Dinosaur Hunting by Boat in Alberta

2010 marks the 100th anniversary of the first scow-based dinosaur-hunting expeditions in Alberta, Canada. These flat-bottomed boats were used by Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History as floating field camps between 1910 and 1913. When Brown left Canada, the Sternberg family of dinosaur hunters, working for the Geological Survey of Canada, also used them from 1913-1916.

Royal Tyrrell Museum technician, Darren Tanke, has for the past 8 years been working towards a Centennial re-enactment of the first AMNH trip, making and equipping a 1:1 scale of the AMNH scow. In late June of this year he and a dedicated crew will launch their scow (the Peter C. Kaisen; named after a Barnum Brown assistant) from the city of Red Deer, Alberta, and over a 5 week period float down the Red Deer River, ending in Dinosaur Provincial Park around August 7th. Along the way they'll be looking for dinosaur fossils and reliving history.

The blog 2010 Dino Hunting By Boat details the scow’s construction and the trip.