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

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.

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.

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.


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.


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.

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.



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.


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.


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.


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.
Super cool! I’ve loved dinosaurs since I was a kid, fascinated by them, what happened to them, etc. Another reason to hit up Canada! The largest in the world? Nice…
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I actually never paid attention to dinosaurs when I was a kid. I wish we had spent more time in the badlands, but it was just a day trip and it was nearly 38 degrees C that day.
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Very interesting museum! My husband would love it.
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Jean, this looks like the perfect museum for dinosaur fans. The Badlands contains some of the finest collections of dinosaur bones in the world, and I look forward to vistiing the Canadian side. ~James
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And make sure to drop by Banff National Park. Also Yoho National Park is right by the British Columbian border after Banff.
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What a lovely exhibit, Jean. That is amazing the Royal Tyrell Museum of Palaeontology is the largest museum on dinosaurs. It never occurred to me Canada was probably one the places home to many dinosaurs. The dinosaur towers must be massive for people to climb up and stick their heads out of the dinosaur’s head. I wonder how often to people over there find fossils on the ground while out hiking. I know I’ve never come across such as thing and if I did, I’d be sure to turn it to the nearest research facility.
Also this post reminded me of the Jurassic Park movies I watched over and over again when I was much younger.
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I wasn’t much into dinosaurs when I was a kid. Like Australia, CAnada has huge tracts of wilderness and some diverse geological/topographical formations (except we might have way more tundra and snow)..places where once upon a time, dinsosurs might have roamed.
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When I think of Canada, I do think of its wilderness and tall lush trees. And also cold and snow for most part of the year.
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Right now, cold and snow is a frequent reminder. 🙂 Merry Christmas, Mabel!
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I really like your blog. A pleasure to come stroll on your pages. A great discovery and very interesting blog. I come back to visit you. Do not hesitate to visit my universe. A soon.
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