City Notebook: Woman’s history connects stories a half-century apart
By COLLIN GALLANT on October 12, 2019.
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant A new biography is aiming to preserve the knowledge and know-how of prolific amateur, Hope Johnson, the knowledge of local ancient and natural history she spent her life revealing. It is said that newspapers are simply history told in present tense, and it’s being proven again this fall with two stories that are 50 years apart, one involving Johnson. Last week the media was all abuzz that a recently revisited box of fossils at the University of Toronto contained the first proof that sabre-toothed tigers lived in Canada, and specifically Medicine Hat. A story in the Oct. 20, 1969 edition of the News, unearthed at the offices here, describes the find, specifically notes a sabre-tooth cat among the bones of camels, mammoths, miniature horses, and, most-excitingly an ancient wolf’s jaw-bone. The details of the find were revealed to the News by Johnson, who led the local support group for U of T researcher C.S. “Rufus” Churcher. That almost goes without saying because Johnson was at the lead of most dinosaur digs, natural history explorations in this region for decades from her base of operations in Ralston. Darren Tanke works at the Royal Tyrrel Museum, and as a hobby researches and writes about “blue collar” work done by amateur paleontologists and fossil hunters who contribute to major finds. Johnson was an obvious subject, and in 2008 he approached her to research that book that, by agreement, wouldn’t be published until after her death. That occurred in 2010, but the breadth and depth of the material added years onto the project timeline. “Immediately I began to receive letters and papers that provided a lot more information,” Tanke said this week. “She was so active and so precise that I wanted to honour that in the book.” He spoke to the city’s heritage resource committee in late September and even brought along a review copy for Johnson’s daughters to view. The work covers her entire life, and is written with a general reader in mind, meaning it should be accessible to non-academics. It’s available for order soon through the Alberta Paleontology Society and is being published on an “on-demand basis.” A look ahead It’s a short week heading toward the Oct. 21 federal election, a date which also features a city council meeting. 100 years ago A decade-old debate about fixing a date for Thanksgiving Day, as well as a year-long discussion about an annual date to remember war dead could be solved if the issues were tackled as one, a News editorial stated in early October, 1919. Canadians had been torn about a Thanksgiving date — either late October, or mimicking the American Holiday in November – for years. Nov. 11 was that day of the armistice that ended the conflict in Europe one year earlier. Combining the two was an obvious solution. Medicine Hat Ald. Jimmy Hole told a public meeting that council members had spent $12,000 on publicity and trips to promote the city in 1919, twice the budgeted amount. He proposed that “considering the bad publicity” surrounding drowning deaths on the South Saskatchewan River from the summer that council divert next year’s publicity budget toward the construction of a swimming pool. The Cincinnati Reds were World Champions, upsetting the Chicago White Sox in the eighth game of the World Series. A change in uniform would follow the official renaming of the North West Mounted Police as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, reports from Ottawa stated. The blue trouser with yellow tripe would remain, though all khaki eliminated with a brown coat serving as a general fatigue and the red serge now reserved for dress occasions. The local board of trade announced support for the creation of an irrigated demonstration farm at Police Point. Plans were to be submitted to the provincial government. Collin Gallant covers city politics and a variety of topics for the News. Reach him at 403-528-5664 or via email at cgallant@medicinehatnews.com. 24-23
