WALHALLA, N.D.-Think back to your favorite summer vacation. Is it somewhere like Wisconsin Dells, Medora, the Black Hills?

How about the Pembina Gorge, just a few miles from Walhalla, North Dakota? Near the Canadian border in a place where forests give way to grassland, the gorge is a place unlike any other in the state as more and more people are discovering the fascinating fossil digs going on there, making discoveries of giant sea creatures that swam the inland sea that covered this area millions of years ago.

"Think of us sitting in the shallow part of Gulf of Mexico, really warm and shallow, only a few tens of feet deep," said Clint Boyd, North Dakota paleontologist. "Lots of life and fish and reptiles and creatures that were wandering around at the time."

"On the eastern side of the state, most of what we have is glacial, but here in the Pembina Gorge the river has cut down through the glacial and exposed the rocks so you can get down to them," Boyd said.

On a foggy summer morning, paleontologists with the North Dakota Geological Survey spend a few moments with tourists who have come here from across the country to find their fossils.

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"So it is just a matter of finding a place to dig," said Becky Barnes, North Dakota paleontologist. "Just keeping your way through the table and checking these pieces and kicking them behind you."

"It is fun, like when you are a little kid and digging a hole to China in your backyard, but for adults," said one of the fossil diggers.

"Plenty of sand pits in the back yard," Barnes said.

Think of the natural history these fossil hunters are working around. Layer after layer, the further down you go, the further back in time you go.

"We are literally rescuing these things the moment before they are destroyed. In terms of how long they have been here, the last split second before they are destroyed, swooping in and rescuing everything you can," Boyd said.

"Just sifting your hands through this mud, it is old mud. It feels good," said Diego Hernandez-Black, a fossil hunter.

Diego Hernandez-Black from California found a perfectly preserved fish vertebrae.

"I thought I found a funny rock, but it is a bone," Hernandez-Black said.

"Neuro-canal runs through there and so the spinal cord there. Nice, mid size fish," Barnes said.

"Now I can say I found an 80-million year old fish bone in the ground. That is pretty cool," said Hernandez-Black.

Layer after layer, the fossil hunter carefully peeled back the past.

"This is an articulation surface, probably the upper arm bone of a mosasaur, instead of full arms, they have a squat flipper," Boyd said.

The prize find? The mosasaur. The alpha predator, a fearsome reptile that ruled the seaway.

"They are like a komodo dragon, except they have flippers instead of feet, but they have a hinged jaw like a snake so you don't have to let go of their prey, you just conveyor belt them into your mouth," Boyd said.

Some wow moments, like this mosasaur jawbone.

"Found right up that hill," Barnes said.

80-million years old.

"So we have this propped up on a cradle, it is so fragile that if we leave them out, they will actually crush themselves under their own weight," Barnes said.

So many who came on the dig were shocked at the beauty here and the fact they could actually play paleontologist.

What else lurked out there so many millions of years ago? These secrets of the sea, North Dakota fossil hunters hope to uncover and preserve.

The paleontologists will spend the winter in the lab, cleaning the fossils and making them part of the exhibit at the Heritage Center in Bismarck.

To be a part of the public dig next summer, contact the North Dakota Geological Survey.