994 by tagging nearly 500 new flowering plants. The number of flowers and leaves, stem height and number of seed pods are recorded for each tagged plant. All individual orchid plants, flowering and non-flowering, were also tagged and recorded in a smaller intensive study plot to determine the total loss and gain of orchids in a known area.

We already know there is great variation (3 to 1,500 plants) in the number of flowering orchids on any given site over the years. This study is trying to determine what causes these variations. Climate, including droughts and late frosts, could well be the major factor controlling the northern and western limits of many plant species in the Parklands\Mixed Woods region, including this orchid.

Information from the study, including photos and video clips of the orchid and research process, may be included in any or all of the following gallery units: – “The Ecology of the Parklands\Mixed Woods Region” as one of the unique plants of the area.

Dr. W. Brian McKillop, (Retired) Curator of Invertebrates

Actual Size

For many years, Museum volunteer Monty McKillop and I have been collecting invertebrates in the far north of the province. In 1996, while collecting at Nueltin Lake near the Northwest Territories, we found an unusual fish, a Threespine Stickleback, named for the three formidable spines on its back. This species usually lives in, or near, the sea but this one was found 400 km upriver from the coast. The specimen collected was a mature, fully plated or armoured, male. It was 41 mm long, or about the length of your little finger. It was taken at the base of a waterfall flowing from Bagg Lake into Nueltin Lake, in a sandy-bottomed backwater about one-half metre in depth with some aquatic plants growing in it.

The Threespine Stickleback has been reported from both coasts of North America and along the coast of Hudson Bay. The specimen from Nueltin Lake is the only one of this species in a Manitoba collection. It is of special interest because it not only extends the distribution of the species westward but also raises questions of migration and colonization from the coast. Researchers from the National Museum made a previous finding in this watershed in the Northwest Territories in 1966. They took a specimen from the Thlewiaza River, Nueltin Lake’s outflow to the coast, 330 km downstream from the lake but 70 km from Hudson Bay.

The obvious question is: how did this fish get into Nueltin Lake? They probably spread into Hudson Bay from the Atlantic Ocean shortly after the ice retreated along the Labrador coast some 8,000 years ago. The Stickleback normally lives in or near the ocean, moving into freshwater only to breed. But a few populations, including this one, are landlocked and thus physically restricted to freshwater. These fish cannot return to sea because of their great distance from Hudson Bay, and the waterfalls and rapids along the Thlewiaza River.

These barriers also prevent immigration into Nueltin Lake from the Bay. Therefore, any immigration would have had to occur before they were in place. It is likely that the species migrated up the Thlewiaza River shortly after deglaciation, some 7,000 years ago. Hudson Bay was much higher then, its waters extending much farther inland. The glaciers had just retreated northward and the land not yet begun to rebound from their weight. The difference in elevation between the Lake and the Bay was probably less than 30 m then, making it unlikely there were waterfalls in the Thlewiaza River. This suggests that the species gained entrance to Nueltin Lake about 7,000 years ago. It also implies that, while rarely collected, the Threespine Stickleback is probably more broadly
distributed in northern Manitoba than previously thought. In fact, I recorded a second specimen from Caribou Lake, 230 km to the southeast, in the summer of 1997.

On a research trip in July 1998, Museum staff Jack Dubois (retired), Associate Curator of Mammalogy and Ornithology, and Janis Klapecki, Collections Manager, along with volunteers David Wright and Kim Monson, recorded a new species of plant for Manitoba at the mouth of the Broad River, southeast of Churchill.

The area is part of Manitoba’s newest national park, called Wapusk, and the expedition was a cooperative project of Parks Canada and The Manitoba Museum. Warden Jack Batstone was part of the field party, representing Parks Canada.

There had been very little collecting in the new park, as there are no roads going into it. Previous Museum collecting has been done at Churchill and York Factory but none in between where the new park is located. Local habitats were sampled for small mammals and flowering plants. Habitats sampled included small, patchy beach meadows; sedge-meadow tundra in inter-beach ridge swales; and shrubby pond, river and creek margins. Additional plants in flower were recorded and photographed.

