Photo: The Travel
Fossils can be found all over the earth but in Newfoundland, they can be found at Mistaken Point – and they’re incredibly significant.
Source: Mistaken Point: Home To The Most Significant Fossils In The World
Despite being designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, Mistaken Point may have to operate during peak season without its interpretation centre.
The same goes for Cape Race, where the Myrick Wireless Interpretation Centre is run by the same group.
Both centres will have to survive this season on a shared $15,360 operational grant from the provincial government.
“We had to meet with our staff and tell them we could not guarantee them employment for this season,” said Gertie Molloy, chairperson for Mistaken Point Cape Race Heritage Inc.
“If we don’t get financial support, we won’t be able to open beyond the end of July or the first week of August. We’ll end up closing at the peak of tourist season.”
Molloy said the group is fundraising and seeking corporate sponsors to stay alive, but the search has been tough and has not gotten great results.
Late opening, early closures
The amount of money allotted is the same as last season, when the two centres didn’t open until July.
Canada – Mistaken Point
Moving south along the Avalon Peninsula, I want to visit Newfoundland’s newest UNESCO World Heritage Site, the ecological reserve at Mistaken Point. This landmark got its ominous name from sailors who mistook the southernmost point for having rounded the point of Cape Race on their way into the port of St John’s, but instead slammed into treacherous rocks. There are some 50 shipwrecks still preserved in the icy waters off the shore of Mistaken Point.
But Mistaken Point now has new notoriety, “Home to fossils of the oldest complex multicellular life forms found anywhere on earth.” In 1967, a Geology graduate student and his assistant from Memorial University of Newfoundland were on the edge of Mistaken Point’s craggy shoreline mapping the rock when they came upon a slab imprinted with almost 10,000 fossils.
Canada – Mistaken Point
People who live near Mistaken Point on the southeast Avalon say locals are not being called for interviews to work at the newly designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Mistaken Point was named a World Heritage Site last July for being home to the oldest-known evidence of Earth’s first large, complex, multicellular life forms — a 565-million-year-old sea floor that holds a collection of fossils known as the Ediacaran biota.
Now, residents who live in Trepassey and other nearby communities are signing a petition in hopes the provincial government will do more to make sure locals are hired for positions at the site — which they say hasn’t been happening.
“This petition was started through frustration, and to be honest this frustration started last spring,” said Charlene Power of Trepassey, who launched the petition.
Canada – Mistaken Point
Famous as the site of Ediacaran fossils representing the oldest multicellular life on Earth, the Mistaken Point is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Mistaken Point is a Canadian headland located on Avalon Peninsula of the Newfoundland and Labrador. The site was named Mistaken Point since it was often believed to be Cape Race in foggy weather. Sailors making this mistake would turn north and run into dangerous rocks. The Mistaken Point is a UNESCO World Heritage Site today, famous as a site for the Ediacaran fossils representing the oldest multicellular life on earth. The assemblage is the oldest diverse multicellular organisms yet to be described anywhere in the world.
Mistaken Point is known worldwide for the fossils naturally preserved here in a unique way. The fossils were preserved by the blanketed layer of fine volcanic ash.
Canada – Mistaken Point
The opposition says Mistaken Point won’t be ready to handle the influx of new visitors now that it’s been internationally recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The opposition says Mistaken Point won’t be ready to handle the influx of new visitors now that it’s been internationally recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Keith Hutchings, the PC MHA representing the area, said government hasn’t filled the new positions needed to handle the new visitors expected ths summer after turning away hundreds of people last year.
“The season is quick approaching and we don’t have any of those positions approved. Someone’s really got to ask who’s overseeing this,” Hutchings said.
He said four new positions were advertised but are sitting on hold.
Seamus O’Regan has made it his mission to get Signal Hill designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Speaking to a crowd at Memorial University during a funding announcement on Friday, the MP for St. John’s South-Mount Pearl gave an impassioned speech on what Signal Hill means to him.
“I never take [it] for granted,” he said. “One of the most beautiful walks around the ocean anywhere in the world, I’d venture.”
Most people don’t realize the historic site has not been designated by UNESCO, O’Regan said. It was something he pointed out to Justin Trudeau, while walking the hill in August. He’s also taken it to the environment, heritage and innovation ministers.
“They all love the idea.”
First, Signal Hill will need to land on the national tentative nominee list, submitted by each country annually to UNESCO. O’Regan said he is in the process of getting Signal Hill “at the top of that list.”
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Aizudin Zainal
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