“If you heard that there were “stone bugs” in the towering mountains nearby would you go take a look? Richard McConnell collected the very first trilobite fossils from Mount Stephen in 1886 after hearing these rumours and in 1887 he published a report on his discovery of the well-preserved fossils of soft-bodied marine organisms – that just happened to live in Cambrian seas 505 million years ago!

In 1909, after reading McConnell’s report, American scientist, paleontologist and Secretary to the Smithsonian Institution, Charles Walcott came to Canada and discovered millions of trilobites himself in an area he named the Burgess Shale. Within it lies one of the planet’s most ancient ecosystems, frozen in time in what is now BC’s Yoho National Park. If you’re up for a daylong hike (21kms long and gaining 825 meters in elevation), Parks Canada offers tours up to the Burgess Shale where you can walk among trilobite fossils in this epic UNESCO World Heritage Site.”

Rebecca Bollwitt, founder of Miss604.com.