It was created in 1967 by the donation of the land by the late Gordon Harvey (1913–1976) to protect fossil beds on the east side of Driftwood Creek.

Paleontological and geological studies of similar deposits to Driftwood Canyon occurring to the east and further south in the interior of British Columbia go back to work carried out by George Mercer Dawson and John William Dawson in the 1870s to 1890s as part of the survey of British Columbia for the Geological Survey of Canada,[4] and D.P.

[8][9][10][11][12] In 2010 the interpretive trail was redeveloped by BC Parks, in partnership with the Bulkley Valley Naturalists, and the Smithers Rotary Club and funded by the Canadian Federal Government, BC Parks, the Wetzin’kwa Community Forest, and the National Trails Coalition.

[13] A new bridge over Driftwood Creek was built, a new wheel-chair accessible trail constructed, and new signage put in place.

A short interpretive trail leads visitors to a cliff-face exposure of Eocene shales that were deposited in an inter-montane lake.

Preserved within the shale formations are plant, animal and insect species that inhabited the area over 50 million years ago.

The Princeton Chert fossil beds in southern British Columbia are also Eocene, but primarily preserve an aquatic plant community.

[14] The insects are particularly diverse and well preserved, and include water striders (Gerridae), aphids (Aphididae), leaf hoppers (Cicadellidae), green lacewings (Neuroptera), spittle bugs (Cercopidae), march flies (Bibionidae), scorpionflies (Mecoptera), fungus gnats (Mycetophilidae), snout beetles (Curculionidae), and ichneumon wasps.

[8][15][16][17] A fossil species of green lacewing (Neuroptera, Chrysopidae) was in 2013 named Pseudochrysopa harveyi to honour the founder of the park, Gordon Harvey.

Heptodon) and hedgehog relative named Sivacola acares (which means small forest dweller), the first Eocene North American records of these animals outside of Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic or Colorado and Wyoming.