Every youngster has a period in their childhood where their fascination with all things dinosaurs and fossils knows no bounds. Reading the books, trips to the Natural History Museum, dragging the family to the Jurassic Coast to look for ammonites. We’ve all been there.
And some of us, of course, never really grow out of that interest in all things prehistoric, as we happily watch Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park for the umpteenth time.
So, with interest piqued by the recent series of Walking With Dinosaurs on the BBC, it felt time to play my amateur palaeontologist card and go dino hunting – in one of the most fossil-rich areas of the world, Alberta, Canada.
Direct flights to Calgary from Heathrow take just over eight hours, and from there it is just a two-hour drive east on wide, empty roads to Dinosaur Provincial Park – home to over 55 different species of dinosaurs and more than 150 complete dinosaur skeletons. Many people camp over in the park but travelling from Calgary on the day is possible.
The scenery is out of this world. After miles upon miles of prairie land, we came upon the Badlands – named by explorers centuries ago because of the inhospitable terrain with its surreal mounds of sandstone structures and deep valleys. Think a mini Grand Canyon. But the explorers were wrong – the Badlands turn out to be very good for one thing: dinosaur fossils.
The reason why is that because of a perfect storm of geographical reasons 75 million years ago, the area was ideal for dinosaurs to flourish on what was then a lush coastal plain next to the now-disappeared Bearpaw Sea.
Add that to the minerals from volcanoes further north, ideal for fossilisation, and fast-flowing water, which quickly covered dead dinosaurs in sediment, and it explains the remarkable finds that the area continues to throw up.
Visitors can go on a variety of guided (and some unguided) safaris and hikes and stomps for all ages through the Unesco World Heritage Site and I promise you WILL find dinosaur fossils.
In fact, it is literally impossible not to. There are dinosaur shin bones, there are hip joints, there’s fossilised skin, there are teeth from shark-like sea creatures, there are claws from ancient turtles, skeletons from fish, and bones from a duck-billed dino. In places, there are literally hundreds of fossils in just a square metre – and not just fragments but recognisable bones, several feet long.
Visitors have been known to come across new finds in the Badlands. And I have to say I’ve always fancied being a discoverer and having a prehistoric creature named after me – surely the world is ready for the Danosaurus?
However, I seem to have a remarkable lack of ability at palaeontology. Almost every time I pointed at something and asked our guide what creature it was, the answer was uniformly “That’s just a bit of rock!”
Around 90 minutes north of the Badlands is the ultimate dinosaur town, Drumheller. And for the fossil fan the Royal Tyrrell Museum is a must-see.
The area has its own dinosaur – the Albertosaurus – which was a close relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex and the skeletons of some are on show.
A series of galleries show some of the remarkable finds in the area, including whole turtles and an almost complete Triceratops skull.
But the dinosaur hall at the end of the tour will take the breath away of even the most experienced of dinosaur watchers. The greatest room of fossils and casts in the world? It’s right up there.
For those with true adventurer spirit, a trip to the Philip J Currie museum and the dinosaur bone bed at Pipestone Creek is the ultimate experience. It’s a seven-hour drive from Drumheller, although splitting the journey with a stop in Edmonton would be easy. We flew from Calgary to Grande Prairie and it was worth the trip to frontier country.
Nicknamed the River of Death, the bone bed is a live research site which visitors can go and see and even help dig. The museum offers short courses in both how to work on the bone bed and lab work, and I was lucky enough to get my own chisel and hammer (and a cushion for the old knees) and have a go at digging out fossils.
Professor Emily Bamforth leads the research, which has already discovered 7,000 fossils from an area the size of a tennis court. Palaeontologists think the site extends back a kilometre and that tens of thousands of Pachyrhinosaurus – adults, youngsters and babies – died all at the same time because of a catastrophic event.
“The bone bed effectively will never run out, we’ll probably run out of things to study before we run out of bones,” says Prof Bamforth. So there’s plenty to see and discover.
Of course, even the biggest dinosaur fan needs other interests in life – and you can’t come to this part of Canada without venturing into the Rockies.
The drive south to Jasper is stunning as prairie land becomes rolling hills and then mountain ranges. The wildlife is dramatic too – including for us a meeting with a grizzly bear that was sauntering across the road. We pulled over. The bear moved to an embankment, turned and watched us intently before moving into the undergrowth. It’s hard not to be in awe of the beauty of bears. In their natural setting, they are graceful, stunning beasts but with an aura of power and threat. For me it was a remarkable encounter and once in Jasper, the wildlife was everywhere. We had elk wandering past the front of the hotel, long-horned goats grazing by the road and even a brief and rare encounter with a moose.
The town is recovering after a devastating fire in July last year when a 100m firewall destroyed nearly a third of the buildings in the centre and hundreds of trees.
The resilience of nature and humans can be seen everywhere. Homes destroyed in the fire are getting closer to being rebuilt, work is continuing on firebreaks to stop a disastrous fire hitting again, and the pines, firs, spruces and aspens the area is known for are recovering well.
Jasper is keen to welcome back visitors. Being at the northern end of the Rockies, the town has a distinctly less touristy feel than Banff and other more famous hot spots in the south. Sitting in a valley surrounded by the colossus of the Rockies, it’s a place where being outside is everything.
We walked and cycled through the beautiful scenery near the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge – home to visits from Queen Elizabeth II and other royals over the years.
The drive south of Jasper on Highway 93 – the Icefields Parkway – is one of North America’s favourite drives. Stop at Athabasca Glacier for the chance to walk on the glacier itself and the surreal Peyto Lake, still frozen over in May, is breathtaking. But nothing can beat canoeing on Pyramid Lake to the west of Jasper. Our guide Mike Lodge recommended the early morning start. The two hours of slowly patrolling the waterways, watching nature and taking in the crystal-clear mountain air, are memories I’ll never forget.
We sat at the foot of the mountains, the trees climbing up the foothills, the lake revealing a perfect mirror image of the view. It’s one of those times you have to pinch yourself. These mountain ranges and their deep valleys were formed about the same time as dinosaurs were around. Both are prehistoric wonders everyone should get to explore at least once.
BOOK IT
Canada As You Like It offers an eight-night Alberta fly-drive from £1,349pp, including flights from Heathrow to Calgary, eight days’ fully inclusive car hire, one night in Calgary, one night in Brooks (for Dinosaur Provincial Park), one night in Drumheller, one night in Edmonton, one night in Grand Prairie, two nights in Jasper and one night in Banff all room-only. canadaasyoulikeit.com
MORE INFO
travelalberta.com