Nodding Saxifrage Saxifraga cernua

White Mountain-AvensDryas integrifolia

While going through the plants collected or recorded on our expedition, former Museum botanist (retired) Dr. Karen Johnson confirmed that we had collected thirteen rare species for the province. Of these, eight species are range extensions for the region. One species, Lewis’ wild flax (Linumlewisii) is the second recorded site for Manitoba and one, a fleabane, (Erigeron uniflorus ssp. eriocephalus) is the first known occurrence! Plant specimens have been catalogued into the herbarium at the Museum.

Five species of small mammals were collected: meadow vole, Richardson’s collared lemming, southern red-backed vole, meadow jumping mouse and arctic shrew. Three larger species were observed: polar bear, caribou and wolverine. The collared lemming’s (Dicrostonyxrichardsoni) closest recorded occurrence is at least 60kilometres north. Therefore, the specimens we collected near the mouth of Broad River represent a southern range extension for this species.

Performing this type of research and fieldwork and recording the data into the Museum’s collections registration system, makes this information available to all and adds to our knowledge of the natural heritage of Manitoba.

Dr. Karen L. Johnson, (Retired) Curator of Botany

One of my major research projects looks at the long-term effects of fire on the boreal forest of eastern Manitoba, Canada. The study started in 1976 and more than 40 Museum staff and volunteers have assisted me with it along the way. We are documenting and trying to interpret the patterns of plant recovery and distribution on wet and dry sites in the area. Dr. W.O. Pruitt and the University of Manitoba’s Department of Zoology maintain a small and primitive field research facility, the Taiga Biological Station (TBS), off the northwest end of Wallace Lake. TBS is reached only by boat in summer and skis or snowmobile in winter. It is usually the base camp for several research projects. This is rugged Canadian Shield granite ridge, lake and bog country, with no near neighbours to help if you get lost or break a leg.

Fire is a normal part of the life cycle of the boreal forest. Many of its plants are ingeniously adapted to survive it and colonize bare ground. The changing pattern of plants seen after fire is part of an ecological process called ’succession’. In its simplest form, it starts with bare ground and ends up with a prairie, pine forest or tropical rain forest. In the boreal forest of Manitoba, most end-stage communities are dominated by jack pine on the driest sites, white spruce/balsam fir on moist sites, and black spruce/larch on bogs.

To follow succession, I set up permanent study plots on wet and dry burned areas after each of the three fires. These have been re-marked and monitored almost every year. ‘Control’ plots were set up nearby to serve as models of what had been on the ridges and bogs before the fires. The 1980 fire burned most of the north side of Wallace Lake, including parts of the TBS and one of my control plots. The 1987 fire burned off most of the remaining mature forest on the south side of Wallace Lake and burned a small area which had been hit by both the 1976 and 1980 fires.

Each plot provides information on the changing amount of ground covered by different plants as well as bare ground, charcoal, water or logs. It gives the number and kind of shrubs and trees present in addition to the estimated amount of ground shaded at noon by shrubs and trees. Each plot is photographed every year to record the changes taking place.

Since 1976, burned wet areas have gone from bare charcoal through mosses to jack pine trees more than eight metres tall. Plots with more than 500 jack pine seedlings in 1977 now have eight to 10 tall crowded trees with almost nothing growing under them. Dry areas went from bare rock to small areas of lichens, mosses and grasses. Differences between areas burned once, twice or three times are obvious, as are those between similar areas burned in 1976 and 1980. I suspect the latter are the result of a fairly moist summer after the fire in 1976 and a series of drought summers after 1980. Many more jack pines and other trees survived, and lichens cover more rock area on the 1976 burn than on the 1980 one.

I hope to some day start the analysis and writing on this project and to eventually publish it as a Museum Occasional Paper or in a major journal. This is ‘bare bones’ ecological research but even these simple methods should, because of the length of the study, yield useful information on the successional patterns in this interesting and little-studied region.

Dr. Graham Young, Curator of Geology and Paleontology and Parklands/Mixed-Woods Gallery Project Manager

Climbing along the base of the cliff, our research team came to a place where large rock slabs were covered by strange red-brown structures similar to the seaweeds you find on a seashore. But these were fossils some 450 million years old; beautifully fresh-looking and clearly defined. The soft tissues of plants and animals usually rot away after death. How could these have been preserved?

