Dinosaur Dreams and Stories –Past and Now

Until I moved to Alberta, dinosaurs never dented my consciousness.

World’s Biggest Museum Dedicated to Dinosaurs
It was not until a few years ago I accompanied a sister’s family to dinosaur excavation and research hub, at the Royal Tyrell Museum of Palaeontology

Sign in Alberta’s Badlands enroute to museum. Drumheller, AB 2012. Photo by J.Chong

in Drumheller. It’s in Canada’s Badlands where the dinosaurs roamed or swam and now, where some bones and fossil rocks have been excavated over the decades.

Prehistoric mantee flipper. Royal Tyrell Museum, Drumheller AB 2012. Photo by J.Chong

It’s the biggest museum in the world devoted to just palaeontology or dinosaurs. Given the reality it sits in dinosaur bones rich part of the world.

Royal Tyrell Museum. Drumheller, AB 2012. Photo by J.Chong

Until one drops by the museum in the windswept, dry rocky area, there is no real clue that there is an international facility of dinosaur research.

Horse Thief Canyon, by Dinosaur Trail. Geological formations give it Canada’s Badlands where prehistoric bones and fossils have been found. Drumheller, AB 2012. Photo by J.Chong. Locals do camp in this area. Summer temperatures can be hot and dry –ie. over 35 degrees C.

Evidence of monstrous dinsosaurs long ago. Royal Tyrell Museum, Drumheller AB 2012.

The kitschy towering dinosaur model towering over 3 stories high, distracts from the serious matter of cleaning, identifying the skeletons and fossils with ugly machines and researchers with face masks.

Three-storey high dinosaur towers in tiny Drumheller where visitors can walk up stairs for a view. 2012. Photo by J.Chong

Horse Thief Canyon. Dinosaur Trail. Drumheller, Alberta 2012. Photo by J.Chong

Then later with newspaper reports here and there, of recent dinosaur skeleton discoveries, it makes more sense.  Like northern in the oil tar sands, where an oil worker unearthed another one in 2011 near Fort McMurray.

Certain areas of Alberta are rich in prehistoric bones and fossils. Area millions of years ago a tropical and also a sea.

The museum does have truly stunning exhibits of these prehistoric skeletal creatures lumbering across what was a tropical, even buried sea area in prairie  Alberta.  There is even a dinosaur specific to the area, named by the scientists as the Albertasaurus.

One of the larger models excavated. Royal Tyrell Museum, Drumheller 2012. Photo by J.Chong

Rock fossils display long gone underwater reef life. Royal Tyrell Museum, Drumheller 2012. Photo by J.Chong

Metal sculpture of dinsosaur graces a park by a bike-pedestrian path at a science educational centre. Calgary, AB 2019. Photo by J.Chong

Can’t Resist Claiming Dinosaur Heritage
So no wonder, Alberta does claim its dino heritage. Like the dinosaur metal art sculpture outside the Telus Spark Science Centre out in Nose Creek Park in Calgary.  Anyone who bike commutes daily through the park, sees this friendly hulking creature frozen, in the urban linear park by the children’s playground.

Prehistoric Jefferson Sloth was discovered in Alberta. Royal Museum of Alberta, Edmonton 2018. Photo by J.Chong

Smaller skeleton on right, depicts a prehistoric camel that roamed western part of Canada millions of years ago. Royal Museum of Alberta, Edmonton 2018. Photo by J.Chong

Or at the newly retrofitted Royal Museum of Alberta (RAM), where a few rooms were dedicated to dinosaur models. Wonder what other subject matter artifacts the RAM had to sequestered in the warehouse archives in order to showcase dinosaur models as a crowd magnet, especially those with children.

Ammomite is Alberta’s provincial stone. Its origins is petrified wood. Jewellery is made from the stone but not seen often as worn by locals. Royal Museum of Alberta 2018. Photo by J.Chong

Towering prehistoric models impress visitors. Royal Museum of Alberta 2018.

Amazingly even at the government of Alberta’s website, it instructs people not to sell any discovered fossils in their hikes, that they must fill out a form and submit it to disclose this. There must be enough fossil rock lying around.

Dinosaur metal art sculpture — a permanent fixture by Telus Spark Science Centre. Calgary AB 2019. Photo by J.Chong

Fiery mechanical dragon-dinosaur at the annual Beakershead, a mash-up festival of science, engineering and art. Calgary, AB 2017. Photo by J.Chong

You wouldn’t guess across some of the dull flat prairies and into the badlands hinterland, there is such mine of fossils and dinosaur stories waiting to be unearthed.