Digging for dinosaurs in Montana

I saw it one wintry March Saturday morning, while reading the “Bangor Daily News.” The ad said that the Milwaukee Public Museum was looking for volunteers to go to Montana for two weeks to look for dinosaurs. The Dig-A-Dinosaur (DAD) Program would cost $850.

Maybe it was the time of year, (winter had been long), maybe it was the allure of a far off place like Montana, or the adventure of a dig, (isn’t any Maine person ready for adventure by March) but my only conscious thought was “I can do this!” I called immediately.

I learned that volunteers could be housed at the Lions Youth Camp in Makoshika State Park. The fee would include three meals per day and the use of the camp facilities. However, it was suggested that volunteers might be more comfortable if they brought their own tents, because the cabins and bunks had been built for small children, not adults. I also learned that I didn’t need any background in dinosaurs, paleontology, or geology, and that they would train me to do the required work.

The museum had started the Dig-A-Dinosaur expeditions in the badlands of Montana in 1978, primarily in the Hell Creek Formation. This formation is composed of cretaceous (70-65 million-year-old) sediments, and is famous for the dinosaurs contained in these rocks. Originally, the expeditions were started to collect specimens, but in 1987 the focus changed to examining the longest standing, most perplexing mystery of the dinosaurs — the cause of their extinction. The 1990 expedition would be the last in this series. At the conclusion of the study perhaps the results would make a substantial contribution to science.

So, in July and August, volunteers, paleontologists, and geologists would go to the Hell Creek Formation to carry out a comprehensive census of fossil vertebrates. I was one of those volunteers for 11 days.

Glendive, Montana is like a lot of towns in the state of Maine, you can’t get there from here. So I flew to Bismarck, North Dakota and took a bus to the small town in northeastern Montana. I arrived at midnight and headed for a motel.

Some of the museum staff picked me up around 1 p.m. the next day. I was well rested and ready to begin. The trip to Makoshika took us up over beautiful, breathtaking buttes, tinged with pastel colors of purple, pink and green. In several places each side of the road dropped off into deep canyons, or maybe bottomless pits — I couldn’t see the bottom. There were no trees to speak of, just an occasional juniper. The soil looked so strange. I later learned that it’s called popcorn. We passed a sign that said “Primitive Road, Impassable When It Rains.” I asked about the sign and was told that when the popcorn soil got wet it turned to gumbo that you couldn’t move in, but that it also dried out very quickly.

Upon arrival I met another volunteer from Alaska and we set up my tent. I unpacked some of my clothing and set off on my first walk. We were warned to watch out for snakes. They had seen an average of two snakes a day in the first session. A fear ball rolled up in my stomach. The whole time setting up the tent there had been animal noises in the bushes. I told myself they were birds, but suddenly I wondered. The sun beat down on my first Montana day and I didn’t see any snakes. I spent the day meeting new people, new friends and getting used to the climate.

The next day we learned about our schedule. A bell would ring at 6 a.m. signaling us to get dressed, go to the patio area and eat breakfast, get our gear which included boots, back packs, gloves, rock hammer, hats and sunscreen and get into vans that would take us down the primitive road, 45 minutes away to the survey site.

This second day was an instructional day during which we were teamed up with experienced volunteers or staff and collected whatever caught our eye. We later sat down as a group and learned about the different kinds of rocks and fossils that were out there. We all climbed to different levels and began our collecting. In this manner we learned from the experience of our partners and the group, exactly what we were looking for out there.

The actual survey began the next day, when we spread out on the buttes, walking single file, sweeping the hillsides in grid fashion. Whenever we found something we hollered “bone” and a paleontologist would look at our find, determine if it was “in situ,” call in a geologist for soil identification and record the find.

I was walking on the bottom and carried a predator stick for early snake detection. I really thought that dinosaur fossils were not to be found on the bottom of the buttes and so, in my solitude, I asked God for just one little bone. Soon, as I rounded a corner, there it was right on top of a mound of popcorn soil. It was identified as the rib of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The joy of finding that bone carried me through several boneless days. I also found the forearm of a Hadrosaur imbedded in a sheer hard packed wall and on the last day I found a Triceratops femur. These bones were all left in place because we were taking a census and did not have a permit to collect. Everyone found everything from huge dinosaur bones to small fragments of a turtle shell and teeth.

A complete skull of a triceratops was uncovered and the staff felt it was worth excavating for use in the state park. They contacted the ranger, who got us permission to excavate. Then, in our spare time we could work on that skull.

My meeting with a rattlesnake came twos days after I found my first bone. I had started feeling like I’d run out of gas and an experienced volunteer explained that I’d had too much sun. He took me to a shaded gully, told me to take off my pack so air could get inside my clothes, and advised me to start drinking as much water as I could, starting with small sips. As I drank my water, I sat on the ground with my back to the small dirt wall that shaded us. I was feeling a little foolish for being “wimpy” and I was telling him a Maine story when my eyes caught a different shape over his right shoulder.

“Is that a snake?” I asked calmly.

He turned his head to look over his shoulder (he could have put his hand on it!) and answered “Why yes it is!”

Without hardly moving I gathered my pack, canteen and stick and moved noiselessly to open ground. I turned to see my friend still sitting in the same position. I asked him if he wasn’t coming too and he explained that there were usually TWO. Eventually, he also managed to move quietly away. He complimented me on how calmly I had acted and I explained that I was really quite surprised at myself.

There were so many memorable moments — such great humor was shared; beautiful vistas, sunsets, and moon rises were enjoyed; and lasting friendships were formed in those 11 days. We all took a gift of ourselves and gave what we could and in return received a hundred times more than we gave. We ate, slept, worked and played in an open classroom under the vast Montana sky. Our teachers had spent lifetimes studying their sciences and they shared their knowledge openly and willingly. I personally had come face to face with many fears. I definitely got out of my comfort zone and I am a stronger person for it.

Jackie Gill lives in Lincoln.