Canada – Alberta – Drumheller

2019 JULY 4 —–

We decided to do a couples road trip to show our new sister-in-law some of the regional history and landscape. We started with Drumheller.

We met Allan & Bella in Airdrie, where they dropped their dog off with Megan. We then all jumped into our car and headed the hour and a half to Drumheller. It was raining quite hard, so a lot of the flat prairie with its endless fields were obscured. We came into Drumheller on highway 575, on the south side of the river. It is not the prettiest route into town, but Bella was still awestruck with the other-worldy landscape. The flat prairies gave way to deep canyons that are hidden until you start to descend into them.

The canyon walls show 72 million years of environmental history in their horizontal stripes. The lighter coloured soil is sandstone, indicating there were flowing rivers. The darker mudstone and coal beds prove this was once a flourishing subtropical wetland. (I don’t disagree that we are polluting the planet, but doesn’t this prove that northern Alberta was once warm? These canyons were formed by ice age glaciers. Maybe we are still coming out from that. Just saying…)

After a quick lunch we made a stop at Drumheller’s Little Church. It is a cute, doll-house looking building on the side of the road. It was built in 1991 by the inmates of the Drumheller medium security Institution. It even has some stained glass windows and a bell in the steeple. It boasts that it can seat 10,000 people – 6 at a time. We took some pictures with each of us standing at the pulpit, respecting the fact that it is a place of worship and meditation.

From the little church we headed to the Royal Tyrell Museum. In 1884 Joseph B. Tyrell came to this area in search of coal. What he found was a huge skull of the Albertosaurus. – Tyrannosaurus rex little cousin. Fossil hunters showed up in droves, as this was one of the richest dinosaur bone beds in the world.

The Royal Tyrell Museum opened in 1985 and was given “Royal” status in 1990. It has 130,000 fossils in a 11,200 sq m (121,000 sq ft) building. Only a third of the building is for fossils, the rest is paleontology research and learning centre. There are some wonderful programs for kids, which could explain the number of people there during the summer holidays. The exhibits go in chronological order, covering nearly 4 billion years of life on earth. I am sure the producers of horror, monster, and alien movies get their ideas from some of these weird creatures.

It was pouring rain when we arrived! There was a long queue to get tickets. We got soaked even though the queue quickly squished together and made room under the canopy to offer some protection from the down-pour. I have been the the Tyrell many times, but never with so many people. The place was packed. It made looking at the exhibits difficult and taking pictures almost impossible.

SIDE NOTE: I mention the rain a lot because we had had record amounts, getting 63% above average in the month of June. The average rainfall in June is 74 mm (2.9”) we got 117 mm (4.6”). July was more than double the average.

The highlight of the museum is the Dinosaur Hall which houses 40 mounted dinosaur skeletons. Tyrannosaurus rex, Albertosaurus, Stegosaurus, and Triceratops are the stars of the exhibit, but there are many, Many, MANY more. It is mind blowing to stand next to one of these huge reptiles and realize they once walked the earth. My whole foot is only as big as one of their toes.

We may not have lingered as much as usual, because of the crowds of people, but we did see enough that we felt satisfied when we left. I did manage to speak to a technician about a fossil a friend of ours showed me. I had taken a picture of it. The technician said it looked like a horse tooth (which seemed unlikely since the partial fossil is about 10 cm (4”) long). He said it was definitely a grass eating mammal tooth, maybe an elephant?? He said he could not be certain until he saw it. Could our friend bring it in? Not likely! Any fossil found after 1975 is deemed historical, etc. and has to be turned in. Our friend is not ready to part with it, and I will not divulge friend’s name or gender. Besides, it was found pre-1975, but I doubt that will matter if it were confiscated.

The rain died down to a drizzle so we walked up to the top of the hill across the road from the museum and took in the spectacular view. We took a few pictures so Bella could send them to her friends back home.

On the way back into town we stopped at the Homestead Antique Museum. It is a family owned museum and has over 10,000 artifacts. One of the owners said it is a full time job just to catalog the existing items, let alone the items that keep getting donated or purchased. Front and centre is a two headed calf. It died shortly after being born. It has two heads and two tails. I was told it has 2 backbones, as well. But only one bum (in case you are interested).

There were a variety of Victorian and Edwardian era clothes, including a wedding dress and veil. Among other oddities were a sardine server, a hands-free ashtray (built for a man with badly burned hands),

and a WWI silk embroidered postcard sent home by a GI to his wife.

There was a very thick book called the Great Historical Geographical and Poetical Dictionary Being a Curious Miscellany of Sacred and Prophane History. A long title for a big book! It was published in 1701. It was written at a time when “s” was printed as “f”.

There was a barbershop and a hairdresser shop, with a scary looking perm machine.

There were also a huge assortment of old farming items that brought me back to my childhood, like a cream separator and cream cans. The back of the museum had farm machinery and automobiles.

Just across the parking lot from the Antique Museum was a 1919 mail order house. Because of the lack of wood on the prairies, people could order a completer two-storey house out of the Eaton’s catalog. It now served as a coffee and gift shop. We had a coffee and homemade cinnamon buns – hot out of the oven with caramel poured on top. Yummy!

The rain had slowed right down, and we weren’t certain what the next day would bring, as far as weather, so we decided to head straight to the Hoodoos. It is about a 15-20 minute drive from Drumheller. Hoodoos are sandstone pillars sandwiched between layers of shale. The shale base holds them down while the protective shale cap looks like a pancake resting on top. The pillars are 5-7 metres (16-23 ft) high. It has taken millions of years to form these weird formations. There are metal pathways and railings to take you around them, as they are very fragile. Once again, Bella was dumbstruck by these natural beauties.

We made a quick stop at the Rosedale Suspension Bridge. It is 117 metres (384 ft) long. Originally, coal mined on the opposite side of the river was hauled across by aerial cable to a tipple where it was sorted, sized and loaded into boxcars. In the 1930s the CPR extended their line to the mine entrance, thus eliminating the need for the aerial tramway. It was converted to a swinging bridge for the miners to cross to get to work. Since the mine closed in 1957 the bridge remains as a tourist attraction and commemoration of those mining years.­ Bella and I walked to the opposite side and back. It is kind of creepy to walk on a swinging metal slats and chain link sides just metres above the swift flowing Red Deer River.

We headed back into Drumheller and stopped at the Fossil Shop. It was a small shop that looked more like a private home; I think the owners did live in the back. It was full of expensive fossils, big and small. Some fossils were made into household ornaments – sea fossils jutting out from their stone entombment’s. Allan had been there before, so the shopkeeper gave him a discount on his purchase. We also got the discount because we were with him. Sweet. We bought a couple of white agate stones.

Next door to the Fossil Shop was the Athens Greek Restaurant. The food and service were amazing. I highly recommend it.

We spent the nights at the Badlands Motel. The next morning we had breakfast at their attached restaurant. They had a toy train that circled the restaurant above our heads. It was fun to watch while we waited for our food.

We left Drumheller, taking Highway 56 north – in the opposite direction of our destination – only to show Bella the prettiest road leading into town. We drove north, then made a U-turn and headed back into town. She got the full experience of going from flat, flat prairie into the Badlands. She asked me for a rubber band – to keep her mouth shut from going WOW. LOL.

We left Drumheller and began our 3 hour drive to Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump. (Yes, it is a real place!)