Charles Richard Harrington

Background Information Born on May 22, 1933 in Calgary, Alberta Grew up in Gloucester, Ontario He started university in an arts program Spent his summers in officer training in the Royal Canadian Navy Reserve became more interested in his geologist roommate's work than his own Completed a Bachelor of Arts specializing in philosophy Figure 1 - Charles Harrington Then got a Bachelor of Science specializing in physical geography and zoology This led to a year-long job in 1957 as a weather observer on Ellesmere Island He found muskoxen to be particularly interesting. He wondered how they had become adapted to their rigorous arctic environment and who their ancestors were master's degree in zoology and physical geography in 1961 He found that the muskoxen are descendants of a sheep-like animal that lived in Asia several million years ago When the last ice age came, they spread into the northern tundra, where they live today In 1965 he took a job at the National Museum (now the Canadian Museum of Nature) as the Curator of Quaternary Zoology. o Quaternary zoology is the study of ice-age animals For most of the next 30 years, he spent his summers in the Yukon and Nunavut hunting fossils his winters in Ottawa at the museum cataloguing his finds and publishing the results He collected about 40,000 specimens. He received his doctorate, specializing in vertebrate paleontology His fossil discoveries include: Contact Information: o Yukon ice age (2 million to 10,000 years ago) 240 McLeod Street o mammals such as woolly mammoths Ottawa, Ontario K2P 2R1 o American lions Canada o scimitar cats o western camels o giant beavers o extinct forms of muskoxen o the earliest humans in Canada - a unique arctic Pliocene (about 4 million years old) Harington officially retired from his long and varied career in 1998, but still works at the Canadian Museum of Nature in his role as Curator Emeritus of Quaternary Zoology and as Research Associate Honours BA, (Philosophy) University of Alberta, Edmonton, 1954 BSc, (Geography and Zoology) University of Alberta, Edmonton, 1957 Canadian Association of Geographers Prize, 1957 MSc, (Geography and Zoology) McGill University, Montreal, 1961 PhD, (Vertebrate Paleontology) University of Alberta, Edmonton, 1977 Massey Medal (Royal Canadian Geographical Society), 1987 Meritorious Service Award (Yukon Government), 1998 Officer of the Order of Canada, 2001 Current Research Works at Canadian Museum of Nature as Curator Emeritus of Quaternary Zoology and as Research Associate o Researches animals from the ice age o Looks at fossils and determines how the organism evolved o Examining the relationship between the artic specimens and purity of water (Schering, 2011).