Hunting dinosaurs in the bad lands of the Red Deer River, Alberta, Canada: A sequel to the life of a fossil hunter

About this book

"Hunting dinosaurs in the bad lands of the Red Deer River, Alberta, Canada" by Charles H. Sternberg is a field memoir and scientific account written in the early 20th century. It follows Sternberg and his sons as they hunt, extract, and prepare dinosaur fossils in Alberta’s badlands and across the American West, weaving adventure with hands-on methodology and museum work. Readers can expect specimen stories, practical collecting techniques, and vivid reconstructions of Cretaceous environments.

The opening of the book presents a sequel to Sternberg’s earlier autobiography, thanking colleagues and setting out his aim to recount recent, highly successful seasons in Canada. He recalls landmark finds—“mummified” duck-billed dinosaurs with preserved skin, superb Triceratops skulls, and giant Cretaceous fishes—while describing grueling quarry work, transport feats, and a cyclone that destroyed a major skull. Museum visits to Pittsburgh, Washington, New York, and Yale frame his evolving ideas, including a shift toward viewing hadrosaurs as swimmers. He details mounting a massive Titanotherium at Ottawa’s Victoria Memorial Museum and the improvised techniques that made it possible. Moving to Alberta, he sketches Drumheller’s geology, evokes bayous teeming with dinosaurs, and narrates the discovery and plaster-jacketing of a remarkably complete hadrosaur later mounted in Ottawa. A river run to Steveville leads to a notable Gorgosaurus with gastralia, whose “slab” presentation in matrix he chooses after consulting leading paleontologists. The section closes with additional crested duck-bill finds and a candid look at the painstaking lab work such fragile fossils demand.