Dinosaur_hoax

Jeff Green | Apr 13, 2006

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Dinosaur hoax

An April Fool’s article in the News (Dinosaur bones discovered near Fernleigh vol. 6 no.14 March 30) has led to a steady stream of traffic to the home of Bernie Duhamel in Fernleigh.

The article claimed, falsely, that Bernie’s carving was a real dinosaur that had been discovered on his property.

“Most of the people have come from the local area, but others have come from further away, from as far away as Belleville , and they don’t always believe it when we tell them the article in the paper was a hoax, and the dinosaur is actually a carving.”

It all started when Bernie Duhamel decided to do a bit of a project for his grandson, who is a dinosaur fan.

So, Bernie began working out how to carve a dinosaur head out of wood, using tools in his shop and spruce and some hardwood that was at hand. Once he had carved the head Bernie moved on to the body. The final design of the dinosaur carving wasn’t exactly based on archaeological drawings but Bernie didn’t completely make it up.

“My grandson’s got some dinosaur books that we keep here for when he visits,” Bernie recalls, “so I had a look at them and adjusted for what would be easier to build.”

Bernie is probably going to leave the dinosaur carving on his front lawn for the summer, because it is so popular with kids. But he wants people to know that it is a carving and there is no dinosaur genus by the name of Stegafernicus.