Joseph Tyrrell
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Joseph Burr Tyrrell (November 1, 1858 Weston, Ontario – August 26, 1957) was a Canadian geologist, cartographer, and mining consultant. He discovered dinosaur (Albertosaurus) bones in Alberta's Badlands and coal around Drumheller in 1884.
Tyrrell was the third child of William and Elizabeth Tyrrell. He was a student at Weston Grammar School before graduating from Upper Canada College in 1876 and receiving a law degree from the University of Toronto in 1880. However, after articling for a law firm in Toronto, his doctor advised him to work outdoors due to his health.
He joined the Geological Survey of Ottawa in 1881, participating or leading numerous explorations. He lead the 1893 and 1894 expeditions into the Northern Barren Lands - the first visit to the Kivalliq Region Barrenlands by a European since the explortions of Samuel Hearne in the 1770s. Younger brother, James W. Tyrrell accompanied Tyrrell on the expeditions, which included first European contact with the Ihalmiut, an Inuit people, now almost extinct.
Tyrrell married Mary Edith Carey in 1894 and they had three children, Mary (1896), George (1900), and Thomas (1906).[1] Mary Edith was founder and first president in 1921 of the Women's Association of the Mining Industry of Canada.[2]
In 1894, Tyrrell stumbled upon biographical recollections (11 books of field notes, 39 journals, maps and a narrative) of Canadian overland explorer, cartographer and fur trader David Thompson (explorer) and, in 1916, published them as "David Thompson's Narrative".[3]
Tyrrell went into the gold-mining business in 1898, a career that would last more than 50 years. He was mine manager of the Kirkland Lake Gold Mine in northern Ontario for many years.
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[edit] Awards
- 1918, Murchison Medal, Geological Society of London
- 1933, Flavelle Medal, Royal Society of Canada
- 1947, Wollaston Medal, Geological Society of London
- Back Award, Royal Geographic Society
- Daly Medal from the American Geographical Society
- Professional Engineer's Medal from the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario
- Canadian Mining Hall of Fame
[edit] Honors
- Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, Drumheller, Alberta
- J.B. Tyrrell Historical Medal, Royal Society of Canada
- Tyrrell Sea (prehistoric Hudson Bay)
- "Tyrrell Arm", the east section of Yathkyed Lake, Nunavut[4]
[edit] References
- ^ Joseph Burr Tyrrell. everything2.com. Retrieved on 2008-01-27.
- ^ Hall of Fame Inductee. Retrieved on 2008-01-27.
- ^ A short history. Retrieved on 2008-01-27.
- ^ Kazan River. chrs.ca. Retrieved on 2007-12-25.
- Biographical Sketch of J.B. Tyrrell - University of Toronto. Retrieved on 16 September, 2007.
- Past lives: Chronicles of Canadian Paleontology Tyrrell and Albertosaurus. Retrieved on 2 January, 2006.
- Historica minute
- Joseph B. Tyrrell - Hall of Fame - Life of a Rock Star. Retrieved on 2 January, 2006.
A recently published book, Measuring Mother Earth: How Joe the Kid became Tyrrell of the North, McClelland & Stewart Inc. ISBN:0771075391, tells his story as a life of adventure.
A vivid, entertaining portrait of the great Canadian explorer Joseph Burr Tyrrell, the man who single-handedly invented the notion of the “Romance of the North”.
In the nineteenth century, exploring the Earth was as exciting and awe-inspiring an activity as space exploration was in the twentieth century. And even as late as the 1880s, vast expanses of Canada remained largely untrodden by Europeans. So joining the Geological Survey in 1882 was the realization of a dream for the short-sighted, profoundly deaf, and egotistical young Joseph Burr Tyrrell.
A romantic, inspired as much by Robert Louis Stevenson’s adventure novels and by Wild Bill Hickock’s exploits as by the spirited debates about evolution that informed his work, Tyrrell chafed under the strictures of the survey. By the time of the Klondike gold rush in 1898, he was a bitter man, resentful that the survey under George Dawson had repeatedly refused to promote him or give him any plum jobs. He quit and took up prospecting instead, which brought him nothing but misery in the Yukon but handed him a fortune when gold was discovered in Kirkland Lake, Ontario.
His own best fan, Tyrrell did finally achieve the celebrity he ached for. Decked out in a sealskin parka and moccasins, while he burnished stories of his achievements, Tyrrell became the prototype of the romantic hero-explorer later personified by Robert Scott (of the Antarctic). He retired a multi-millionaire and died at the age of ninety-eight, just six weeks before the 1957 space launch of Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the Earth.
Heritage moment video of Joseph Tyrrell http://www.histori.ca/minutes/minute.do?id=10181
[edit] External links
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