Left to Right: Kirk Johnson, Chief Curator and Vice President for Research Collections at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and Ray Troll, renowned artist.

Courtenay and District Museum blog Discoveries Happen is where you’ll find ongoing information about museum events, visitors, tours and programmes—welcome! We’re starting off the blog with a pleasant surprise visit this morning from Kirk Johnson, Chief Curator and Vice President for Research Collections at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and renowned Artist, Ray Troll. Troll and Johnson are co-authors of Cruisin Along the Fossil Freeway a book and CD about “fossils, fossil finders and their stories”.

They are traveling the west coast gathering more information for their next volume. Many thanks to Peter Ward, Professor, University of Washington, for bringing this group and congratulations to Kirk Johnson, who will move into the position of Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in October. When asked to give an overview of what he saw in the museum’s collections and displays, Kirk said:

“ The Courtenay and District Museum is a fabulous example of a regional museum that is making truly significant contributions to science. This is ground zero for new discoveries in Vancouver Island palaeontology”