HEAVEN OF EARTH FOR EIGHT-YEAR OLD KIDS- DRUMHELLER ND THE ROYAL TYRRELL MUSEUM OF PALEONTOLOGY

Location:
Canada

Dinosaurs, kids, Alberta Badlands

By Bruce Menin

HEAVEN ON EARTH FOR EIGHT-YEAR OLD KIDS-

DRUMHELLER AND THE ROYAL TYRRELL MUSEUM OF PALEONTOLOGY

If a heaven on earth for eight-year old kids exists, you’ll probably find it in and around Drumheller, Alberta. The town is an entry point to the Albertan Badlands, which resemble the Badlands of South Dakota, except that they are farther north, of course. The scenery alone is worth the drive. The kids did occasionally glance up from their game-boys in wonder, which says a lot.

Coming from Calgary, you glide through rolling prairies until very suddenly the hillsides literally melt away, and the striated bands of sedimentary rock that have been exposed by seventy million years of wind, glaciers and water appear. The transformation is magical- literally occurring within a mile of the highway exit.

Psychologists and parents agree that a dialogue with an eight-year old explaining the metaphor of the journey itself as the most important part of a trip is a non-starter. If you stuff kids in the car in the summer heat, you need a destination worth arriving at.

That destination is Drumheller, home of the worlds largest fabricated T-Rex, dominating the town skyline and nearly six stories high. For a fee, you can climb up inside that T-Rex, peering out of its open jaws and foot long teeth. Your reward is a panoramic view of Drumheller, and a photo op even the kids will pose for. Better yet, just below Godzilla, the town provides a free wading pool and a small water park, perfect for cooling off, running around and water-blasting your siblings with under-powered water-cannons. On virtually every street corner of the town there are half to quarter size models of dinosaurs-- saurians, allosaurs, iguanadons, hadrosaurs. Fossil shops abound (most of the fossils sold are from China; the area is a National Park which prohibits the removal of anything you find but garbage). There is even a Dinosaur Trail Golf Course, along one of two Dinosaur Trails that cut through the town and head up into the Badlands.

Drumheller is as obsessed with dinosaurs as most eight-year old boys. Since the 1884 discovery by geologist Joseph Tyrrell of a large carnivorous dinosaur skull, the Badlands surrounding the town have been among the most consistently productive sites for fossil recovery in North America. Dinosaurs, reptiles, petrified wood, turtles; all inhabited the area at the very end of the Cretaceous period, approximately 70 million years ago.

The jewel/kid magnet of the area is the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, about 6 KM from the town center. The Museum opened in 1985, and is one of the finest paleontology research centers in the world, and the only one located in Canada.

It stores over 120,000 individual specimens. 2,000 new “specimens” arrive every year: mostly put into storage, leaving about 45,000 foot of actual gallery space. That’s a lot of dinosaurs.

“We have a lot of hadrosaurs in storage, so we trade with other museums,” I was told by a guide. I found the idea of paleontologists swapping skeletons like so many baseball cards charming.

The Museum is managed by Canadians. Those who have had contact with Canadians know that they are, well, so darned Canadian. They are ridiculously nice people, civil, always helpful, and rarely uptight. There are no security guards telling kids, “Don’t touch it!” As a parent familiar with that phrase, I was delighted at the Museum’s educational focus and commitment to open, accessible and natural exhibits.

The Museum also runs impressive educational programs geared towards kids and adults, such as hikes, excavations, plaster-casting fossils, and all kinds of workshops. Register in advance; the Tyrrell gets about 300,000 visitors a year.

The exhibits alternate between fragile displays behind glass and huge dinosaur skeletons “in action” (some eating each other, to the delight of the progeny). Kids can actually touch some of these displays. It’s a sensory smorgasbord for eight-year olds; the only thing missing is ice cream, which is thankfully available at the cafeteria.

The full, convoluted gallery space is breathtaking, creatively designed to move you nearly sequentially through exhibits telling the story of life’s evolution on earth. Entering, you weave between five “life-sized” Albertasauria, (Tyrrell’s discovery) fording a Cretaceous stream. You then follow a marked path that moves chronologically through the time-line of life, finishing with a small display of Ice Age mammals.

Don’t miss the Cretaceous Garden, a winding path through a hothouse containing about 600 plants found in the lusher Drumheller of 70 million years ago; and a stunning exhibit of the 500 million year old Burgess Shale, which have yielded over 200,000 new ancient fossils documenting the beginning of life in the sea. It is a darkened room with an audio soundtrack that describes the life forms, enlarged and suspended behind clear plastic in front, above, behind and below you, lit up as each is described.

Look for quirky, informative videos stationed along the timeline, adding more information and laughter your experience.

We combined two days looking at exhibits and a half-day kids program; we could’ve easily spent another day gawking. We barely scratched the surface of the surrounding kitsch in the town and there-abouts.

The kids were thrilled and delighted. Remember, if the kids aren’t happy on a two-week vacation, ain’t nobody happy.

Further Information

Other helpful information: For those with eclectic tastes and a non-judgmental approach to life, the whole area around Drumheller is a unique combination of breathtaking natural panoramas and delightful kitsch. The T-Rex climb is a must (when was the last time you saw black-lights used to illuminate wall drawings); within 15 km of the town is an old coal mine that is being brought back on-line as an educational center, a ghost town (kinda disappointing- although the picnic area, oddly enough, is a bench near an old town cemetery; the names of the interred tell the story of political immigration to the area, and the waves of epidemics that took children). There is a tea-house, an old school house, and a church that seats eight people at a time, and a creaky suspension bridge. Always, astonishing views; and at every

stop outside of the town, once you've been taught to "prospect" for fossils, you find them littered about.

It's Badlands, folks. Hot. I might say damned hot in the summer, with very little shade. Don't wander off on your own in the hills around the museum, and have lots of water with you.

Book your hikes and kids programs before you go (on-line or call them 403 823 7707, www.tyrrellmuseum.com).

Relatively inexpensive and comfortable accommodations can be found in the area, again, if you go in the summer, book ahead. The cafe is a tad pricey, but the gift shop is wicked great. Lots of stuff that the kinds will discover they can't live without.

Also, if you get the pass, visit the Museum early in the day, and then come back after 5 (it's open til 9 PM in the summer)- much less crowded, and greatly enhanced ability to really look at what the museum has to offer.

Must see/do at this place: We wished we'd given more time to the going through the exhibits at the Museum, even though we spent two days there. The best deal is the two day family pass. I'd encourage visitors to read Gould's "Wonderful Life", about the Burgess Shale before visiting to give you a better appreciation of what a revelation the shale has been. Also, the prep lab, where the paleontologists are actually working on the dinosaur and mammal fossils and bones, has large windows, encouraging visitors to watch as the work is being done. Probably the most visitor friendly museum we've ever been to.

You should avoid here: Only Mad Dogs and Englishman go Out in the Mid-day Sun. Plan your Schedule accordingly; the hikes offered by the Museum into the surrounding Badlands are a must do, they aren't that strenuous, but the 4 PM hike during July is the hottest, least shady hike of all. And do remember, that Canada enacted it's specimen collection laws in 1973; what that means is that very few of the fossils sold in the stores around Drumheller come from the Drumheller area. Most are actually from China.