A Walrus’ Final Resting Place
Photo credit: Graham Beard, personal collection
This beach, north of Qualicum Beach, is made up of Ice Age clay underneath all of those boulders. Here, laying on her back in the intertidal zone, partially buried, was Rosie the walrus.
Don McAlister’s help in unearthing her skeleton was particularly valuable because many of her smaller bones were still underwater when they found her; as soon as someone reached down and picked up what might be a piece of bone, they stirred up the surrounding sediment and clouded the water! This was a hindrance to the rest of the group, but not McAlister, who was already visually impaired. Without him, much of Rosie’s skeleton might be still laying undiscovered on that beach.