Focus on Dinosaur Provincial Park, where they unearth and identify fossils, and the Royal Tyrrell Museum, in Drumheller, where the most impressive finds are prepared and displayed. These include a massive skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus rex and more than 30 others of critters that roamed, flew or swam 65 million years ago in what is now Alberta.
Adults get a kick out of this, but it’s the kids who really revel in it.
Images: Visiting Dinosaur Provincial Park
Images: Top dinosaur destinations
Brad Tucker, the park’s visitor services co-ordinator, told me that next to palaeontologists, the people who study prehistoric life, seven-year-olds are the experts.
I got an inkling the previous day at the Royal Tyrrell when rain prevented me from doing a fossil hunt called Dinosite.
The alternative was Fossil Casting. This put me in a room with 17 youngsters, roughly 6 to 13, who proceeded to show how much they knew about T-Rex and his pals and, by extension, how much I didn’t.
One little gaffer correctly identified the “very famous dinosaur around these parts," (Albertasaurus); another gave a decent definition of palaeontology (“a dinosaur dig-up"). All excelled at getting dirty making plaster casts they could take home as a souvenir.
Another program, Secrets of the Lost Quarry, had youngsters form teams to solve a mystery. Arm-waving and yelling answers appeared to be mandatory.
Armed with tweezers and a magnifying glass, two young brothers from Leduc and I had great fun picking through a box of fossilized remains, pebbles, brass buttons and scraps of old newspaper.
The museum’s only 90 minutes from Calgary airport and attracts thousands a day in summer, so advance registration for programs is advised. Visit tyrrellmuseum.com.
Meal tip: WHIFS, in the nearby Badlands Motel, has tasty food and a model train network covering the ceiling.
It’s two hours to Dinosaur Provincial Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, via the Hoodoo Trail — Hwy. 10.
The landscape in the Red Deer River Valley is weird — rock hills with layered bands of glacial till, mudstone, bentonite (which locals call “dinosaur snot’’), sandstone, coal and ironstone. You pass hoodoos, pillars of sandstone capped by erosion-resistant rock so they resemble giant mushrooms, and the Atlas Coal Mine Museum, which offers a variety of tours.
Hwy. 10 climbs from the valley to a plain so lacking in features it was easy to spot wildlife. I saw pheasants, deer, a prong-horn antelope, and lots of gophers. Watch for domestic bison at tiny Patricia, just outside the park.
The Badlands are usually so hot in summer that a bus tour of the park is recommended. But the rain that had hit the Royal Tyrrell had caused flash flooding in the park. The campground had been evacuated and any hope of a bus tour washed away.
Plan B was a tour of the laboratory where fossils the palaeontologists have identified are taken for minor preparatory work before being shipped to the Royal Tyrrell.
The park offers several outdoor programs. Bonebed 30 Guided Excavations sounded particularly exciting because participants help excavate for real fossils. It’s offered weekends in July and August and is limited to six persons.
Several escorted hikes are available. Brad Tucker says there are some places where fossils are so plentiful “you can’t avoid stepping on them."
Tucker also encourages visitors to explore on their own, following trails where he says they’re likely to spot “really good fossils." Visit dinosaurpark.ca.
Meal tip: Customers barbecue their own steaks and burgers inside the Patricia Hotel, a saloon. An eight-ounce rib eye is $16. The server/bartender said the best part was never hearing a complaint about how the meat was cooked.
For more information, see canadianbadlands.com.
Nissan Chooses Pre-Construction Contractor for New Battery PlantNisga’a invest to boost tourism
