Tumbler Ridge Geopark

In 2000 two boys, Mark Turner and Daniel Helm, were tubing down Flatbed Creek near Tumbler Ridge when they were tipped out and noticed marks in the rock; they turned out to be dinosaur trackways, and the find opened up a region that has since produced thousands of tracks, bones and the first dinosaur bones ever found in British Columbia. The town, built in 1981 for coal and threatened with closure when the mines shut, reinvented itself around the discovery and became Canada's second UNESCO Global Geopark in 2014. Kinuseo Falls in Monkman Provincial Park drops about sixty metres, higher than Niagara.

What you actually see

• The trackways - dinosaur footprints in creek beds and on rock faces.
• The Dinosaur Discovery Gallery - a museum and working fossil lab.
• Kinuseo Falls - a sixty-metre waterfall in Monkman park.
• The waterfall trails - a network of falls and canyon walks around the town.

When to go

June to September; the Kinuseo road is gravel and closed or difficult in winter. Trails are muddy in spring. The museum is open year-round with reduced winter hours.

Honest expectations

Getting to Kinuseo Falls means about sixty kilometres of gravel road. Some track sites are only reachable on guided tours. The town is remote with limited accommodation.

Nearby

Dawson Creek lies northeast; the Alaska Highway starts there.