Knock knock!

        What a whirl-wind week! Monday, the CFDC had very special visitors-- the Daily Planet from the Discovery Channel came and checked out the Xiphactinus Killzone! Jim Bamburak from Manitoba Geological Survey, Mayor Wilson (Morden), and Mayor Harder (Winkler),  joined us as well. Even with all these visitors on site, we were still able to find some incredible fossils! A few fish vertabra were uncovered, rib fragments, and a Hesperonis vertabra! The Hesperonis was a sharp-toothed, flightless, average 1.5 m (4-5 ft) tall bird that swam in the Cretaceous sea eighty million years ago.
        A very important visitor arrived during the week. Kati (pronounced Cod-ee) Slater-Szirom is from Washington State. She is doing her undergrad research with us and is very excited to be back at CFDC. She joined us last year on our 5-Day Fossil Excursion and fell in love with the Pembina Valley (and the fossils!). Her plan is to major in geology and then become a paleontologist. Along with the other geology student at the CFDC, Kathryn Lapenskie, they joined up with Bamburak and looked at various dig site’s stratigraphy and and took rock and mineral samples.
        We had a few more visitors including CBC, CTV, Winnipeg Free Press, Morden Times, and CJOB in the museum through-out the week. MP of Portage Lisgar, Candice Hoeppner even came down to the Xiphactinus Killzone! We ourselves played visitors to the Winnipeg Kids' Fringe Festival on Friday and Saturday. The volunteers were fantastic and we enjoyed showing the kids real fossils and talking to their parents about taking a trip to Morden. One of the local vendors was even nice enough to give us free snow cones!
        What a deliciously fossilicious week!

-Jaclyn Kozak