This area on the west side of Lake Winnipeg has rocks containing fossils unlike any others found in Manitoba. Some may be unique worldwide. It is one of those rare ‘windows’ into the distant past, through which we can see some of the plants or animals that lacked hard body parts. The fossils date from the Late Ordovician Period when a warm sea covered the middle of North America, including Manitoba. I visited this site in June 1997, with a group of scientists from The Manitoba Museum, Manitoba Geological Services, Royal Ontario Museum and the University of Western Ontario. It is far from any road, so we travelled by floatplane.

Camping at the site, we did initial reconnaissance. With the help of volunteer Ed Dobrzanski, I was able to collect specimens of rare and beautiful fossils for the Museum.

We were limited by the weight our aircraft could carry, but were able to bring back examples of all fossil types found. These included a variety of beautiful seaweeds, soft algae similar to those living in oceans today. They were associated with fossils rare in central North America: mesh-like graptolites (distant relatives of vertebrates) and others difficult to classify. There were also more typical Ordovician fossils: crinoids (sea lilies), trilobites (extinct animals similar to horseshoe crabs), cephalopods (relative of squids), conularids (extinct possible jellyfish relatives), sponges and brachiopods (lamp shells).

Bottom sediments may have contained too little oxygen for soft parts to be broken down by bacteria, thus allowing the unusual preservation of this rare assemblage. These sediments were probably deposited in deeper water than other Ordovician ones, such as the famous Tyndall Stone. Conditions on the seafloor were not very suitable for growth of bottom-dwelling plants and animals, and many of the fossils are of swimming and floating organisms. Where bottom-dwellers do occur, they are usually concentrated in specific layers, suggesting temporarily improved bottom conditions. A deep-water environment is also suggested by the absence of rock layers made of seafloor sediments disturbed by storms, because the trilobites and crinoids have not been broken up by waves and currents, and by the lack of shallow-water fossils such as corals.

While the Lake Winnipeg site does not have the diversity of unusual material found at some other localities, it has considerable scientific significance because it dates from shortly before the Late Ordovician mass extinction event, one of the greatest extinctions in the history of life. The fossils collected on this expedition are currently being prepared and catalogued at the Museum; some have already been exhibited. We hope to revisit the site in the next few years to collect more fossils and detailed scientific data, and eventually produce a Museum publication that thoroughly documents this wonderful assemblage.

Dr. Katherine Pettipas, Curator of Native Ethnology and the Hudson’s Bay Company Museum Collection

The past years have been both busy and exciting ones for curatorial staff working with the Hudson’s Bay Company Museum Collection. Former Curatorial Assistant, Doug McGregor and I were involved in making preparations for its relocation to the Museum’s new storage facilities as well as researching, cataloguing and photographing the Collection.

My own research focused on the production of a major exhibition for the planned Hudson’s Bay Company Gallery, which opened to the public on May 2, 2000. Ultimately, I wanted to see its results published as a catalogue presenting the history of the Collection. The catalogue would also feature a selection of representative items in their appropriate cultural and historical contexts.

The search for details about the producers and owners of artifacts is proving to be fascinating. Unearthing layer after layer of new information, we are giving voice to the objects, their makers and users. We follow leads in the original documents and oral histories of the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives; the comparative collections of other repositories; and numerous primary and secondary sources published on the history of the fur trade.
Another area of study involved innovative ways of interpreting and presenting material culture in exhibitions by using new design ideas and interactive technologies. I was working with Chief of Design Gordon Filewych to determine the best ways to present the Hudson’s Bay Company Museum Collection to Museum visitors. Another goal was to incorporate several types of information delivery systems to ensure that the Collection is as accessible as possible to the public.

Since the original donation of the Collection, the continued support of the Hudson’s Bay Company Foundation, along with the new donations to the Collection, have greatly assisted our research. Over the past few years, a number of individuals whose family histories intertwine with that of the Company’s have generously contributed to the Hudson’s Bay Company Museum Collection. We also recently received what had once been boardroom furnishings of Beaver House in London from the Hudson’s Bay Company in Toronto. Each new piece serves to tell yet another story and assists us in providing as full and accurate a portrayal as we can on this important aspect of Canadian history.