Experience The Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum
Photo Courtesy Travel Alberta & Mike Seehagel
Photo Courtesy Travel Alberta, Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum & Sean Trostem
The hunt for dinosaurs in Wembley, AB, about a 20 min drive west of Grande Prairie, started back in 1974 when schoolteacher and amateur fossil collector Al Lakusta discovered the Pipestone Creek dinosaur bone bed. The Pipestone Creek is shallow and meandering today, often drying up in the heat of the summer, 75 million years ago it was a turbulent torrent racing through a land of active volcanoes and large hulking dinosaurs. A flash flood swept thousands of these lumbering giants downriver. Here their carcasses jammed up in a bend in the river, eventually becoming fossilised skeletons melding into the landscape. While out for a walk one day with a friend, Lakusta discovered a seam of fossilized bones in the creek, including the remains of what was eventually recognised as a new species of dinosaur, officially christened Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai in honour of his find. In 1986, Dr. Philip J. Currie, Alberta’s, and arguably Canada’s, pre-eminent palaeontologist launched an official excavation of Pipestone Creek. Due to the density of bones here, up to 100 bones per square metre, this site was recognized as one of the richest in Canada. In addition to unearthing hundreds of Pachyrhinosaurus bones, Dr. Currie and his colleagues at the University of Alberta have
Photo Courtesy Lloyd Dykstra
discovered bones from the carnivorous theropods, preditory tyrannosaurs, armoured nodosaurs, marine plesiosaurs, duckbilled hadrosaurs, and flying pterosaurs. The bone bed is almost the size of a football field so many more fossils and their mysteries have yet to be discovered. One well-preserved hadrosaur fossil caused a stir in 2013 as it contained “mummified” head crest skin impressions from the duck-billed Edmontosaurus regalis - this fossil confirmed for the first time the existence of a ‘cockscomb’ or a fleshy head crest. In March 2016, Boreonykus certekorum, a new raptor (dromaeosaur), was described by Dr. Currie and Dr. Phil Bell. Given the value of the Pipestone Creek bone bed to the world of palaeontology, it became apparent that a new museum was needed to appropriately house and display the fossil finds. A site was chosen in Wembley, AB. Inaugurated in September of 2015, the Philip J. Currie (PJC) Dinosaur Museum features extensive gallery spaces, two classrooms, the 60-seat Aykroyd Family Theater, named for actor and museum supporter Dan Aykroyd and his family, research and collections areas, the Dine-O-Saur restaurant, the Kaleidosaur gift shop, an outdoor discovery fossil walk and large outdoor playground. In addition to regularly changing exhibits that focus on regional collectors
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