Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Beasts
Posted on July 9, 2008
Filed Under From the road |
Posted by Sierra
It is easy to think that the Royal Tyrrell Museum only tells about dinosaurs. It is located in Drumheller, Alberta, which is about as dinosaury as it gets. Around town are a ton of dinos, and the world’s largest dinosaur, who is 84 feet, lives in town (more about him later).
But the museum tells about other prehistoric creatures, too. The RTM has 14 exhibit halls, along with a gift shop, auditorium, learning centre, cafeteria, and other necessary museum areas. The rooms follow what is called an “exhibit tour” and is like a guided tour, except you don’t have to have a guide. The tour starts in some small rooms with a few dinosaur skeletons, reproductions, and fossils. One of these is a room about different paleontologists with recordings about their finds and theories. Just off of this sit two triangular stations, each with three—here comes the good part—games. These include:
* A game in which different-colored butterflies light up in a “field” of flowers, which are also lit up. The player must try to hit the butterflies.
* A Tetris game, in which one must create rows to move on to different periods. As one enters each period, a computer voice reads information about the period out loud.
* A game where you move an air hockey puck over different hidden spots that make sounds (such as a not-so-pleasant “ROAR!”) and show information about that particular spot.
Moving on, you enter a tunnel back in time to things like the long-lost Devonian Reef of the sea. The exhibit about the Devonian Reef has a diorama of the reef, which has interesting plants, animals, and organisms in a case that has multiple one-way mirrors. To quote myself, “Why are there carrots in the exhibit?” To quote Mom, “Ha ha. Those happen to be cephalopods, not carrots.” Me again, “I knew that. I was just testing you.”
From the Devonian Reef, the tour continues down winding stairs back to the first floor (though it’s nearly impossible to tell you’re even on the second floor). There the exhibit starts to delve into land animals. Off of the land animal hall, there is the skeleton of the “Triassic Giant,” which was discovered in northeastern British Columbia. It was the largest water creature ever discovered and took forever to excavate. The excavation was led by the late Betsy Nicholls, a museum curator. It is huge so the museum staff had trouble displaying the whole thing. When we were there it wasn’t completely put together. Instead, the blackish-bluish parts only filled up part of the shape on the floor, on which the full shape is painted. The giant is only a temporary summer exhibit, however.
Off of the Triassic Giant exhibit is the Cretaceous Garden. It has modern-day plants and is, well … pretty much like a leafy garden nowadays. Also off of the Triassic Giant exhibit is the Dinosaur Hall, which has lots of skeletons and fossils, big and small. It is bigger than most of the other rooms and takes a while to get through. Within the hall itself is a small room about the now-dried up Bearpaw Sea and the creatures in it. It has models of some of the animals from the sea.
A small corridor leads into the Age of Mammals. It begins by telling of the meteor that many people believe killed the dinosaurs. Then the exhibit delves into the last great ice age. Though these skeletons are not as impressive as the ones at the Beringia Interpretive Centre (see: Ice Age, Explained by Sierra), they are interesting. The ice age exhibit leads to the gift shop (whoopee).
Overall, the Royal Tyrrell Museum is nice, but before you leave Drumheller, why not hike on the interpretive trail outside of the museum, where you can see prehistoric things and admire the beauty of the strangely named BADlands. Then get in your car and drive to the world’s largest dinosaur. You can walk up a very long flight of stairs to the top for $3 a person. The view is phenomenal. Walking up is also fascinating. There are a number of bones, fossils, and murals in and on the walls.
If you see and do these activities in Drumheller, I guarantee you will leave feeling satisfied.
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It’s great to see what you’re doing these days. Beats the hell out of working on the copy desk!