Jurassic Canada
The world’s best collection of Dinosaur skeletons Updated June 2022
Most people think of Canada as a land of ice and snow, but if you explore a bit, you will find some surprises.
In the Canadian Arctic is the world’s smallest desert. Just one kilometre across (0.62 mile). Story and photos here.
Another surprise is the Canadian Badlands. Badlands are a dry area where severe erosion of soft rock has created canyons, hoodoos and other rugged rock formations.
In addition to creating the badlands, this erosion has revealed the preserved skeletons of hundreds of Dinosaurs.
The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology
The Royal Tyrell Museum has the best collection of dinosaur skeletons in the world. Their collection comes from the nearby badlands and totals more than 130,000 fossils.
The museum is located near the town of Drumheller, which is 135 km (84 mi) east of Calgary, Alberta.
Here you can get up close and personal with real specimens of Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stegosaurus (photo above), Triceratops, Albertosaurus and many others.
There is even a Nichollssaura Borealis, which was a marine Dinosaur. The skeleton is complete except for one limb lost during discovery by a large excavator.
Camarasaurus
Dimetrodon
The Dunkleosteus was a massive armoured fish 10 metres in length (32 feet 9.7 inches) and weighing as much as three elephants. Good thing a fisherman does not have to worry about catching one of these today. It would pull him in and have him for a snack.
Meet the Mammoth. An oversized relative of the elephant that roamed North America during the Ice Age.
Triceratops
The Lab
You can also peek into the preparation lab, where technicians clean newly-found Dinosaur bones.
Best in the World
This is just a tiny sample of the many displays at the Royal Tyrrell Museum. They even have a Nodosaur, which is 110 million years old and is the best-preserved Dinosaur of its kind, including the skin and insides. Many museums around the world have dinosaur skeletons. Many of them come from here. The Tyrannosaurus rex in the Museum of Natural History in New York, for example, is from here. So if you like Dinosaurs, you need to go to this museum.
Links
Tickets must be purchased online in advance. This is an extremely popular museum, and walk-in admission is limited. Click here
The Badlands
There is also a post on this website about hiking in the badlands. Click here.