Field is an unincorporated community of approximately 169 people located in the

Kicking Horse River The Kicking Horse River is in the Canadian Rockies of southeastern British Columbia, Canada. The river was named in 1858, when James Hector, a member of the Palliser Expedition, reported being kicked by his packhorse while exploring the river. He ...

valley of southeastern

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, Canada, within the confines of

Yoho National Park Yoho National Park ( ) is a national park of Canada. It is located within the Rocky Mountains along the western slope of the Continental Divide of the Americas in southeastern British Columbia, bordered by Kootenay National Park to the south and ...

. At an elevation of , it is west of Lake Louise along the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway (French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the Atlantic Ocean on ...

, which provides the only road access to the town. The community is named for Cyrus West Field of

Transatlantic telegraph cable Transatlantic telegraph cables were undersea cables running under the Atlantic Ocean for telegraph communications. Telegraphy is now an obsolete form of communication, and the cables have long since been decommissioned, but telephone and data a ...

fame, who visited the area in 1884.

Demographics

In 2011, Field had a population of 195 year-round residents.

Townsite administration

Field's land ownership was split between the Crown and the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), with the border between the two jurisdictions being Stephen Avenue. The railway was in charge of the water and electricity supply for the town until the 1950s, when the Canadian government took over. Today, the townsite is managed by Parks Canada. Local residents lease their land from the park administration, with a term of 42 years.

Burgess Shale

CPR track workers in Field discovered the fossils of the

Burgess Shale The Burgess Shale is a fossil-bearing deposit exposed in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. At old (middle Cambrian), it is one of the earliest fo ...

. Commonly called by the workers "the stone bugs", the first fossils were discovered on

Mount Stephen Mount Stephen, , is a mountain located in the Kicking Horse River Valley of Yoho National Park, km east of Field, British Columbia, Canada. The mountain was named in 1886 for George Stephen, the first president of the Canadian Pacific Railw ...

.Richard McConnell, of the Geological Survey of Canada, was mapping the geology around the railway in September 1886 and was pointed to the Mount Stephen

trilobite Trilobites (; meaning "three lobes") are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. Trilobites form one of the earliest-known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the ...

beds by a construction worker. Source: Collins, D. (Aug 2009). "Misadventures in the Burgess Shale". ''Nature'' 460 (7258): 952. doi:10.1038/460952a. ISSN 0028-0836. . In 1909,

Charles D. Walcott Charles Doolittle Walcott (March 31, 1850February 9, 1927) was an American paleontologist, administrator of the Smithsonian Institution from 1907 to 1927, and director of the United States Geological Survey.Wonderful Life (book) by Stephen Jay Go ...

discovered the Walcott Quarry on the slope of Mount Field.

References

External links

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Field.ca - Information for people traveling to Field and Yoho National ParkFieldbc.ca - Community website and history of the townFriends of Yoho - The Friends of Yoho National Park Society promote appreciation, understanding and stewardship of the ecology and culture of Yoho National ParkBC Archives Photo: Mount Stephen Hotel and CPR Station in Field, 1905
{{Canadian Rockies, state=collapsed Designated places in British Columbia Yoho National Park Unincorporated settlements in British Columbia Canadian Pacific Railway stations in British Columbia Columbia Country Populated places in the Columbia-Shuswap Regional District