BOO!

Every year around Halloween, Bannack Ghost Town hosts a "ghost walk". It's living history program with a twist; volunteers dress up as some of the infamous characters of Bannack's history, and tell their stories - at night, by lantern light. Everyone has their faces painted white and evidence of their demise, whether it was a gunshot, fall, or hangin'. I've been to this several times before, but decided to have a little fun with it this year, and took photos in sepia to make them look more authentic. On Saturday, October 23 a bunch of us went to chase the goblins around the streets of Bannack. It was drizzly, breezy and cold, but we were ready for it -- bring on the ghosts!

A couple of town drunks try to decide what to do with the body of Henry Plummer, the notorious road agent and self appointed sheriff of Bannack.
Two of the girls who worked at Skinner's Saloon.

The ghost of Dorothy, who drowned in a settling pond when she was nine years old. She is said to still reside in the Meade Hotel.
The ghost of the demented school teacher still casts a large shadow over the Bannack school house.

Changing Seasons

At 9:00 it was only 30 degrees and breezy, with heavy cloud cover and very chilly! The sun came out for a while at around 10:30 and made for an almost pleasant day.

Went out on the trail in spite of the chill, but nothing was moving except the creek and a few magpies. As they flew about with their tail feathers spread out, I suddenly realized how prehistoric they look - somewhat like Archaeopteryx. Interesting.

With the foliage dying back the rose hips and snowberries are much more obvious, and they’re everywhere – offering some sustenance to the deer and bears, as well as the few birds that remain through the winter months.

A lone fungus clings to the trunk of a cottonwood tree, seemingly oblivious to the close to freezing weather. And it appears to be a mushroom, and not a shelf fungus as I would expect to find there. I’ve never seen a mushroom growing anywhere but on or near the ground, but this one was about 15 feet up.

There are new mullein plants everywhere, and it seems like a strange time of year for them to sprout – but there they were, hugging the ground like small, fuzzy heads of cabbage.

A short time outside was all I could take this morning, and I headed back inside - content to settle down next to the fire with a good book and a cup of hot tea.

Thunder Lizards

Did you that the University of Montana in Missoula has a Paleontology Department? Yesterday (October 13), was the very first, official, "National Fossil Day". It was created by the National Park Service in conjunction with Earth Sciences Week. To kick off this special day, the UM Geoscience Department held an open house and invited the public to tour the paleontology facilities.

The Paleontology Department began in 1895 with a grant from the Smithsonian Institute, and originally focused mainly on fossils from Montana and Wyoming (they have since expanded to include global studies). The very first masters degree in Paleontology was earned from UM by Earl Douglas, who also founded Dinosaur National Monument in Utah.

1,500 types of specimins are housed here, including 25,000 species of plants, invertebrates and vertibrates from all over the world. The collection at UM contains over 100,000 fossils!

The first thing you notice is the T-Rex skull as you walk into the building. With seven inch fangs exposed by a gaping mouth, it's easy to see how the T-Rex was one of the most feared creatures that ever walked the earth.

Other displays show the snout of a wild boar-like creature that was as big as a large horse, also with impressive fangs; the femur of an emu-like prehistoric bird; examples of sea life (sponges, corals, shells and invertebrates), and mastadon bones and teeth.

We were given a tour of the prep lab, where bones and fossils are cleaned, reconstructed (if neccesary), and photographed for cataloging. Here they had a broken mastadon bone that was in the process of being repaired for display, some fish fossils and a large amonite, 12 inches across. One student was also researching microscopic life from an ancient coral reef off the Oregon coast.

From there we were treated to a view of the collection room, where the public is almost never allowed. Here over the fossils are kept in a state of the art storage facility, and we were allowed to see - and photograph - several displays, including fish fossils so well preserved that you could see the scales.

Another up and coming field is Paleoforensics, the study of disease and injury of fossils. I've always thought forensics would be so interesting, and here it combines two areas of interest to me. If only I could afford the classes...

It was a fascinating look at these impressive creatures, and I also found out that the Paleontology Department is looking for volunteers - I've already added my name to the list!