Dinosaur Provincial Park

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Like Drumheller, Dinosaur Provincial Park is hidden in the valley, up to 100 metres deep, of the Red Deer River. Shortly after the sign in the picture above, the road plunges to the 27km stretch of park, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Digging began here in the 1880s, and since then more than 300 top-quality dinosaur skeletons have been found, a greater concentration than anywhere else on earth. (Parks Canada has a nice, simple explanation if you’re wondering why this is.) The skeletons can be found in about 30 museums world-wide, the biggest number in the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology which we had visited a few days before, so it was an interesting follow-up to see where they came from. The park’s Visitor Centre also has some impressive specimens, as well as other exhibits, and is worth spending time in. One of the dinosaurs appeared to have escaped outside 😉

Dinosaur skeleton
Escaped dinosaur?
Dinosaur skeleton

Most of the park is out-of-bounds unless you are on a pre-booked guided tour. We hadn’t been organised enough to arrange this, so we stuck to the five self-guided trails along the 3km public loop road. It was enough! We spent all day admiring the views and amazing rock formations.

Park entrance overlook
Park entrance overlook
Park entrance overlook
Coulee Viewpoint Trail
Coulee Viewpoint Trail
Coulee Viewpoint Trail
Coulee Viewpoint Trail
Coulee Viewpoint Trail
Coulee Viewpoint Trail
Coulee Viewpoint Trail
Badlands Trail

We also spotted a little bit of flora and fauna. The area near the river was much more lush than the rest of the park, and several times we saw deer peering up at the weird humans scrambling about the arid rocks.

Deer
Cottonwood Flats Trail
On the Cottonwood Flats Trail

And – that was it! The end of our vacation. The next day, we packed up and headed for Calgary Airport and the long journey home. We had a great time in Canada, and I’ve enjoyed reliving it through blogging. Next time, I’ll be back writing about Scotland again.

Alberta, Canada ,

59 Comments »

  1. Pingback: April Squares: Canadian Badlands – The Glasgow Gallivanter

  3. OMG – that landscape is amazing! I would have been oooh’ing and ahhh’ing the whole time.

    So you walked a 3 km trail and most of the park wasn’t accessible to your self-guided tour?!! It must be huge. What a great adventure!

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    • The road loop was 3 km and there were several trails leading from it that you could walk. Other than that you had to be guided – it was a huge area. I did ooh and aah my way round, it was so stunning!

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  7. Anabel, thanks for doing such a marvelous job of promoting our country. We really should hire you to manage tourism because you provide such an interesting and thoughtful perspective without any of the hyperbole that tourism people seem to feel is required of them.

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    • Aw, Karen, thank you for that lovely comment which is one of the nicest – if not THE nicest – I have ever received. I love visiting Canada and I’m glad that comes across (in fact, a few other commenters have said they’d like to visit Canada now, so maybe I should send in a bill! 😉 )

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  8. I’m not usually much for rocks (we sell assorted rocks in my museum shop, and though I’d desperately like to get rid of them because they have nothing to do with the museum, they’re one of our best-sellers so I can’t!), but those formations are pretty cool! As are dinosaur skeletons, of course!

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  11. That’s some spectacular scenery as well. On our recent trip, we did not see or find dinosaur skeletons, but we stumbled across a display of real dinosaur prints next to one of our free campgrounds. An unexpected surprise! 🙂 You Canada trip was one of a kind, Anabel and I enjoyed all your posts and photos.

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  14. Fabulous . . . . maybe MrB and I should visit Canada next year. The US is struck off for at least another three years because of a certain man, but that gives us a wonderful excuse to visit Canada and our American relatives can pop up and see us there!

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  17. Forget the dinosaurs – what incredible landscape this is. I had no idea! I would dearly love to walk those trails and see those rocks. Thank you so much for sharing this trip. Canada has so much to offer it seems.

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  20. Thank you for sharing this series, Anabel. I am sad that it has come to an end. You have inspired me to revisit this area of my native land!

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  21. I have thoroughly enjoyed following along with your trip. It’s always interesting to read, and see, what other people like/don’t like/find interesting, etc about your own country. I think you may have seen more of it than I have! (at least as an adult)

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  23. Hi Anabel – lovely to see and learn about … I think probably enough is enough … but fascinating area – cheers Hilary

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  24. I love the look of that place and the rock/ mud shapes. Funny how our image of what dinosaurs should look like have been changed so much by films. Velociraptors were apparently turkey sized and although I know that now an image of an seven foot monster immediately popped into my head with that 2nd photo of the running dino.

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