B.C.’s first boat people

Duncan McLaren and Daryl Fedje, researchers with UVic and the Hakai Institute on Calvert Island off the coast of B.C., have discovered what could be the oldest human footprints in North America. The 29 footprints are in a 13,000-year-old layer of sediment on the Calvert Island shoreline and include a set that appears to belong to child. The find suggests that the first inhabitants of North America came from eastern Asia at a time of lower sea levels and probably travelled by boat.